agility adventures

Masters Handling in the Rain, Day 2 of our Seminar ;-)

2012-01-26T10:13:00.000-08:00

The Stacy Peardot Goudy seminar Masters Handling day ended up a rainy day...like from the time it started until about an hour and a half before it was done it rained without stopping. It rained harder for periods and rained a little less for some periods but it never stopped. Nothing like rain for a seminar, ;-). Poor Stacy was sopping, her pants were dripping water and everyones shoes were soaked. Luckily it was not too cold until the last hour when the wind started to pick up.

We had a world team member and a person who I have to believe will soon make the world team participating and some other really great dogs/handlers so Stacy really put out some challenging courses for everyone to work on. I was auditing with my baby dog(Cricket) who got to work during lunch and at the end of the day -that was problably good because the courses were full of European course type challenges. In the Foundation seminar when asked what is the difference in what Stacy says you would give a baby dog and an experienced dog Stacy said there was no difference. With a baby dog you just break down how many obstacles you do and you give clearer more distinct cues for inexperienced dogs.

I LOVED that Stacy pointed out that no matter how much experience you have, how high your skill level or how much you know when can never be totally sure how a course will run ;-), I suppose that is what keeps it all fun and exciting. Why did that make me happy? I am not sure, but I guess it takes the pressure off, you know there is not one perfect way to do things, and sometimes it is all going to work and sometimes not. But how boring would it be if we were all assured each time we stepped up to the line it would all be perfect--although some days that would be fun, LOL.

As we walked one particular course one participant was going to run one part of the sequence a certain way, she is VERY athletic and has a lot of experience but Stacy did not think her plan would work but said she should try it and see.... After a few people doing that sequence we all discovered that not only could people get to that spot and handle it the way that had looked impossible as we walked it, but it was really the easiest way to handle that sequence, and most people could do it. Like Stacy said until you actually run something you can never really know how it will go.

There was another section that a gal was going to run a particular way-when she ran it that way it was PERFECT. It was funny when Stacy was discussing that sequence she said she was sure the girl would not have been able to run that sequence as she did, but given that particular dog and handler it was beautiful. Not many people could have pulled running that sequence the way the gal had but given their team it was right for them.

None of that is huge info we can all use, TO ME THE THEME OF THE DAY WAS THAT it is a good reminder that agility is a sport- it is not life and death and it is challenge-some things will go well and some things will not but what the heck know your self and your team, your strengths and weaknesses and just go for it, try new things-that is how our skills just keep growing and keeps agility fresh and challenging.

Stacy did say that we should be a little more daring and when you practice new things in class or at seminars you should pull them out and try them in more places. I suppose if you are not putting those new skills to the test and working them out in trials the skills will not be perfected and comfortable if you really do need them for a big competition.

This was a real vacation weekend for me. I went to the Foundation seminar then out to dinner with a group from the seminar for dinner where we had some more great conversation. On Saturday was Masters Handling followed by a great practice with Cricket and some shopping before we headed home.

What are you doing Memorial Day Weekend?

2012-01-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

A little break from my normal blog ;-)--

In case anyone has not heard of the Spring Agility Camp coming to my neck of the woods....thought I would post this video and if you live too far away or can not come there is some great agility in the video if you want a little agility break this morning.

I am not an advertiser, LOL, but this is something I am very excited about. I know a lot of people live where far enough away form big centers that they do not get a lot of chances to attend seminars so this would be a chance to come and see three world team members in one place.

The group that seems to show up to seminars in this area have always been fantastic, supportive people, the yard is fenced, the footing and equipment have always been in fantastic condition. The field is quiet and out in the middle of nowhere so there are not a lot of distractions for the dogs...I really love seminars at this spot.

I think there are still some spots available so I am hoping that some more blogger friends will be coming to the camp. We have some great things in the area, Disneyland, the Beach, San Diego so might be a good time to combine a vacation with some agility!

Memorial Day Weekend 2012
SoCal Spring Agility Camp with
DAISY PEEL, KAREN HOLIK, JENNIFER CRANK!
These are 3 of the Top Handlers in the Country:

There will only be 10 working teams per group
$550 for all 3 days for working teams.

Marla Friedler-Cooper, MA CPDT
SouthCoastDogTraining.com
for questions or to get a spot email Marla at: creativedogs@gmail.com

Last Fridays Stacy Peardot Goudy Foundation Seminar-Kinetic meets her new "mom"

2012-01-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you remember a few months ago when the really cute red/white border collie came to stay with us in August and again in October. WELL, her name was/is Kinetic and she is a real live wire ;-) and cute as a button. She had been hanging out here in the US waiting until she could meet the requirements to go to Japan where she had an owner waiting for her. I got to go to the Stacy Peardot Goudy Foundation seminar last Friday and guess who was there----KINETIC! Kinetic finally got to meet up with her new owner from Japan-I was so glad I got to meet her new owner because after meeting her new Mama I am sure she will have a good life.

ON the second day of the seminar which was a Masters Handling day,Kinneys new mom ran two dogs-- a golden and a border collie who she did not know and had never seen run. Junko has some skills and is a really fast runner, she smoked the course with both dogs she has never run with on a course where everyone was struggling, so I think Kinetic and her new owner are going to be a great team. It really felt neat to see Kinney heading off to her new home with someone who seems like she is going to be great with her.

Kinetic was just meeting her new mom and so of course did not know her, but even with the language barrier (her new mom is from Japan) and just meeting Kinetic she had a working spot with Kinney on the foundation day. It was so cool to see the two of them together and to see their relationship growing as the day went on. By the end of the day Kinnetic was starting to get that this was her new mama.

It was a great seminar because there was a wide assortment of skills levels represented. There were two dogs that had never worked with the trainers they were with, one gal was working with a dog for a friend who has two pups, so this gal was working with one-a dog she did not know, and then there was my buddy Kinney who had just met her new owner from Japan.

I guess the biggest thing I am getting from going to all these classes/seminars/online lessons is the basics that seem to be taught with anyone who gives a really great foundation. I am seeing similarities, of course there are all sorts of little variations but to me it all seems to comes down to pretty much the same things...which makes me feel good because it does give me confidence that I think I hit most all the big things with Cricket ;-).

Stacy was really great and in one day I was surprised at how many things she could cover. With all the range of skills the dogs had it was great to see how each of the exercises could cover a barely starting dog to dogs almost ready to trial and how to trouble shoot if there was trouble with the exercises. The biggest thing that kept coming up over and over during the day was making sure you break down the exercises enough for the dog, just teaching small parts not the whole exercise, then moving forward fast enough that you don't get stuck in one place.

I really liked Stacy-she is really funny and entertaining and great about giving good feedback then she runs around cheering and yelling when someone has been struggling and they get something. I really liked her teaching style.

As far as the weather it was GORGEOUS......at least for the first day of the seminar, I can't wait to tell you about the second day tomorrow-that was Masters Handling.

Seminars and Build A Bears for Adults

2012-01-19T18:11:00.000-08:00

I think I am one of the luckiest girls around lately, I have got to go to a LOT of seminars and I am really enjoying the seminars. Heck I have not got to trial more then once because of the seminar schedule but what the heck I do not always get this many seminar opportunities so I feel like I have got to enjoy it as much as I can.

I meant to get a little video of some of the things we learned from the Rachel Sanders seminar last weekend....but with the Monday Holiday and me going out of town starting tomorrow, it just did not happen, so maybe next week.

Rachel was AWESOME as always.....she has such a way of breaking things down so you can really get how to handle something, and this seminar focused in on how to blend cues, your forward cues, your turning cues etc....

I really want to make a video of some of the fun stuff, Rachel was working on some of those flashy, sexy looking handling moves, it was a lot of fun so I will get on it the first of next week. Although maybe we will not be able to still do them by next week, LOL.

SOOOOO guess where I get to go this weekend??? Friday I am attending a Foundation seminar with Stacy Peardot Goudy at one of my favorite seminar venues, and Saturday Stacy is doing a Masters handling seminar which I get to audit. Friday night we all have a dinner out planned, and I am going to stay over so I feel like I am heading out for a vacation.

The only thing that is like a dark cloud over my little vacation is the predictions of light rain on Friday and TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS all Saturday, .....of course this is an outdoor seminar;-).

Sooooo totally non agility, non dog related.....I have been looking around trying to decide what type of phone I should get because it is time to upgrade. Well, it was time we could have upgraded MONTHS ago but I could not decide if I wanted to stick with my basic phone or step up to the smart phones....I do like me some apps, and I know I would have a lot of fun with a smart phone but I am basically pretty cheap and that is a lot of extra money over a year for the extra data.

I had to go out of town to the vet yesterday.....and stopped at Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga where they have an Apple store. The girls and I had a great lunch then strolled into the Apple store.

I am sorry but I am a desert small town girl and I have never bought anything from somewhere like the Apple store so that was really something else.

The closest I have come to an experience like that is buying Build A Bears for the girls. If you have not done that that is an experience too, and a lot of the appeal is just the experience of buying your bear.

So at the Apple store I was just gazing longingly at the iphones-the 4s's of course and a salesperson came and answered a few questions saying earlier in the day they were out of the phones I wanted, but she would check, so I look away and look back and ask her if it looks like they have any and she shows me the box. WHAT??? It was like it magically appeared.

Next the salesperson says do you want your iphone to have a little jacket and she helped me pick out a protective case so my iphone would be protected. When you pick out your build a bear you pick out a bear and then go and they stuff it in front of you, you take your bear to all the stations and dress and comb your bear and put all their accessories on. Next my iphone just like the bear got all her little car chargers, screen protector, so it would look just so.

At Build a Bear you take a golden heart and say a promise to take care of your bear as you toss the heart into your bear and they sew the bear up. At the iphone store they break the plastic seal but wait for you to be the actual one to open it and you have to be the first one to turn it on, LOL, too cute. Then another associate transfers all your data from the old phone to the new phone and breathes the life into the new phone. You never even go to a register. It was surreal how I was just asking about the phone and then seconds later it seemed the transaction was complete, I had not totally decided yet but there she was..my new white 4S 16GB iphone, LOL.

So far I am having a lot of fun, it is too trippy to get my emails at the grocery store and I love the texting. I am all signed up for a class in using my new phone next week but gosh I have it all loaded with music and apps already.

A Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

HILLCRESTS QUICK AS A CRICKET

Modern Communiction is so AMAZING, ...until it is not, ;-)

2012-01-17T08:58:00.000-08:00

Ever think it feels like you are under some weird black cloud....well, this weekend I think I was not meant to use communication...

The first weird thing is that I was doing my last blog entry and trying to look at blogs and this message pops up that says my blog and my email have been yanked off the web. There was a small message that says I should review the terms of service because that could be why my accounts were all yanked off the web.

I read the terms of service and it basically said that if you were posting mature content information it needed to be labeled as such.....I did not think my blog fit into that in any way????

They then suggested if you were posting heavy duty pornographic content you could be yanked....wow, I had talked about Crickets urine PH but I really did not think that fit into that category.....

The last category was that you were not allowed to say do things like talk about your ex wife and say all sorts of really nasty things and perhaps suggest people go visit her.....well, I don't think my blog qualified in that category either.....although recently I did get accused by someone in the local dog club that my blog was a vehicle of hate about the club, LOL, I never did understand what she was talking about and I do not think that anyone would have been yanking my blog for that type of infraction-unless that particular lady had got a job yanking offending blogs off the net.

I mentally reviewed any blogs I had recently read or responded too and I did not THINK I said anything offensive, I sure did not mean to offend if I did...

So having ruled out an infraction of the terms of service, I filled out the form that just said if you disagree with what we did you can fill out this form that asked what you were doing when the problem happened and HOW TO GET AHOLD OF YOU SINCE ALL THE EMAIL ACCOUNTS HAD BEEN PULLED OFF THE WEB. LOL, YIKES! No hint of when they would get ahold of anyone, or if they would or what the next step was if the problem persisted.

The next day I got a simple form email saying sorry for the inconvenience, and my accounts were back on the web. How odd is that??? I guess we should feel safe because if they want to yank everything you have off the net they can do it very efficiently in the blink of an eye. On the bright side it was cool they got it fixed on the weekend, I was thinking given that it did not seem there was a lot of info on how to dispute the problem or find out what happened, I was sure I would have to wait until a business day for someone to figure out a mistake had been made.

The day of the Internet terms of service incident....I was at a seminar and had been texting on my way there, but when I tried to call my kids my cell phone kept saying there was no service. Humm, well, I thought we must be in some cell black hole until much later in the day when I realized the person sitting next to me had been texting and checking her email all day and had the same carrier. WEIRD!!! It felt like I was just not meant to be connected to the world this weekend....

Turns out my hubby decided to get me a new phone and they disconnected my old phone without anyone telling me while I was hours away from home going through the desert and some pretty deserted roads late at night, ughghghghgh. The new phone is an older model of the phone that I knew there were some issues with...., so we had to return it and no one has been able to reactivate my old phone....for two days now.

Poor Cricket does not like poor quality dog food, and Trying a New Way to Get Dog Food in the New Year ;-)

2012-01-13T12:58:00.000-08:00

We have had some food woes to start our New Years off with! I have fed my dogs raw for YEARS now, but, last month with the holidays coming up, I was having trouble doing the drive to get one of my staple foods-chicken backs and necks from a restaurant supply store. For a few weeks I was giving the dogs some kibble that I had around the house, I had used the kibble for training and it said GRAIN FREE, so how could it not be a nice high quality kibble? I was still giving the dogs meat and bones in the evening but just for breakfast they got kibble, with some eggs, or yogurt or assorted things like that.

Well, Cricket was just acting funny and lots of dogs were acting funny around her, so a friend had suggested I check for a urinary tract infection because in her experience sometimes when dogs were overly interested in a girl, it might be that she had an infection....

I took Cricket in and her urine had a very high pH, and lots of crystals and lots of gunk. Ughghghg. The vet was pretty sure it was the kibble. Turns out I was using the Costco Natures Domain-Grain Free, I generally trust Costco products.., it was a good price and I guess I equated grain free with really good. Looking closer at the label there is a lot of potato, which the vet felt could cause the problems. The other dogs seem fine but gosh figures how many people feed crap for years and years and their dogs are just fine, but I slack off for a couple of weeks, and we get problems, LOL.

Oddly enough the vet had me give Cricket cranberry, that is not so odd..vitamin C to change the ph, still not so odd...but she wanted me to use pool PH strips and test the PH of her urine and keep track of what it was at different times. So if the neighbors did not already think I am a FREAK, they are now treated to me following my dog with a shallow dish and collecting her urine at all hours of the day and night. Yep I am SURE the neighbors have no clue what to think of me at this point. OOH well.

MR CHEWY-HOW I GOT ORIGINS DOG FOOD SHIPPED RIGHT TO MY DOOR WITH NO SHIPPING COSTS...
Right about the time I was questioning my dog food I got a coupon from a company that I had not heard of before. Mr. Chewy http://www.mrchewy.com/ I thought it was really neat because they had some of the foods that we just can not get in our town I use Origin's dog food for training a lot and for occasional mornings when I don't have anything else to feed, but I usually had to get it when I was in one of the bigger cities around here. I used my coupon for ordering some Origin dog food. They have cat food, some pet supplies,a bunch of treats,cat litter and it even says they offer prescription pet foods, who knew????

I was really curious about how it would work...I ordered the food and in about a week it arrived (it seems the company is on the East coast so I think it took a little longer to get all the way our here), the bag was inside a box, and I think Fed Ex delivered it. I ordered some treats and they came in a different box about a day later. They offer free shipping on any order over $49, I thought that was pretty cool because one has to wonder how much the shipping cost of a 40 lb bag of dog food would be??

So...it looks like you can set up a regular shipment and get your food on a schedule which would be really nice if that was your source of dog or cat food....

The best thing I saw on their web site was that on your first order the company will donate $10 to an animal charity-North Shore Animal League http://www.animalleague.org/ , Best Friends Animal Society http://www.bestfriends.org/, or Bidawee http://www.bideawee.org/

IN ADDITION IF YOU ORDER FROM MR. CHEWY AND USE A REFERRAL CODE...They will donate $10 to the above charities and GIVE YOU A 10% DISCOUNT. You can choose any of those charities to get the $10 donation or ask that Mr. Chewy splits it between the three charities. So the referral code is MOCH2275--and I don't think I get anything from anyone using that code, but you will get your 10% off!

some Trial Photos

2012-01-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

I trialed with Breeze for about a year before there was a photographer at a trial, so how lucky was it that there was not only a photographer at Crickets first trial but she got a bunch of pictures of her. Dynamic Dogs Photo did a GREAT job!

The picture of her hanging onto that table was neat because Cricket has always done a lot of sliding off the table in practice-she drives onto it and loves it but is still trying to figure out how to work to hold onto it once she hits the table, LOL, I keep trying to play games so she figures that out. As I was watching the sequence up to the table had the dogs building a lot of speed, this one was two jumps to her running aframe straight to the table, so she was going fast, dog after dog had skidded off the table, so I thought there was about a 50% chance Cricket was going to stick the table, but she did! Looking at that picture and the video she worked hard, she is just such a good girl.

Check out the tongue, LOL, what a character!

Crickets first trial, SECOND day!!!

2012-01-03T21:48:00.001-08:00

FINAL TRIAL STATs:
Saturday:
Novice B Standard-Judge: Susan McClair
Distance: 126 yards SCT: 64 seconds
Score 90 (Q) Time 43:09 seconds 2ND PLACE

Novice B Jumpers With Weaves- Judge: Mark Upshaw
Distance 98 yards SCT: 36 seconds
Elminated time: 18:02--1 DROPPED BAR

How funny I never checked our scores on the first trial day- Sunday-I knew we had bobbles so I just went home and never bothered to look. I got home and was in bed and it hit me THIS IS NOVICE, you are allowed a few bobbles, so when I got back the next day I found I almost did not pick up my FIRST RIBBONS!!! WHat was I thinking.

SUNDAY:
Novice B JWW-Judge: Susan McClair
Distance: 93 yards SCT: 34 seconds
Score: 100 (Q) Time 22:49 seconds FIRST PLACE

Novice B Standard Judge: Mark Upshaw
Distance: 130 yards SCT 65 seconds
Eliminated time: 39:43 Teeter flyoff

Well, our first trial is history now. We were back Monday for our second day. Monday was pretty light at the trial and I left the house thinking I had plenty of time to get to Woodley Park, in Van Nuys where the trial was-about 2 hours from my house.....BUT I was not thinking and we had to go right through Pasadena where the Rose Parade was just about to let out. I knew I would never make it to the trial if the parade let out before I got past that point so I was sweating that, but we made it. I could see the parade from some over passes as I drove by ;-).

It was like mid 80's and I live in Southern CA but this time of year I was really not used to that temp, so it really felt HOT.

Cricket was a little more excited, and I do think we are out of the woods yet with start line "issues" I would not be suprised because I could feel Cricket getting more and more anxious. Cricket did hold her start line, she got all her contacts, except her teeter she thought was a dog walk so she FLEW off it. I had one point in jumpers where I think I was admiring my dog and did not get my butt moving so Cricket spun around to see what I was up to.

It was a lot more fun to be running with my girl then I had thought it would be, she was such a good girl....well, except how she jumped on every table, every person and lunged into the ring netting and got her head stuck and pulled it down, she was a bit on the excited side most of the day.

Not sure what is going on with the video but if it does not play the link for the video is http://youtu.be/cZUrxULuJjs
it does not seem to work with IE but it does with firefox, if you can not see the trial videos and are dying to, you can email me at mochos@charter.net and I will email you the link!

I got some GREAT Pictures, check it out, a first trial with all runs I was happy with, 2 Qs and a photographer that got lots of great pictures, some really pretty ribbons, what more could I have asked for????

GUESS WHAT WE DID TODAY.........CRICKETS FIRST TRIAL EVER!!!!

2012-01-01T19:25:00.000-08:00

TALK about a RED LETTER way to start a year, you all get TWO blog posts in two days, just want everyone to take note of that feat!!! LOL. Sorry my computer ran out of memory and did not fully process the video so I thought it was ok and posted it, but then had to take that one down, throw away all I could on my computer and then redo the whole thing,so if you got some error messages when you tried to look..that is why.

I know I can be very wordy, so it might be hard to read my post so I am going to try to keep this short so that the star of the day can be spot lighted.

Only two people in the world knew what we were doing today, my friend Denise who is the best support team ever, and Rachel Sanders because she asked when we would do our first trial.

I put a lot of pressure on myself and the time leading up to the trial I would sort of shake, and my breath would come fast and shallow when I thought of entering the trial, I can be a big basket case so I did not want to talk about it a lot before the big day. I was worried about myself, it is so hard to run with my foot which is finally feeling better just the last few days, but I am so insanely out of shape that it is embarrassing. Of course in the last three weeks I tried to smash a full year of fitness to get into shape but it does not happen in three weeks. Not running around all fall because of my foot really has not helped me a lot.

So today I got up and knew this would be Crickets first day at a real trial. We have not done a full course since last spring when we did a fun match. Cricket has not been to a trial since last spring. Cricket was a freak when we got to the trial, walking to get her measured she was lunging and jumping on EVERYONE. She was so over the top I thought this might really end in a horrible train wreck. Unbelievably it was insanely hot for a January day, and our run was not until late in the day. There was a miscommunication and I have been working Cricket at 20 in and had to run her at 16 inches,(I don't know what I was thinking....), and I do not think that helped us but....

After we ran I was sooooo happy, I am not sure I know we did not qualify in JWW (dropped bar) and I am pretty sure we did not in Standard, but we had rock solid stays at the start line, whooo hooo. We had BEAUTIFUL weaves and I did not have to babysit the entries. The standard weave entry was after the long jump to a 180 turn to the weaves but she did it.

HER CONTACTS WERE AWESOME, how cool is that?

I messed up and gave too many forward cues at the start of standard and caused a wrong course and when Cricket came out of the tunnel I did not make contact with her and cue the teeter so she raced past it. Not perfect but boy I will take that as a first trial day any day, I am very happy and proud of my girl.

The only thing that cast a small dark cloud on the day was when I was getting ready to go and Breeze thought she was going. She has been the only trialing dog for a long time but now that she is pretty much retired, she had to stay home, the end of that era made me a little sad ;-(, but I had to take a deep breath and not take away from Crickets day.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR and some more on Aframe lesson with Rachel Sanders

2011-12-31T20:43:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!

I hope 2012 if full of new adventures and great surprises for everyone!

BOY, do I have a list of resolutions. I have been working on some goal setting programs, and there is sure room for improvement for me in that area. One thing I have been having trouble with is posting to my blog.

I promised awhile back to post about my running aframe and what I learned from Rachel Saunders during our private lesson.

Going back to when I was teaching Breeze a four on the floor, when that method first came out....I trained that and actually feel like we did a great job with it. Of course we did it before the second round of articles Ann Croft put out so a bunch of the things she addressed in the second round of articles were training issues that I had messed up with and had to figure out how to fix them.

When I started Crickets contacts I wanted to try a running aframe. I wish I had not wasted so much time going back and forth and had just went for it, but doing a running aframe was a bit scary for me. I am a slow runner, I feel like I have so many skills to learn as far as handling which will make the running aframe a little harder perhaps, and I really had no one around me learning it at the same time. Just like the four on the floor with Breeze, there were a few parts of the running aframe training with Rachel's method that I feel like I did not fully understand. Rachel is releasing a second running aframe DVD very shortly that I think will address some of those things. You know if I understood a few things I would have been done with my aframe and moved on a LONG time ago and it would have caused me a lot less worry, LOL.

So as far as my lesson, I started out telling Rachel the saga of our running aframe and all the steps we had taken. I fully admitted we started with the box, and the grids on the ground, then back chained on the aframe to the box, then slowly raised the aframe. At a certain point Cricket was VERY consistent about putting her left front foot right on top of the "box", two hits but a little bit of a step with her foot above the box, so only three feet in the box.

The criteria for the aframe when the pvc box in place is....
1. four feet in the box--which means four feet in the contact zone
2. two hits on the aframe
3. FORWARD FOCUS

Well, I was very afraid to accept how Cricket was CONSISTENTLY doing the aframe because I did not want it to deteriorate and leave me wondering what to do once I broke down my original PVC box training.

Here is where I could have saved myself a lot of heart ache and time if I had just sent a video to Rachel and asked for some help. A few quick questions would have taken care of the problem and clarified things, if it took more then that I could have paid for her time, but I think most people who put out a method of training would really like to help people with quick questions rather then have their method twisted and messed up, LOL. In my case I know now Rachel would have said to take the pvc box off the aframe and to move on a long time ago-because Cricket was so consistent in how she chose to perform the aframe.

So the way I chose to fix the three foot problem was to put a stride regulator in place. I had to admit this to Rachel knowing she REALLY does not want to see a stride regulator used. I do not want to speak for her but my UNDERSTANDING is that even if you want to think of the pvc box as a stride regulator, it is a stride regulator with CRITERIA. The dog has a job and can work to do it. A stride regulator is just something that is trying to mechanically force a dog to do what you want. Hummmm, guess I see why the stride regulator was not a great idea, but truly it was the only way to get the behavior since Cricket was so used to sticking that one foot down BEFORE the PVC box it was a habit. The stride regulator did get the behavior.

After talking to Rachel I should have just taken the box off. The second thing I did not understand until after my lesson was that the criteria we used for the PVC box was for the PVC box, but once that box was off, the criteria for the aframe changed. Now with the box off it is perfectly acceptable to have three feet in the yellow as the criteria. If I need to put the box on then we go back to the four feet in the box as the criteria. I think before this I would have been way too fast to put that box back on, it should not be a crutch.

So as far as a lot of Crickets hits being rather high up in the contact zone Rachel said what I have heard Silvia Trkman say ....namely that as the dog gains confidence and relaxes into their running contact dogs with high hits will usually normally start hitting lower into the contact zone and so she thinks Crickets aframe will be fine. She also said that dogs that hit really far down into the contact zone will settle in and start hitting a little higher up, so you just have to sort of let them settle into how their performance will be as they gain confidence.

Rachel also said to make sure to help Cricket sort of settle and get ready for the aframe before she approaches it and for now to do everything I can to be out even with her or in front because she does not totally understand doing her aframe while I am decelerating behind her, so some good tips for when we do our first few trials. Rachel gave me hints about to look for that could still break down with our aframe, but said to send her a video and ask if any of those things started....so that was really nice of her.

It was sooo funny because when I told Rachel I had used a stride regulator she kept asking WHY would I do that? She was kidding that her next DVD was going to have a big picture of a stride regulator with a line through it for NO STRIDE REGULATORS. A little while later we were watching another dog work, a puppy starting his aframe and I was filming, we were having trouble seeing what his feet were doing so Rachel says hummmm, I need to think for a minute about what we want to do here....I said "Do you think we should stick on a stride regulator" LOL, good thing she has a great sense of humor!!!

Just a few min. of the first couple aframes we tried with the box...then we did some without the box and a few in sequences.

Happy Holidays!!!!!

2011-12-24T22:18:00.000-08:00

It is Christmas Eve, and of course I had left a lot of shopping until the last minute. Suprisingly the stores were fairly empty, even Costco ;-). I got home and was rushing to wrap the gifts while the kids were out of the house....I did not get to practice agility again today....and I can not find several of the gifts I got....apparently I am a good present hider. LOL. On top of prepairing for the meal tomorrow (black bean and tofu enchiladas with green sauce, ummmmmm!) I was worried about Pixie.

All of a sudden Pixie's litter box revealed some string laden droppings and my youngest daughter who has been a butt searching the house, who I am almost 100% certain has found all her gifts ;-(.....got on the computer and found the Norad Santa Tracker just like we have every year of her life. Emma said she wanted to get Santa his milk and cookies set out,as she noticed Santa was leaving Mexico and headed here, hahahaah ;-) (my daughter is 14 years old). All of a sudden the magic of Christmas was here and things all felt good as any troubles melted away.

The dogs-Cricket, Lizzie, Breeze, Skyler, Chloe, The cats- Pixie, Ashe, Kimmie and I hope you all have a holiday celebration that is safe, happy and filled with joy. I love my internet friends and really hope you have a great holiday, give your furry friends a hug and an extra treat from us!

Pixie this afternoon

2011-12-23T16:34:00.001-08:00

So far so good, after two very expensive shots and half the day at the vet -they could not make Pixie throw up, so they sent her home to be watched. The vet said that if she was lethargic, or got diarrhea to rush her to the emergency vet. So far Pixie was looking pretty drugged up and no activity in the litter box, so hopefully it will be a quiet Christmas weekend for Pix. It is a bit worrisome because Pixie is being very sweet and cuddly, she is usually pretty aloof, her sister is the cuddler. We fixed up the kitty Palace/Dungeon so I could keep a better eye on her and know for sure if she is eating and whose poos we find in the litter box. WHY does it always seem things like this happen on holidays or weekends when the vets you know are not going to be around? So far so good though.

Pixie needs some good thoughts!

2011-12-23T10:35:00.000-08:00

We need some special healing thoughts or prayers for Pixie today. My daughter came out of her room with Pixie in her arms and a long piece of thread, like sewing thread sticking out of her mouth. I tried to gentle pull the string out but it was STUCK and doing that seemed to really hurt Pixie, the string broke ;-(, so I knew that was not a good thing.

I threw on some clothes and rushed her to the vets. The vet could not see the thread in her throat so now Pixie is in the vets and they are going to try to induce vomiting. If she doesn't vomit, or they don't find the thread the vet says she wants to have her transferred to the emergency vets for the night to watch her, and of course surgery might be necessary.

Pixie is just over a year old-she is a tiny little girl that we got along with her sister last Valentines day weekend from a pet adoption fair. It is the first time we have got siblings like that and these girls love each other and have always been together. Pixie is the more shy of the two and the more scared, Ashe her sister is a very confident girl but Pixie looks to her sister for support a lot so this has to be really hard on her to be in a strange place without her support system.

I feel bad, I guess maybe I should have just rushed her to the vet when I saw the thread, but I was really hoping it was just in the top back of her throat, so I really was not sure what I should have done when I found the thread.

Anyway, will let you know when I hear what is happening and hopefully Pixie will be just fine for Christmas.

A Lesson with Rachel Saunders for Cricket and I

2011-12-19T15:22:00.001-08:00

I had a real red letter day on Sunday and got to enjoy a really cool Christmas gift.....I got two hours of private lessons with none other then Rachel Saunders! How cool is that? ;-). I have to admit I was a little intimidated trying to think of what to say I wanted to concentrate on....there is so much Cricket/I need, so many areas to work on, so hard to narrow it down.

I was really surprised that Cricket had as many skills as she does. Rachel said that she has a LOT of skills and is doing really well. HUMMMMM.....so where could the problem be-who needs to get more SKILZ? I bet anyone who has done agility can guess! IT'S ME!

Rachel was talking about how agility is one of the hardest sports to really do correctly with a really high level of skill esp with a fast, highly driven dog. She said you have to have the skills of a football player- like when you need to get someplace but still need to keep your shoulders and eyes turned to the dog while you are moving in another direction. Of course there is that little deal where so many times you really do need to be at just the right place-which can be HARD. She said that most times when people are out of position they are only 18 inches to 3 feet out of place, not that much out of place distance wise, but enough that it looks like something totally different to the dog. Add to the whole picture the fact that you are working with another being with their own mind. The timing of a lot of things has to be pretty precise so not a really easy sport to do well. Amazing we all do as well as we do ;- ). ANYWAY, it made me feel a little better that sometimes things that seem they should be so simple just seem so hard-and made me feel better when a few sequences that looked really easy took me a long time to get correct ;).

It seems like Rachel is really good at working with a student and giving a little road map for how to progress after your lesson. Rachel talked to me about how to structure my practices so even working alone I can continue to make progress in my handling, gave me a rough time line for how long things should take, what she felt I should concentrate on and even a lot of tips about how to handle my running aframe, where I needed to be and how I needed to support the aframe while Cricket is still getting comfortable and settling into that.

All in all private lessons like that are really a luxury for me, esp at this time of the year.... To be very frank, I was not sure that doing a private lesson like that was the best use of my resources, but after I was done I really thought it was well worth it especially because that lesson sort of gave me a frame work for making sure I could keep making progress-and I have been a little stalled out lately, between my foot and just getting to a level where I was not sure where to go from here. I was really glad I did it, and in a few months I will probably go to Rachel's and take another lesson. I do not have any lessons I can take now, so I do save quite a bit of money because I do not have to pay for those, and I feel like by going to someone who has a handling system I really like, and having a lesson tailored to what my dog and I need, and being able to get help from someone with a handling system very similar to what I want to do ....it is not something I can do every day but it might be something to help us keep moving forward.

I have a lot of video, so I will am going to try to get some more posted, and I would like to post about my work on the aframe, so that will be coming in a day or two!

Keep those feet moving! ;-)

2011-12-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

I got Silvia Trkmans new DVD a few weeks ago,
Speed and Conditioning
I must say I am a big Silvia Trkman fan, so I like most of her stuff but I LOVED this DVD. I thought there were just some great ideas that are just things you can incorporate into your regular life, a few things to teach and think about, but basic stuff to keep your dog in shape and to encourage a more playful attitude of your dogs and to get dogs feeling like moving faster and having more fun.

http://www.lolabuland.com/
This is the link where you can buy the dvd if you are interested.

While you are on the sight check out the blog entry she wrote about being too slow for your dog. It came at a cool time because when I went to the Daisy Peel seminar in September she talked a lot about how if you just keep moving deliberately and don't stop, you can get to a lot of places that would surprise you and keep up much better then you think. Daisy showed us by making some people who could NOT get to where they needed to be for their dogs RUNNING as fast as they could,.....she made them WALK without stopping to the position they needed to be, and without exception the people had no trouble getting to where they needed to be when they were walking deliberately without stopping. It is a trippy concept that I have been trying to wrap my head around since I was at the seminar, so this blog entry was especially interesting to me.

Learning how to keep moving more and keep from planting my feet does not come naturally to me and it is a goal I am working on. It is AMAZING how I could SWEAR that I kept moving with out stopping only to watch the video where it looks like I am a tree with my feet firmly planted into the ground. I can not claim I am making a lot of progress but I am video taping my practice and really trying to become more aware ;-).

The state of our Contacts...

2011-12-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

Some contact practice. This is just the aframe and dog walk.

I am happy because I was getting some higher hits on the aframe but it seems to be doing better again, and I was getting some pretty creepy dog walks and Cricket would stop on the down ramp before her position, so I am pretty happy that she is getting much more confident on that and driving into position better, YIPPIE!

Have I said Lately how much fun it is to work with Cricket? It is starting to meld a little more despite the time we lost with my durn hurt foot.

What is getting added to "The List" after Daisy Peels seminar

2011-12-06T07:07:00.000-08:00

So what did I get from the Daisy Peel seminar, well, the first big reminder I got was that with a baby dog I need to make sure to support obstacles way better, just like if I was driving a car I have to keep my blinker out longer and make it more obvious because she is a baby dog so she questions herself... and not expect a new dog to do things like say send to obstacles right off the bat, YIKES, that is a problem because I am slow, so it is hard to be at all the places my Cricket should be supported. I do think I am on the right track with doing smaller sequences so I can be there,and we have done a lot of the cik/cap work from Silvia Trkman so that send work will help her understand ;-).

Another thing to put on my list of things to work on is that when I run I usually am VERY quiet, I have always tried to shut up so my dogs learn to watch me and not rely on verbals. WELL, when I took lessons with Alicia she used to get on me to tell my dogs "over" in some places and I just never really understood why or where that was really necessary, so I had a light bulb moment....when I am not going past the plane of the obstacle I need to say "over" to support it. Duh....such an easy concept but lets see if I can do it!

The other BIG thing I really need to work on is remembering with a young, new dog is that to build up confidence I need to give her a lot more feedback. Daisy pointed out that on course you have roughly twice as many opportunities to praise your dog and give feedback as there are obstacles on course. You have the dogs decision to go to the obstacle you can reward and then performing the obstacles themselves. The reward can just be some praise and feedback that they are on the right track, just a "yes" or "good" as they take the right obstacle or read where you wanted them to go. Hummm, another one of those communication issues, guess I am going to have to get used to talking more on course.

I know there were a lot of other things that we will need to work on, but those were the biggies that I am itching to get out and try, the things that really hit where I am at with Cricket.

The thing she talked about that I really am NOT excited about working on is she gave a lot of tips about how to run more efficiently and how to work on making the most of your abilities in that department. I am soooo out of shape after having the broken foot and not working out, not that I had started out in any type of amazing shape before the broken foot but it is BAD and embarrassing how out of shape I am now, so esp after this weekend I am acknowledging that I got to get off my hiney and do better in that area ;-(, I am TRYING to get excited about that, hahahahaha, but I bet you can tell that I am not doing great at getting excited.

My Weekend-a Daisy Peel Seminar

2011-12-05T06:31:00.000-08:00

WELL, we did not blow away yet. The day we were supposed to get the really scary winds, it was pretty windy, but not the killer winds.

I had a great little bonding weekend with Cricket-she was the chosen dog who got to go on an adventure. I was lucky enough to spend the weekend at the Daisy Peel seminar-WHOOT! The first day of the seminar was AWESOME in terms of information but it was soooooo cold. My little toes felt like they were going to snap off. There were a really wild wind so we all spend the day huddled together so we could hear, LOL. LUCKILY it was a really super awesome group of people at the seminar and the cold weather bonded us together as we all complained and shivered all day in the cold ;-)

I was going to drive back and forth during the weekend but decided to stay because we were going to start the seminar really early on Sunday. Cricket was not at all sure about the scary hotel room, LOL, she just always seems so happy and confident, but then she reminds me she is a border collie and some odd thing will really throw her--that is when you see that wild, take on the world attitude crumble and she melts because the hotel had ceramic floor in the bathroom and she knew there could be evil associated with that, LOL. What a nut! It was funny that even when Cricket was worried about the hotel room...I pulled out the toy and it was instantly GAME ON! She has her priorities and you gotta put your worries aside if someone is willing to play a good game of tug. You have to love a dog with that type of attitude.

I really love my little Crickster, she is just so much fun. She has just enough naughtiness to make her really funny, she has just enough oddness to keep her really interesting, just enough weirdness to give us new little things to work on-she has the bounce back to act really wigged out but then like with the hotel fairly quickly she can relax and settle in and get over it. I just fell in love with her all over because she was such a good girl.

At the seminar the area is surrounded by trees and open areas, so I was able to let Cricket run loose, even with other loose dogs running around. I have not had that many dogs that I would just feel totally comfortable with letting them run off leash. Breeze and Chloe are dogs that naturally is off leash trust worthy but as a puppy I never did the foundation and work I have done with Cricket, so they are not as trust worthy off leash but they don't have the same instant recall that Cricket does-there could be weird things happen where I could see them not coming...it would have to be something really weird but...it could happen. I was working Cricket during lunch time and Daisy took Juno out and Juno her dog was moving very fast and for a split second I saw Crickets eyes and auto brain took over and she was going to say HI to that fast moving, exciting dog. I was really worried because I could tell the thinking brain had snapped off, but I called and little Cricket did not even think she whirled around and came back-I guess all that recall work paid for itself this weekend.

DOG WALK-hummmm, not sure what to think-LOL!

Cricket did not get to work during the seminar but she did get to work at lunch and Dave who owns the field said I could stay after the seminar on Sunday so Cricket did get to try some of the sequences and work. She was so funny with her dog walk, it was just a little different surface on the dog walk then she is used to and I have worked on getting her to drive to the end. WELL, mission accomplished she is driving to the end and has sort of a sliding dog walk contact, she rocks back into a down and slides into position. With the different surface though the first few times she just slide past the 2020 point into a lovely four on the floor, LOL. I really liked how it looked, I LOVED the speed, she seemed really solid-the stickiness at the end where she stops a few feet away or slows down as she is half way down the down ramp-that is GONE-I am so happy to see that gone.... I know I need to stick to criteria, and we can just work on her working harder to stick in the exact right position but hummmm.....it will be interesting to see what we get on a few other dog walks. I think we need to seek out some more equipment ;-).

I wonder if the end of the dog walk is better because I have been doing Jen Penders two teeter work with Cricket trying to get rid of a hesitation and slow down she was getting at the tip point???

Batoning Down the Hatches!

2011-11-30T18:05:00.001-08:00

Well, our Tofurky was fantastic, the girls and my DH loved it, so worth a try for anyone who wants to try a vegetarian feast. It was neat to have a "traditional" holiday feast with all the trimmings.

The forecast is predicting some wicked winds here in the desert. We KNOW how to do wicked winds, and with all the dirt we have it can be a nasty thing. They say we should have sustained winds around 40 mph with gusts up to 70+mph, YIKES! The last time we had these winds come through we lost our roof and our entire wooden fence fell down. It was wild with the big kennel runs we have almost going over the 6 foot fences, everything was flying. Hopefully the forecast will be wrong or at least we will weather the whole thing better this time.

Knowing the winds were coming-it was getting pretty windy this afternoon-I set to work trying to clean everything outside up. I asked the girls to help, and anyone who has teenagers will be able to imagine how that went. Usually the girls are pretty good helping if I ask but boy today I got some rolling eyes and they clearly thought I was a bit nuts when I said the light plastic chairs should be brought up into the garage, after all they put two light weight chairs on top of each other, so what the heck-after all how much force could a wind pack, right?

I am in a no win situation, if there are no winds, then the girls will forever think I am a little short in the logic department, and if the winds do come like they are predicted I will be able to say I told you so, but those type of winds always bring damage to at least some of the people in our area.

One thing that will be safe no matter how strong the winds are is my new table. I posted a picture of it on facebook when I completed it last week, but figured I would show it off in the blog too. This table started its first life as a table my friends husband built for her, then she gave it to me, I resurfaced it, and resurfaced it, changed the legs and had it as a baby pause table to use with the puppies or when I wanted to have one of the dogs drive to something-they could go to that table if I wanted to use two tables. I wanted to do some teeter training with the two table method and so I needed another higher table so I decided to give the table yet another life. I LOVE using the table as a huge target for exercises and we do LOTS of table games, so you can never have too many tables in your back yard.

I think I am basically a pretty inventive builder. YEAH, that's what we will call it. Sometimes with training or building something it is just too easy to do something the tried and true way, so I will set out on a search on the 'net to see if I can find a better way to go about things. LOL, sometimes, well.....USUALLY that can get me into some trouble and this project was no exception.

The reason this table will be very safe even if we have hurricane force winds is that it probably weighs a ton. Hey, me and ten of my heaviest friends could jump on it, it is sturdy as they come but with each new life I just added on another layer of wood onto the top. It doesn't take many layers before a table is pretty heavy-IT ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE!. If worse comes to worse tomorrow with the winds we will all be heading to hide under the table so at least I know we will be safe.

The painting was done with a new method I read about on the net where people were suggesting using raw sugar and rock salt for the traction in the paint instead of using a finish with sand. Sounded like a great idea after all then if I needed to refinish it I could sand it down which does not work if you use a sanded surface. Well, it looked fantastic, until it would not dry for days and days and there was an oily slick surface. Hummmmm, so I sopped up the oily stuff and put another coat on, and added some rice. Well, at that point we could have ate the table, we almost had rice pudding. I am not sure if there was a chemical reaction with the paint and food....or if the paint was reacting to when I watered it down. It was a new type of paint.

I finally scraped everything off and did a traditional finish. After probably spending twice as much on this table and taking way more then twice the time it should have we have a sturdy, wonderful table. SEE,it all turns out in the end, LOL. The table is supposedly adjustable and there are all the heights on it from 8 inches to 24 inches, but in reality,....it is PVC and PVC doesn't come apart that well once you really pound it together so I have left over pieces I will make a baby table with and I think I will just leave the table at 20 inches.

If anyone needs to make a table, and you use the tried and true methods and don't do a lot of experimenting,.....this table was really easy, and I am really impressed with how stable it is.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EXPERIMENT!

2011-11-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE!

I hope everyone is having a great day. We are being adventurous today--I made a traditional Thanksgiving feast with stuffing, mashed potato's, pumpkin pie, etc....but since I have been a vegetarian for 10+ years....it always takes a little more thought as to what to serve on the holidays--do I go with a non traditional thing like enchiladas, or Lasagna, or do we go out to eat????

This year I am trying a Tofurky. It is shaped like a Turkey breast but of course made without meat. I like the lunch meat slices made out of tofurky, so hopefully the meal will be good. The stuffing is looking marvelous and it has been years since I had that, and mashed potatoes and homemade biscuits are always delicious, so I figure we can not go too wrong....and if all else fails there is pumpkin pie.

Luckily the holiday is more about being Thankful for everything we have, so how ever our dinner turns out I am sure we will have a good time.

Yesterday was my birthday. I was not as traumatized by the day as I have been in some years, hahahahah, mostly because I did not think about it or pay much attention to it.

I did get a cool i-touch and wow, I spent last night playing with Apps, I am always a little late when coming to the technology show, but I think this is going to be FUN!

The puppies have all been good but complaining that everyone has been busy and not paying enough attention to their training lately ;-(.

We did a video for the recallers course, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT9jD623u9s which everyone who did a video about their experiences with recallers gets to take the course for free as a prize, so we are once again going to revisit the Susan Garrett Recallers games, YIPPIE, I am looking forward to it.

ANOTHER RED LETTER event for all of you, is that I think the post at the bottom of the page with Breezes bday video should be off the page now. WHEW! I had to post that video to Vimeo and for some reason I could not figure out how to not have that auto load and start when ever someone came to the page, ughghgghgh, so sorry for how much of a pain that had to be, but it should be off the page now. ;- ).

Buddy Bowls and Swimming Updates...

2011-11-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

For the kitties and puppies---

BUDDY BOWLS-http://greatamericanspillproof.com/buddy_bowl_instructions how cool are these? I found these at a little store by us and I thought it might be neat for the car, but when I brought it in the house when the car was going to the shop I had the bowl in my room and I LOVE having it in the house because it will not get spilled. I bet Ellie would like one of these.....

*************************************************************
A little update on one of my two legged kid:

Emma had another swim meet. It was cold and all the kids were shivering in between races, guess we will need to invest in a swim parka, the swim gear back pack, some blankets to bring, see with each sport comes a list of things ya gotta get.

Emma did really good, she got 3 firsts, 2 seconds and just missed a few times good enough to get an invitation to the invitational meet she is trying to qualify for. She shaved off more then six seconds in two of her races, and a couple of seconds in a few other races. Emma has one more meet to try to shave off half a second to make two times good enough to be invited to the invitational meet she is shooting for.

These are her times for this meet.
50 Free 28,88 100 Free 103.16 100 Breaststroke 123.07 100 Fly 111.66 and 200 IM 243.31

Emma is second from the front with the blue/grey swim suit and the black AV waves swim cap:

Butterfly

Breast stroke

Happy at the end

I am an Auntie again!!!

2011-11-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

Well, unbelievably by Tuesday Nel had not delivered her puppies and she was totally worn out. Karen her owner decided in view of how big Nel was....and the fact she was so totally worn out before labor even started...that she would have Nel have a csection, it turned out to be an excellent decision.

Luckily I was able to attend as a helper, so I got to help revive pups as they were born, to help the babies settle in once Nel left the vets office, helped to weigh the pups and even to help some little ones start to nurse. I always liked Nel before but she is the sweetest girl ever and put up with everything so well, that is one sweeeeeet dog!!!

I of course left the ranch with MAJOR puppy longing, LOL, that is the danger of being around pups, but no none of these puppers will be coming home with me....although the little black female with the small pie shaped spot on the back of her neck is just soooo cute. The puppy with the almost white face and the huge black dot is a tiny thing and another favorite of mine. So I elected myself as their auntie and can not wait to see them as they grow.

I got some video of the babies birth in between my puppy duties!

I just got off the phone with Karen before I posted and Mom and babies are doing great.

The only bad thing is that I am now one more day behind, and I was already so far behind, but how often do you get to go play with puppies?

No puppy breathe for me this halloween!

2011-10-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend I went to my friends house-Breeze's first mom to assist her with the delivery of anywhere between 8-13 pups that her dog Nel is expecting. Nel is such a sweetheart but I have never seen such a big doggie, she is a small border collie but her waist is 33 inches around and just looks so huge. Her temp was down on Saturday so I expected pups would be there soon, but when I left to go home Monday at noon there was no sign of puppies yet ;-), just poor Nel who really did not even want to walk to go outside anymore-who can blame her. I was bummed I missed the delivery....but I had to get home for Halloween with the kids! I was at the delivery of her last litter, that was a litter of 12 also.

When I got home this is what the girls had done while I was gone to get ready for Halloween:
Abby's Pumpkin:

Emmas pumpkin-

While we were hanging around waiting for Nel to pop we got to do some agility with Cricket and Breeze. Breeze was actually able to do the weaves, but all her contacts were broken and she was doing some funny jumping-I am going to have to review the video and see if I can see what was going on.....and Cricket, she was pretty spot on, she did great except for dropping about 25% of the bars,....hummm... We got some pretty awesome trick training in a new environment done--the dogs were so excited after waiting for me in the kennel they really were happy to earn some treats and willing to do just about any tricks to keep me from leaving them to the OUTSIDE KENNEL, ((shudder)).

Only Breeze and Cricket got to go to the ranch because if I bring dogs they have to stay outside in a kennel when I am not playing with them (((gasp!!)) and Lizzie will not put up with it (she barks constantly) so she got to stay home. It was too funny because every time I came out of the house-the kennel is across from the house door and these two tricksters would be in virtually the same spot doing the same thing every time I walked out the door.

So much for getting things done on time, I had planned on making our videos for our on line class this weekend --UNFORTUNATELY we are on the first week, and it is the second time through the class so no good excuses but we are late already, DRATS! We actually have done the training just nothing to post showing our work, so ya know, sometimes that is how it goes! Then there is my blogger friends that I have sorely neglected,sorry everyone, I am trying to do better but I have just been sort of really busy lately, not sure what I have been busy doing because it really does not seem like I have done much but.....

So Maybe I'm not the Fastest Person........ ;-)

2011-10-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

I am super excited because I decided to redo the Silvia Trkman Puppy/Tricks October class. I did it last spring but I really enjoyed it, we got so much out of it but some of the tricks just required time for muscle building-and there was a lot of content in that class so we did not finish all the tricks. Since the tricks are all so good for keeping dogs in shape, I really wanted to redo it. I had such a good time the first time. Sooooo fair warning I will be posting videos of our work. We audited last time and this time we are going to be posting videos ;-)

I am redoing the Foundations class Silvia has too because we fell behind. I was trying to think this morning why we fell behind, I thought I was working hard and that class really was not as hard for us to keep up with.....then I remembered I HAD BROKE MY FOOT and couldn't do the class for quite a while, duh!

All of it just seems like things to take your time, get the behaviors really well and have fun with them, so no shame in being a repeater, ;-)

Speaking of the more confusing side of life....On Tuesday I got it into my head that it was Wednesday, not sure how....but I spent all day confused until the end of the day when I figured out it was Tuesday, duh!!

My confusion continued on the next day, my Thursday, everyone elses Wednesday.

When everyone elses Thursday came around-- it was my Friday -that was really bad. I texted an acquaintance that was having surgery on her dog on Friday to ask how things had went when I figured she probably would be getting ready to pick up her dog, well, she was still waiting for the surgery since she was on Thursday.... I had to look pretty dumb, LOL. I had trouble figuring out when to put the trash out,I missed my favorite show because I was confused about what day it was.

To make matters worse I saw another friends picture of her dog in costume, and thought oooh she has to be going to the dog club meeting for the costume contest tonight and called and asked another friend if she was going and what type of costume she would put on her dog. She was confused since the meeting is on Wednesday and for her it was Thursday, so somewhere along the way on Thursday I was thinking it was Wednesday and Friday at the same time.

It is a bad thing when your internal clock gets all messed up,YIKES!

I really hate good byes ;-(

2011-10-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

I am feeling sad today. Today is Miss Kinetics's last day here. Today is Spa day and she will get her beauty treatment so she will be all ready for the next stop in her journey tomorrow.

Kinney was not here long this visit, it was actually a pretty short visit-- but it seems like she has been here a long time...In a good way ;-). When Kinetic got here we had a rough day or two to start with... but then we really clicked and started to get each other, since we clicked and began to understand each other I have had a really good time with Kinetic and I am going to miss her. If I had known we were going to click like we have I would have volunteered to take her a little longer.

My whole goal for this visit was teaching Kinetic to come when someone called her, and make sure when she got near I could grab her collar. People grabbing you means all fun stops. Anyway, I was pretty proud I came up with some games where Kinney got to play some games that she seemed to think were fun, and I was able to get her to come to me when I needed her too, the best type of situation in dog training-a win-win situation where we all get our needs met. I was lucky and hit on some games she really liked. How much fun is that???? I used some of the things I have been reading about from BAT which is such a cool training method-Behavior Adjustment Therapy which was developed by Grisha Stewart http://functionalrewards.com/

I LOVE training my dogs, but got to say I am also really starting to like working with dogs that are not my dogs sometimes. It is a totally different challenge then working with your own dog. With your own dog you have a bigger investment in getting something trained, so I think you might rush things a little more or worry about it more.

I think you can be a bit sloppier in your training with your own dog because your dog really wants to work with you- a dog who does not know you does not have a big reward history associated with you so they might want to work with you and they might not so you really have to earn their trust and use good training principles otherwise the dog can just decide this game is really not worth playing.

I think working with dogs I do not know as well teaches me to watch much closer and evaluate what I am doing a lot more. When I work with Cricket I know what she likes and what she doesn't, I know what will probably work, sometimes she surprises me but I basically know what I can get away with, how fast I need to go, how long to work, what type of treats will work best, so I always try to pay attention to all those things, but sometimes I probably do better ten others...but with a dog you do not know you have to really watch each of those factors and pay attention since you just do not have a big bank of prior knowledge to draw from regarding this dog;-). The other thing is that you do not have as much time to work with a dog you don't know...usually you have to make the most of the time you have and work efficiently, no putting your goals on the list to work on next week. Maybe I should do more pretending my dogs are someone elses dogs, LOL,perhaps I would see even more results in my dogs??

Ok- the cutest trick Kinnetic just started offering(I taught her but now she is coming up and doing it when she wants my attention) is when she comes up to me she does the cutest play bow. The bow seems like a default position that she really likes, so she gives me great duration - it keeps her from jumping on people, and it is super cute. Figures a couple of days and I can teach another dog to be a lot less likely to jump on people, but my baby-Cricket is two years old and is horrible about jumping on people, LOL, might be time to focus on that myself with the Crickster.

ps, Kinetic is waiting to go to Japan in February, so she has been waiting for her forever owner to really start her training, the owner is going to have a blast--this is one smart girlie!

SHE'S BACK!

2011-10-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

WOW, I was getting ready to post an entry to my blog and it says I have posted 500 postings, how is that possible???? LOL.

So She is back,... who is she that I am referring to??? Well, it is Kinetic, the BC puppy that will eventually be going to Japan. I agreed to keep her for a few weeks when her temp. mom was going to be going on a trip. Kinetic was here in August for 3 weeks. I have been going through one of those periods of just feeling overwhelmed by things lately so not the best time for a house guest,.. but, hopefully we will all have a good time.

So the fun thing about interacting with a pup that you do not see every day is that it is REALLY apparent how they have changed. With your own pup the changes might be happening really fast but because you see them everyday it is hard to see, or at least it is for me. Kinetic has changed a LOT in the last month. The one thing I noticed right away is a little more of a calmness about her. She is not calm by any means but she is just not as unfocused, she has a more settled inner self or something, LOL, sorry to describe it like that, but she seems a little more mature.

Surprisingly Kinetic seems to be about the same size. I really think when she was here last time she was going through a big growth spurt. At that time she could not get enough food and she was worried about food all the time, she was so hungry I felt bad for her... she would do ANYTHING for food and she had grown quite a bit during the time she was with us last time. Now she likes food but she is not willing to do ANYTHING for food -- she is a little pickier about it....well not picky about food but just a little more particular about what she is willing to do for it ;- ), she just does not seem to think about it as much.

Ears are always fun to watch how they change and all the pictures I saw of Kinetic from her first days she had prick ears. I thought her ears were pretty big to be prick ears but they seemed to be really determined to stay bright and perky. When Kinetic was visiting last time her left ear had started to go out to the side, or bend a lot. Now it seems like both ears seem to be trying all sorts of ear sets. I am betting her ears will end up sort of half up and half down sticking out to the side, sort of like Breezes ears.. but we will see.

As soon as I picked up Kinetic she was really trying to bolt out of the crate, so we did some crate games today. Kinetic may have done crate games in her home, I don't know but within 12 min she had gone from bolting and just trying to get out to rushing out of the crate when released then running back into the crate. She did great and learned really fast. I will have to move the game around to a few other locations and a few other crates in the next few days.

if you CHOOSE to look at this video, it is almost our entire crate games session today. Please do not look too carefully at the big legs, LOL, be kind, and luckily a good portion of the video I did in fast speed so no I can not open and close a crate door that fast, I don't do anything that fast, just ask anyone who has watched me do agility,LOL.

No she does not have fur, but she does get some time on the dog blog! :-)

2011-09-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

I know this is not even a little dog related but....Guess what we did this weekend? It was not an agility trial but surprisingly it had a lot in common with an agility weekend.

My younger daughter competed in her first swim meet. When we arrived at the meet I was surprised to see that there were a lot of people there, lots of easy ups (those looked familiar from agility) a lot visiting and plenty of hurry up and waiting going on (that was also a familiar thing, LOL). ;-)

Unlike agility trials the younger kids generally go in the morning because the inexperienced or younger kids get worn out by the end of the day, I think they should do that sometimes with the novice dogs, but hey that is a topic for another day.

There were some HUGE teams, all gathering around doing their cheers together, but we live in a pretty small town and we only had two kids and their coach here on Saturday. There were a couple of younger kids that had swam in the morning and there was a younger kid or two that stayed to lend support and watch Emma. I think there should be one or two more team mates swimming on Sunday afternoon.

Just like agility trials it would have been a bit stressful just to figure out how to check in, where you sit, where you find your lane and what heat and race you are in, but luckily Emma had a great team mate that took her under his wing and showed her around.

The most surprising thing of the day was how many people were yelling for Emma, she has made a lot of friends and it was fun to see all the people that were supporting her.

I was so proud of how Emma handled the whole experience, she was a champ and seemed to take it all in stride and sure did not let nerves get to her (so unlike her mom).

The only thing that could have changed to make the entire day perfect was if they gave the spectators say ten minutes to jump in the pool and cool off, hahahahaha.

SOOOOO to set the record straight: It is funny, I do have to say that I get a lot of kidding because I do not post or do a lot of videos, or even take a lot of pictures of my kids-and I do a lot of pictures/videos of the dogs... I think a lot of parents of teenagers will understand that the fastest way to have your teens disappear from your view is to take out a camera. If there is no means of escape for them .....well, that is when you can get as many of the precious hand over the face pictures as you can snap.

I do a lot more pictures and videos of the dogs because the dogs are better sports about the camera, LOL. Emma's FIRST ever swim meet gave me an opportunity to get some video because her defenses were down and she was not watching for the camera!

Breeze turns FIVE-how wild is that?

2011-09-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

It has been a wild year, physically things seem to be catching up with Breeze and of course that makes me really sad, she can not do a whole set of weaves without looking sore and limping, and she sometimes is having trouble in the mornings with being stiff, and we have to work hard on exercises to keep her in shape.

On the plus side she loves to play and now she is a tugging fool and she was never a dog I did much shaping with but since we have not been doing much agility we have concentrated on doing tricks and she is getting to be an awesome dog at shaping, we are getting better working with each other with each passing day ;-).

LOVE MY BREEZIE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!

Happy Birthday Cricket- Her Story!

2011-09-16T17:37:00.001-07:00

GUESS WHO IS TWO YEARS OLD! ;-) can you believe it?

Today is Crickets SECOND birthday. I can not believe how time is flying. I could not have asked for a dog that is more perfect for me. She is so much fun to play with, so exciting to train with, and so comforting to snuggle with. I just plain could not think of anything I would change about her.

In honor of the big day I figured I would share Crickets story...especially since her birthday has me remembering...

I had been looking for a puppy when I found that her litter had been planned. I asked around and friends in the area told me that they really liked the puppies her dad had produced, everyone from the area said all of his puppies that they knew were fun dogs.

I talked to her breeder and got on the list to get a puppy, but I got cold feet and backed out right before the pups were born. The pups were all spoken for when they were born, I was pretty comfortable knowing those pups were not meant for me.

Weirdly enough, as often happens with litters, plans changed and things fell through so a couple of the pups were looking for homes when it was time for them to go to their forever homes. I saw a video posted of "Abby" (Cricket's litter name), playing with her moms co-owner Lori,little Abby was available to the right home. I plain nad simple fell in love with her. I thought she was as cute as a bug, and I loved that she just seemed focused on the people and on playing. I got a really good feeling about her, it just seemed so right to get her.

Once I talked to Crickets breeder things moved fast and Cricket was on her way to Southern California in about two days. I spent the day after I found out that Cricket was mine on a buying spree -making puppy food, setting up xpens, buying toys and assembling everything for her arrival. Cricket arrived her on the Thanksgiving weekend so I was not able to get a ticket to go pick her up so she had to fly here alone ;-(, that was the first time I had ever had to do that and the first time I have had a dog that has flown anywhere.

I got to the airport about an hour before Cricket was to arrive because I was worried about holiday traffic, and Cricket was about an hour late getting to the cargo area, so I sat waiting for a long time, I was sooo nervous.

When I finally got to go and get my puppy I will never forget seeing that little freckled face looking out of her crate at me. She did not look anything like I had expected, she was fluffier and had freckles which I had not seen before and she just had such a cute expression on her face.

I had talked to some other people picking up pups and they clued me in on the best potty places for puppies just coming off of the planes. Poor Cricket had some horrible diarrhea before I got her, when I took her to potty and try to clean her up a bit she only wanted to cuddle with me, for about ten minutes she just cuddled her diarrhea soaked body into my neck, LOL. After she got her fill of cuddles she got down on the grass and immediately started playing and tugging with me. From those very first seconds it just always felt so right.

For the last two years I have not spent more then a few hours here and there away from my Crickster and we have just had the most amazing journey. I have learned so much and of course I think my relationship with Cricket has benefited from all I have learned and all the mistakes I have made with my other dogs. I do not think environment or training explains just how perfectly she fits with me, and how I think we both bring the best out of each other, she is just an amazing dog and I am so lucky I found her. I really think the way it worked out we were really meant to be together.

So anyway, on Crickets SECOND birthday I thought I would share the video I did on her FIRST birthday.

seminars and DVD's

2011-09-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

I am not a natural player with my dogs and in the past I have managed to kill the play instinct of my first few dogs before I learned more....so I am always very interested in learning all I can about playing with my dogs because I really value my dogs play drive and can not believe how much fun it is to train with play. Who knew that someone could do a full 5 1/2 video or a whole seminar day on playing and tugging, but ya know, like so many things I guess there is whole lot more to the subject then you would think.

The last seminar I attended with Marla Friedler-Cooper http://southcoastdogtraining.com/SCDT/Home.html was about creating desire and passion for play. It was a great seminar. I know Marla had worked with Michael Ellis recently so I was interested in checking out some of his info.

I was able to watch his DVD The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog, from his Building Focus and Drive series http://leerburg.com/221.htm. I do have some mixed feelings because another DVD in his series is about how to effectively use electric collars for training- I am very against that type of adversives.., but I also do feel like sometimes you need to look at things and take the parts that are useful to you and learn from those even if there are some parts that are definitely not in my belief system. The interesting thing is that Michael Ellis's system does use a lot of familiar things, ...markers...making sure to mark what you want, the premack principle, short sessions and making sure to find things the dog wants and highly reward with that. Michael and Marla both talked about making sure that you make any rewards food/toys that you give your dogs an event. You don't just hand your dog a toy or a piece of food you make it exciting and they both showed us how to do that.

One of the interesting things Michael talked about in this DVD was his view of socializing dogs. Instead of wanting people to take their puppies or dogs to lots of places and encouraging dogs to check out things, going to visit lots of people he feels that how socializing should be handled is that you take your dog/puppy to lots of places...when you get to a new place you take your dog and ask for some attention and you play around the new environment. You have a great play session, or use food in an exciting way and you just have a lot of fun with your dog. Keep it short and leave when you are done. He says that by just interacting with your own dog and just having the new things around, you can make sure your dog does not have bad experiences because if you just encourage your dog to go up to everyone and everything you can not control what other people are going to be doing. He feels that by playing with your dog around new people and places the dog relaxes and has a positive experience and feels safe because they are playing with you.

Your dog also gets used to just going to a new place and it becomes automatic that they expect they will be interacting with you and it will be fun so when you go to distracting places they will automatically look to you to find out what sort of fun will be coming up next. I also was interested because when something scary did happen-like say a loud noise, he would just start a game with the dog, so the dog would associate the loud noise with something fun and not scary. I remember Susan Garrett talking about her dog being jumped on at a start line by a loose dog and so she just called her dog and started a wonderful game of tug.

Another thing that I found interesting was that Michael does not put many rules on play or puppies until they get pretty excited about what he has to offer (play) and until they are into the game. He wants a puppy to be a little wild and pushy. I like hearing that because it does seem like sometimes there can be so many controls put on playing before the puppy is really into the game and ya gotta think that has to have something to do with the puppy not thinking play is as fun as it could be.

As far as tug, Michael goes into the mechanics, which who knew playing might be something I should practice and sharpen up my mechanical skills? By mechanics he shows how you can keep the tug so it is easy for the dog to target to the tug. I know you do not shove the toy at the dog but I did not realize that say when I would move the toy to my side for Cricket to get I was bringing the toy behind me at my side so my hand was right in front of her and the tug was actually positioned so that the place I would like her to bite on the tug was hard to get to. By learning body mechanics and learning how to step away from the tug an rotate my arms so the tug always stays right in front of the dog, the biting surface is oriented right at the dog. The dog can become way more confident in grabbing it and learns to target to the toy better, not your hands. Poor Cricket when Marla was having us try moving the tug to our side I saw that when Cricket goes to grab the tug she would stop and check to make sure I had not move the tug out of her way and my hands into the way- she had to reorient to where things were before she could leap at the toy and bite. I would not have believed I was doing that until I was shown how to do it properly ;-). Michael and Marla both spend a lot of time helping with body mechanics so that you could have your toy be more predictable to your dog which makes it more fun for the dog and safer for you when you play tug.

Once the dog really was into the game and really loved tug, then Michael says you can teach the "out". To teach the out he would just be playing and tugging and stop, he showed how to keep the toy totally still and when the dog should let go, you would mark the behavior and immediately start tugging again. Soon the "out" is a happy thing that just starts the game again. As the dog really understands the "out" you can slowly add in duration.

To teach the retrieve once your dog understands tug you just let go of the tug and back up as your dog is playing, encourage your dog to return the tug to your hand as you back up. Soon you can throw your tug and your dog just wants to get the toy back to you so the game can start again.

I do not think this DVD was necessarily aimed at starting your dog to tug, although he did talk about not having rules on the game for puppies and using different types of soft, floppy toys for babies, and being soft and not expecting a lot of tug drive until puppies are beyond the teething stage. Most of the DVD seemed focused on dogs that were playing,how to keep it safe and fun for all players-the people and the dog, and how to use that play to build your relationship with your dog. I was just surprised there were actual mechanical skills that I did not have-who knew????

Marla presented material based on the training she has done with Michael but of course with her twist on it, she had a few different points, and it was really great to be able to practice some of the mechanics and have someone watch and critique. If you are in the So CA area and get a chance to attend one of her play and motivation seminars it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot and had a great day.

Another seminar weekend, one on one time with the Crickster!

2011-08-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

I am so happy it sounds like my fellow bloggers weathered the weekend storm safely! Reading every ones descriptions it sure sounds like a scary weekend ;-(.

This is a picture of My fellow seminar participants and Marla C who put on our weekend seminar -this was at lunch with all our doggies. There was one other BC and his mom who were not in the picture but also attended the seminar. Check out Cricket begging for food....I think she figured with the picture taking in progress she might have found an opening to get her lunch!

I was so proud of my girl Cricket this last weekend. While everyone on the East coast was having to deal with the storms and had such a scary weekend we were dealing with a heat wave. I was lucky enough to get to go to a seminar that was on Puppy Motivation and Play the first day and Tight Turns and weaves the second day. I would like to talk more about what I learned and I will in a couple of days!

The seminar was in San Clemente-about 2 hours from me- it is apparently a very dog friendly town The seminar was held just a few blocks from the beach-how cool is that? I got to stay at Marla's house who was the one who put on the seminar- Daisy Peel had slept in the bed I slept in the week before, too bad her awesome agility handling did not seem to rub off onto the sheets and then to me, I was less then amazing,....I was OK-but definitely not amazing, I really did not see any signs of any sort of greatness that had rubbed off on me, what a shame,hahahaha.

In her agility classes Cricket had been awful the first few classes of the series with her barking in the crate, but I had worked with her a lot during that series of classes-clicking and treating for quiet behavior, taking her out and doing tricks, and leaving the door open and playing crate games so she would sit and watch the other dogs quietly. LUCKILY it seems like it helped because Cricket was a good little girl for the seminar and waited pretty nicely in her crate for her turn. There were a few times she was barking but she really did much better then I thought she would.

The other great part is that she was able to play, tug, do agility in a brand new place and she did great in the first seminar she has attended. She was doing her cik/cap turns (tight turns on jumps and understanding when to jump in collection to get ready for a turn), the whole weekend made me feel like we have been making a lot of progress.

The best part of the weekend was when we all went out for lunch together. It was the neatest feeling in the world to have a dog that was able to climb into the back of a Volvo with a HUGE Doberman and a 30 lb terrier-loose in the back of a car with dogs she did not know-the dogs were all perfect. I wish I had got a picture of those three dogs riding in the back of the car.

The restaurants were so neat, we went out a few times during the weekend with all the dogs. All the restaurants with patio tables welcomed dogs and brought out bowls of water for the dogs, it was really fun to have a weekend with just Cricket and I-able to hang out and do a lot of things we do not normally do.

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One of the exciting events I have been following is the arrival of these two cuties- they are Crickets Brother Jive's babies-Cricket is an auntie!!! Their mom is Nakita who is an amazing and beautiful girl who is a great agility dog. Aren't they cute? I wish I had a bigger picture but there is a super cute video if you go to Jive's blog. http://jumpnjive.blogspot.com/ Some of you might remember Jive participating in our weave pole challenge.

Daisy Peel seminar, taking breaks and boots

2011-08-23T19:29:00.001-07:00

WELL, it feels like I have been gone forever. After I had got bowled over and hurt my foot I was pretty bummed, esp. when I ended up wearing a boot-well, I guess I am still wearing a boot because of my injury. I was bummed enough to take a little break from life, but I am back! The boot is hard to move around in and it will be a miracle if I am not injured BECAUSE of the boot, LOL.

Last weekend I got to go to a Daisy Peel seminar-boot and all!. It was like a vacation weekend. I did not bring dogs because with the boot I did not want to haul around crates and shade, etc... so I stayed in a hotel by San Diego for the weekend since the seminar was in that area. I swam and went out to dinner and then spent the day immersed in agility, learned some great things, got great things to think about, I could not have planned a better weekend!!!

I went to a Daisy Peel seminar a few months ago, and liked that one, but loved this one even more. If anyone has the chance to go to a Daisy seminar I would highly recommend going. Of course what I say about what I heard at the seminar is my interpretation so...keep that in mind but it did leave me excited and with things to think about so I have to share ;-)!

One of the most interesting things that seemed to be the theme of the weekend was that there are certain points on course that if you support them better.....you can actually get further down stream where you need to be later. WHAT????? Go deeper into the pocket????? I just spent months trying to figure out how not to support things and move further away, so go figure. Also you can be moving too fast on the course, SERIOUSLY!!! To prove that point on our first course and the last course Daisy had people WALK, they were not allowed to run and so they moved more efficiently and didn't stop and some people who could not get where they needed to be running could do it walking-so hurrying is not always the best thing, sometimes you need to slow down and handle what needs to be handled. Now if only I can remember that and figure out the places where that is appropriate and the places I just need to haul butt...I figure I will be in good shape.

I got to hear what Daisy said about cik/cap turns (Sylvia Trkmans method of teaching tight turns) that Crick and I have been working on, and my interpretation of what she said is that she feels they are just sends, and your movement should still support the direction, and it is basically what she uses her OVER command for.

Just like in the last seminar that I went to with Daisy she talked about how a handling system is just a great frame work for creating your own handling system that works for you and your dog. You just need to be consistent. That just makes so much sense.

I thought the thing that made me smile the most was when Daisy talked to us about how now days everyone trains things so much that we forget it is sometimes great to know how to handle things ourselves, like to smoosh a dog into the weaves if we know they are not going to get an entry it is still good to know that we can get up there and position ourselves so the dog will get the entry even if it is because of our handling, or there is nothing wrong with sometimes if you know your dog might blow a contact and you get get there and handle it so the dog is not going to miss the contact sometimes that is appropriate, LOL. I do not know why but listening to her talk about that made me smile, like we do not always have to have perfect training, sometimes you just use your old fashioned skills.

There was a GREAT group of handlers/dogs at the seminar and some of my friends from Arizona so it could not have been a better weekend.

Yesterday I could not stand it any more after listening to agility talk all weekend and watching everyone playing with their dogs, so I went out and did a little boot agility, so not the most graceful and not the best movement on my part, but it felt good to be playing!

Can you spot someone new????

2011-08-11T16:40:00.001-07:00

Kinetic, Breeze, Cricket, Lizzie
Kinetic and Breeze playing with the egg ball, while Liz and Cricket wrestle behind them

Little Kinetic, or Kenny as we call her

A Mosh Pitt, you might want to wear protection to be in the middle of that game

Cricket and Kinney, Kinetic has MADE Cricket learn how to play bitey-face-she never knew how to play that before, she prefers a good game of chase

Do ya all notice something/someone different? Yep there is a fourth BC running around. Not a permanent addition --she is a dog named Kinetic/ a red/white five month old BC who will eventually be moving to Japan-right now she is hanging at my house for a few weeks. She is a cutie! And she adds a LOT of energy to the house.

Well, it seems like FOREVER since I have posted.....lately it is just hard to blog some days, it seems like I am really busy but not with anything interesting ;-).

Cricket was a nut at class, and who knows why but she tried to run in a tunnel, turned around and ran out the entrance. When she got out of the tunnel the first time she found the toy I had thrown at the exit of the tunnel and I think she thought she was getting a huge reward. That was all she needed to KNOW the way you do tunnels is run in, turn around and run out the entrance. We had to finally have one person hold Cricket on one side of the tunnel while I called from the exit to help her remember how tunnels worked! LOL, what a nut! She loves tunnels and it was the exact same tunnel and set up as the week before, so it was really weird. To make class even more challenging my ankle is still killing me from when Cricket tripped me last week-I might have to break down and go get it checked out ;-(.

For the first time I feel like I am so far behind with Cricket. BEHIND???? Who is making up this time line? LOL, but I have to say I feel discouraged. I keep telling myself that when ever things seem to be falling apart is usually about the time they all magically come together, and when I look back I do think we have made a ton of progress lately, but it is still pretty WILD and Crazy when we do agility ;-). I am feeling pressure to get going-and feeling panicky thinking I just don't know how we are going to get it together-but what is the worst that could happen, we don't get it together and we keep having fun playing around, guess even in the worst case scenario it isn't that bad....Right???.

I think we are getting a new level of excitement and a new level of speed and Cricket has a lot more confidence, all good things but it might take us awhile to sort of learn how to use those new SKILZ.

Two steps forward...one step back

2011-08-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

We had class last night and I think Cricket and I had a classic conflict of differing opinions about what our goals for the night were. Poor Cricket.

Crickets goal seemed to be to get me to understand to stay out of her way. I think she feels she is running full out and collection is a bit of a pain, so people need to learn to stay out of her way.

My goal was that say coming out of tunnels if I am standing/running right in front to her Cricket should collect a bit and avoid crashing into me like a freight train.

CRICKET IS LIKE A BULLDOG, NO HANDLER WILL SLOW HER DOWN-GET MOVIN' OR GET OUTTA THE WAY!!!

I think we have a little hole in our training.....LOL, I SWEAR I am pretty brave when my dogs really run at me I have never had dogs that do not make sure they do not run into me so I am pretty comfortable with them driving pretty close into me....I don't think anyone has actually run into me....until now and tonight it just kept almost happening.

The first close call of the night was at our first tunnel-it was a curved tunnel and Cricket and I almost collided when I was in running past the tunnel as she came out. I stopped and rewarded her coming to my side a few times.

After our near collision we did a few obstacles then a table to a tunnel, this tunnel was a straight tunnel, and as she came out she kept running really fast right to my side then right under my feet, she totally took me out,OUCH, she took my feet right out from underneath me without slowing her stride.

I am much too fragile to be falling, hahahaha, I really hurt in lots of places now....for a little dog she packs a lot of punch.

Not our best class, Cricket was just so over the top excited and was stuck on extension and going at hyper speed, which is good at some places on course, but at sometimes speed can kill if you do not use a little collection occasionally. I just think that it would be hard to do too much collection work with the Crickster, that extension sure comes naturally!

Our aframe seemed to have fallen apart a bit, If you saw Cricket tonight you would not think she has ever heard of a start line stay.....ahhhhhhhhh....lots of things to put on our to train better list. She was an excited little girl.

LUCKILY it was not all CACA, the parts of the course we have had trouble with in the past, sending to obstacles, reading lines, driving to the table, those were all GORGEOUS. Her weaves were sooooo fast and soooo good, there were some TIGHT turns and great obstacle discrimination that I was not sure she could do. Guess all the tweaking is just part of the process, we worked on some object focus and now I need to pull back and work on a little more handler focus again.

I SWEAR Cricket is just so different then any other dog I have worked with, she is such a trip and so fun, after tonight though I just hope I am up to the challenge. I was beginning to think we had it all under control and we were pretty hot stuff, LOL, but I feel knocked down a few pegs after tonight's class, but at the same time I feel so excited for what is to come, she has soooo much potential and she looks so good when I look at the big picture, but there sure needs to be a lot of little adjustments!

Not your mothers duct tape!

2011-08-02T22:49:00.000-07:00

My poor tire needs to be re taped, so I went to the store to get some duct tape. Who knew duct tape comes in camouflage, all colors of the rainbow, zebra print, wild animal print, polka dots on turquoise, AND HELLO KITTIE print, too funny! This is just a picture of Targets selection, there was even more different choices at Walmart! LOL.

What a great time we live in that we have so many more choices then just the grey duct tape of yesterday!

Cricket and the contacts ;-)

2011-08-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend here-really quiet but nice, with some thunderstorms and no agility practice.....

Today we did a few contacts-I would like to speed up our dog walk a little, although sometimes it is pretty fast and they are getting faster I think, but I decided to time them so I will know if we are getting better over time ;-).

I have not done a full teeter in a bit and was playing around with some games I saw in clean run to speed that up, so today was the first time I tried a full teeter again, and not sure the games were helping ;-).

THE cool thing is the aframe is at 5 ft 3, and NO PROPS, look mom no training wheels and I think it still is doing OK.

Some weeks everything goes a little better then the week before-LOVE THAT!

2011-07-27T23:11:00.001-07:00

What a busy week, figured I would catch ya all up on what we have been doing this week!

LIZZIES EYE UPDATE:
The best news of the week is that even though it was a long week making sure that poor Lizzie got her eye drops every four hours around the clock, making sure she was quiet, and worst of all keeping that big donut on her head....it all seems to have paid off and Lizzies eye is looking pretty durn good. I think she is going to be fine, but she has to stop fighting with shelties, you gotta know they are spunky and will always get the best of anyone!

FRIENDS CAME TO VISIT:
Pam from San Diego came to visit and play some agility with her dogs Bandit, Twix, and Isabelle:

THE DOGS WERE PRETTY SMART AND KNEW HOW TO STAY IN THE SHADE:

TRAINING:

WHOO HOOOO! I am LOVING Sylvia Trkmans long distance Agility Foundation class. Cricket is doing really well with the cik/cap turns, which are a fancy way to cue collection and a tight turn on a jump, it really is pretty cool. I will try to get some video-I love watching cricket do her cik/cap turns because she powers out of the turns so well and turns so tight around the jump stantions, she seems to really get it and tonight at class she actually did a few cik/cap turns in a course and I could see her add in a short stride and was really able to make some great tight turns.

As far as the aframe I have been able to fade off all the props from the aframe but added on a stride regulator right at the top of the contact zone, just to get her to stretch a fraction of an inch further down and I had lowered the aframe to 5 ft again. Tonight in class Cricket worked on a new aframe (new to her), sequenced before and after the aframe-and we were working in the dark. She did the aframe twice, and it was not perfect but you know it was looking ok and I really think we are almost there. I have worked on this aframe for a long time, and hopfully the next time I need to do an aframe it will go a lot quicker, but hey I am feeling pretty good about the aframe now.

Lizzies letter...

2011-07-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This is Lizzie here and there are some things that I believe people need to be made aware of. I am sure many of you have heard of my unfortunate incident after my former "sister" dog (I refuse to still consider her my sister, although I am a very forgiving dog....but....)viciously BIT my eye! Not being one to dwell on the negative-I am a very happy dog and will not let that dog that shall not be named ruin my day-so I just feel I need to make people aware of the current difficulties I am dealing with-it is hard even for a happy girl such as myself to continue to be jolly considering.

I guess the first problem is that I have been shut into my moms room for D A Y S! That is how I was able to get to the computer to write a letter because that is the room the computer and I are stuck in. Mom says it is to protect me and my eye....but I am not so sure. I do have to admit my other sister Cricket does scare me because I have this durn big lifesaver donut on my neck-and Cricket loves to puncture balls-she keeps eyeing the donut on my neck and wanting to jump on me. It is not like I would be upset if this thing sprung a leak but I have heard the loud POP when Cricket bites the balls, so....not sure that is how I want to lose this thing-so....for that reason it does feel a little safer to be stuck in this bedroom. I am upset that I have not been allowed to go swimming, seems like this damn donut would at least be a good life preserver...so why must I be left out of that activity? I just don't understand.

I think mom is really irritated that I had a fight and is punishing me by putting these HORRIBLE drops in my eye EVERY FOUR HOURS, around the clock. You heard me AROUND THE CLOCK! Everyone knows I need my sleep to retain my basic jolly nature and the last few days I have had to be woken up at midnight, four am and 8am for drops in my eye. Mom says it is to help my eye, but I am pretty sure it is just another fancy punishment.

Luckily I got sprung from this jail to go for something called a "recheck" at the vets office this morning. Anything to leave this room. It is so lucky I went to the vets because there were a lot of people in there that needed some hugs and kisses from me, I was very happy to forget my current troubles and make everyone day by giving lots of hugs and kisses. I do have to say everyone says how friendly I am and I do try to make sure no one ends up without a hug when I am around. Everyone loved my little donut and kept asking where we got it....I was doing my best to tell them they could have mine-I am very generous, but perhaps they did not take me serious because I left the vets office with the donut in place ;-(.

The vet said I am heeling well, and there is still a chance I will need something called "surgery" to take care of some tissue that is rubbing on my eye....but hopefully it is looking like it will not be necessary. I wonder if "surgery" is a toy like a ball or a treat? Hummm, I sort of hope it is a treat ;-), but I am sure it is a good thing, maybe that is another punishment mom is giving me by not letting me have "surgery"?

Many people have been asking what sparked the fight with Chloe. I have to tell you if you guys knew Chloe you would understand. Chloe and I used to be best friends until Chloe started prancing around all the time and showing off her long flowey hair. She teases me about my curly hair and long legs and says my hair is "frizzy". She can be so irritating and she has attacked me enough times that I always feel it is best to attack first now. Chloe and I usually are kept in seperate areas of the house unless supervised.

Now mom is talking about more crate games for both Chloe and I, for "impulse control" and doing fun actities like walks together, and relaxation protocol (which is so boring for me) with both of us together. Mom is determined to make me pay for fighting ;-).

I hope the situation here does not get worse...but for today it is pretty bleak stuck in the room with no agility, or swimming or watching the neighborhood from the front window, the cats have been my only company other then mom, and she is sort of a drag now that she has eye drops, so not sure I will count her as company.

I have been working hard to maintain a good attitude and have even played ball with my donut in place,

and I guess there was a short trip to the park....but I will work to stay happy until conditions improve ;-)

PS Mom asked me to tell you all she says things are looking much better and my eye looks soooo much better ;-)!

It is never a good day if someone ends up in a cone...

2011-07-18T23:23:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone can send my little Lizzie Lizard a few healing thoughts today....she needs them ;-(.

I absolutely know things could be so much worse, but Monday was one of those days that I am so glad is just about done, the sooner I can get safely to bed, the better!

The day started out with my having a little fender bender with a fence, not sure how it jumped into my way ;-)..... I thought there was a little leak in my radiator, I felt REALLY stupid-the car looked fine but I knew there was some damage-...sigh...

I was outside talking to a friend for a minute and went back in the house to find Lizzie and Chloe were locked in a battle. My daughter and I fished them apart and noticed some blood coming from Lizzie's eye, as we were fishing them apart my darling hubby was calling all the assorted phones in the house one after another, ughghghgghgh, and of course we were just trying to get the dogs all settled down and assess the damage-seriously leave a message when no one will answer ;-), LOL!

I had no car because mine was in the shop ...and Lizzie was really eerily quiet with a lot of gunk coming out of her eye, so I was worried. ....of course the whole way to the vet my hubby kept mentioning how the car had $1300 of damage. I already felt pretty stupid about it, so how about we could all talk about that after the present crisis is calmed down a bit, ...sigh....

The vet said nothing had touched her eye and the blood was from the other side of her face with a different cut. It did not make much sense....but the eye was looking better so I figured I should just be relieved. This is not my favorite vet, she never seems to do a thorough exam but her office was close and they could get Liz in.

Shortly after getting home Liz's eye was swollen the size of a small ball and was really red and had tons of goop coming out of it. Another hassle to get her to the vet with no car, and as soon as we got there it was confirmed her lid had a bad puncture on the inside and the eye had indeed been scraped and punctured. I do not know how well they checked it because they took her in the back. I guess the punctures were easier to see now because of the swelling.

So now we have to watch carefully....The worry is damage from the scaring on the lid rubbing against her eye could scratch the cornea or that the infection does not get better-so Liz will go back for a recheck tomorrow or the next day depending on how she looks.

Poor Liz, she is obviously not feeling well, I forgot and left my dinner on a low table while she was sitting there and she did not touch it and she has been sooo quiet. Lizzie is usually pretty naughty so it is never a good sign when she is a good girl. She got a nice inflatable cone to make sure if she wakes up in the middle of the night she does not scratch her eye..hope that works, and I set my alarm for every four hours to put in her drops.

Not sure what the deal was with Lizzie and Chloe but Lizzie is a lot bigger then Chloe and Chloe was FINE. Chloe is tough and a scrapper. Probably all the hair Chloe has protected her but goodness can't we all just get along??

Lizzie ready for bed and I am really ready for this day to be over as soon as I can get her next eye drop dose at midnight-I am sure she is looking forward to that:

OUCH!!!

Agility trumps swimming-where is the value?

2011-07-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

Guess Cricket likes playing agility ;-)!

A funny thing happened today....Cricket LOVES swimming sooo much. She will swim off and avoid having to get out and will swim FOREVER! Today she was swimming when I took Lizzie out of the pool. As I was walking with Liz through the agility yard I let Liz do a little agility because she has not done much agility in awhile.

Well, my little fish Cricket quickly decided that swimming as much as she loves it has to take a back seat to agility, esp if her sister is doing it with her mom. Everyone knows she is the agility dog right now and it is her equipment. All of a sudden Cricket was going nuts trying to get out of the pool to her equipment. It made me feel good that obviously doing agility has some value for her!

MY WEAVE CHALLENGE:

This time I wanted to work with 12 poles, HOWEVER, it is a lot of weaving and I do not want to put her body through too much, so in the Sylvia Trkman Foundation Agility class she has us open the channels to practice entries without putting a lot of strain on the dogs body, so here I opened a narrow "channel" so the first few poles Cricket has to dig in and start weaving but then it is a little easier on her for the last poles, but she still is practicing staying until the last pole.

Another thing that Sylvia Trkman had us do is turn our shoulders in, move the opposite way, do weird things so the dog "gets" they need to complete the poles no matter what we do once they get in.

I am ALMOST through the challenge, just jump position 8 and 9 to go.
Here is jump position 6.

It was really hot....so we were slower then we should have been, and I was just distracted-don't train distracted, LOL.

Cricket is now running to a toy on the ground, she understands she does the weaves then a jump before her toy and has great forward focus, which is excellent because there was a lot of curling back before-however, I suppose we will have to balance that a little so she is not just leaving the weaves and taking off without me, ;-).

WEAVE UPDATE:

Ricky posted his jump position 4 video, Ricky is just such a good boy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9q6d4AUYO8

Marie is just such an awesome team with Dare. They completed their jump position 6 and check out how well they did. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpon5GpgjnQ&feature=channel_video_title

A new tool in the war on dog hair, LOL!

2011-07-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

some people have well trained dogs and get gorgeous group shots...because all the dogs were clean at the same time I bravely tried to grab a group shot...this is how it started-border collies in place....I went to grab the shelties....

When Skyler wouldn't stay the border collies made a break for it:

Skyler who would not stay for a picture, and inspired the get away....

One day I will get around to training some of the more important things in life...forget the weave poles, or aframes, or contacts, or how to close cabinet doors...where is the group stay training???

With 5 dogs-2 shelties and 3 border collies, all long haired dogs.....I have a few choices in how I live my life.

I could
A. embrace the hair and just learn to enjoy being covered with hair all the time ;-). If I was smart I would have gotten dogs all the same color so I could just match my outfits to their hair, but everyone has a different color fur...
B. Beg my friend Collette to teach me how to spin yarn, gather the hair-very quickly I could make blankets for a small country with all the hair that ends up floating around here.
C. Give up all my hobbies, work, etc..and work 24/7 with a continual round of combing and grooming dogs.

It would not be so bad but the shelties are the biggest challenge. Skyler has always had this hair that has a super thick undercoat that is always shedding in clumps-and Chloe has the thickest hair of any dog I have seen. Chloes hair is so thick it is hard to get to her skin. Cricket is a weirdo and loves to go outside and roll in the dirt. She has a special talent she has worked to perfect so that she looks like pig pen with a little dirt cloud following her.

WHAT TO DO?
I have tried different types of vacuums, shampoos, furminators, brushing EVERY day, supplements in the food, little rubber brushes on the floors and furniture, but the war on hair just is never ending.

Enter my new best friend!!!!

I have never had any experience with a HV drier....where have I been? How have I lived until now? LOL. If you have a dog doing a lot of shedding some self grooming places have high velocity dryers you can use, if you have one near you CHECK IT OUT! It makes getting all the hair out so much easier!

This little beauty is the Double K ChallengeAir high velocity dryer and the wonderful UPS guy delivered my beauty two days ago. WHOOOOO HOOOO.

So check it out....I grab Skyler and set him up on my grooming table,....I blow through his coat and the undercoat is just coming out in sheets-without any work. I got bags and bags of hair in a really short time. Next his bath..the water from his bath just came off his coat in sheets. In say ten minutes he was dry and the ground was covered with hair. He looked gorgeous, I have only seen him look that good one other time which was when I sent him to the groomer. I have never been able to get that much hair out no matter how long I have spent or how hard I worked. A little over an hour from the start of our session and Skyler was dry, soft, shiny and looked about ten pounds lighter because of all the hair that was gone.

Chloe got a similar result. Her hair is so thick I usually wash her in the morning and then she is still damp in the evening. With the blower she was dry in no time and I got out lots of hair I just could not have got in the past.

The dryer was not as dramatic on the Border collies because their fur is not as thick and they do not have as much undercoat but I was able to fly through three baths and good grooms for them.

Everyone is so soft and they smell so nice-I am amazed at how much hair I could get out of the dogs and it was so easy......with this baby I can see bathing the dogs a lot more often ....hopefully it is going to help the hair situation around the house!

*****WEAVE POLE UPDATE:*****

It has been a few days since I updated the weave pole challenge, and there are some GREAT videos to share.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M7WK9jXu6k Extra credit goes to Ricky and his mom, check it out she did a great job with their weave position 3-she was out there working hard even with her injury ;-). Ricky looks so happy, what a great weaver.
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Dare and Marie did the jump position 5 for their weave challenge. They are so much fun to watch ;-). Dare always looks so fast and happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD0b2PIsAZQ
AND TO SHOW HOW BEHIND I AM, Dare just also completed position 6 with 12 weaves. WOW, it is summer where are they getting all this focus and energy? I am so impressed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpon5GpgjnQ
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Check out Psyches weaves, GREAT JOB with position one! Glad to see them joining us, very cool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpzSkJtnG3o
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBrgT1Qau48 Nari vs the weave pole challenge Week 3 looks like it went great, and she has posted some awesome running dog walk practice too. They are looking good.
They also posted week 4 and have some awesome jump practices they have in their video, that Nari is so cute-and so fast! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2guHWHBr3c
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*****SPECIAL REQUEST:*****
Pam a dog trainer from our area has entered a contest with a training video of teaching a dog to pick up their back leg with an easy button. If you could go to the link and vote for your favorite video Pam would really appreciate it. If this link does not get you right there, click on video contest on the top tab.
http://www.usbones.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=VIDEO

WHOO HOOOO a little break in dog talk to show off my kid!

2011-07-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry just had to share a video of my daughter, this is my younger daughter doing a swim test for placement on the swim team.

Emma had not done any swim lessons last year when she said she would like to try the swim team here in town. That was about 9 months ago and since then she has worked so hard and grown so much. She started in the lowest level not knowing how to do any of the strokes and it looks like after this test she will move up one or two levels to the top levels on the team and will be ready to do some swim meets soon.

The test was FOURTEEN separate races and took from 5:30pm to 9:40pm, but she did not skip any of the tests. I just put the shortest races ons the video to give a taste of her swimming. Last Saturday they did a fund raiser and Emma was able to swim 208 laps without stopping to raise money, it makes me tired just thinking of it!

Check out the turns she does, that is just a trip to me! I am just so proud of Emma and how she has taken responsibility for all her training and stuck with it even when she was swimming outdoors in the snow at night, and has not missed more then one or two practices in this entire time. Just so cool to see your kid find something they like and are good at and are willing to work hard to do!

Time to start fading the Crap...and suprise more weaves ;-)

2011-07-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

I am REALLY PROUD of this weave challenge video because at the start it has Cricket sequencing her Aframe from about where jump 7 in the challenge would have been to 12 weaves. SHE DID IT! Today was the first day I painted my pvc aframe box a soft yellow to make it not stand out as much and protect it from the sun....and I cut the middle of the top bar away because.....IT IS TIME TO START FADING THE CRAP off the aframe. I still had a 100% success rate with the aframe today, how cool is that?

I will tell you what is not cool is the weather, it was way over 100 and we had a thunderstorm, this weave challenge was hard because of the heat-Cricket and I both discussed it and feel we get extra brownie points for working today. Some have suggested it just shows a little lack of intelligence, but hey, that is not nice, LOL.

If anyone is counting, yep we skipped the weave pole challenge position 6-it is the onside weaves, it will be harder for us and we will do it next.

I went to Rachel Sanders website and read her original article about training the weaves http://fastforwarddogsports.com/library-links/ (Nail Down Your Weave Entries) and she does say if you are not running ahead of your dog in the weaves to lead out which I have not been doing. I notice it is distracting to Cricket if I happen to be ahead so this time I did work on that ;=).

this is the link to our weave challenge 5 and that does have a lot of curling back after the weaves. I am working on driving to a toy on the ground and adding a jump-rewarding the weaves after the jump to try to compensate for the curling back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rus9pLq_vHs

Breezie, the DOG with nine lives....

2011-07-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

Some exciting things other then fireworks going on here in the Southern CA desert.

FIRST EXCITING thing is weeks ago I took Breeze to the vets. We have been doing the Sylvia Trkman Puppy 2 class. I have worked with all three dogs. Apparently the tricks, stretches, etc..from the class have improved Breezes back. A few months ago the vet said that Breeze would never be able to weave and she just felt like Breeze had improved as much as she was going to.

Breeze is like a cat, and apparently there **MIGHT** be another life or two left in her. Because of all the strength and flexibility required for the tricks in Puppy 2....The vet was totally shocked at how much progress Breeze has made and how her back feels. She could not believe it.

I noticed a lot of the exercises/tricks are ones that were just a step beyond what I have done in Breezes rehab programs....and Sylvia did make a comment that a lot of the exercises she does in puppy 2 is based on her experiences from doggie rehab. ANYWAY, the upshot of the appointment was that Dr. Modglin said that she would not discount that Breeze might improve enough to actually be back to 100%.

I am not sure what the future holds for Breeze and agility but knowing that she is that much better just makes me feel so hopeful that she is going to have a lot more pain free years. She is still only 4 yrs old so her long term health is a huge concern. Sylvia's class paid for itself so many times over because of what it has done for Breeze. I am hoping by doing these tricks/exercises I can keep Cricket in tip top shape so she is less likely to get injuries as time goes, and who knows...the vet now says we will just have to see how far Breeze can go.

I am very excited we are not done with the Sylvia Trkman Long Distance classes yet...we just finished up Puppy 2 but now are starting the Agility Foundations. We got our first lesson and it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. http://www.lolabuland.com/

I was just dying watching the first weeks lesson where we are supposed to proof the weaves, and Sylvia was demoing where she was actually running the opposite way along the weaves while her dogs were doing the weaves....she was doing some awesome weave proofing, she says the same thing I keep reading from so many others, once your dog commits to the weaves they should just weave until they are done no matter what you do. I do think we have a little ways to go until my dogs skills are there ;-).

It is hotter then HECK! Last night we went to the park to do our weave challenge and it was still 102 at 6:30. It was HOT. I got up this morning to work and got out at 8 am....not sure what the temp was but it was just too hot to work for more then a few minutes.

WEAVE UPDATE
I have got to say this dog/handler team ROCK!!!
Marie and Dare got their fourth position weave challenge done. They are on a roll! They added in some sequencing with the jump position at the end, and mixed in a set of weaves at the end, FANTASTIC proofing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg4PgvevFZQ

I do not know how I missed posting this from Dare and Marie, but I think I did, sorry.....but here is their position 3 video ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4jrJasbvbo

From trainwreck to DANCING WITH THE STARS!

2011-06-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

I KNOW I am saying it a lot lately.....but BABY DOGS ARE A TRIP! It was not that long ago that I had a baby dog to run before Cricket so why is this all suprising me so much?

Tuesday I was practicing with Alicia, her last practice day before she goes back to her home ;-(, and Cricket could not do 2 jumps in a row. She was a trip, she just could not keep from watching me. There is no way she was even close to looking to find any obstacles and would just curl back. The plan was that no toys on my body, I would have to put all the toys out on the ground from now on, or have other people throw the rewards. Plus I needed to work a lot of straight lines.

Later that same day after a quick trip with the dogs to the beach I swung by Contact Point to use their yard. Same dog, same day.......now when we were working with just a few jumps she would take eight jumps in a row, being very clever to find obstacles all on her own without a glance back at me standing on the take off side of the first jump, lOL. It was too funny. So lots of work breaking it down rewarding for checking in and paying attention, a new plan was born.

Next day, Wednesday.....Cricket and I had her third ever agility class, I knew there would be an aframe so I emailed for a copy of the course in advance so I could plan what I wanted to do since Crickets aframe is not totally ready to just run in a full course. I looked at the map...

after Tuesdays morning practice I was thinking that the obstacles from #5-#11 would be another trainwreck....the serpentine to that nice arcing line where I knew I would end up way behind Cricket would be a killer for a dog that just curves into me. I was tired and figured we had enough practice on Tuesday...it was windy, so i really wanted to blow off the class. Being the agility addict I picked my butt up and went to class.

SUPRISE, SUPRISE,SUPRISE.....BABY DOG STRIKES AGAIN AND WE WENT FROM TRAIN WRECK TO DANCING IN ONE DAY! Hey I know it will surely all fall apart numberous more times but it is such a rush when all of a sudden things click....even if it is for a split second.

We had a bit of trouble in the box in the middle of the course, I was worried and hurried wondering how I was going to get where I needed and Cricket was frenzied and wild. I was proud of both of us because I stopped, took a breath, remembered an agility mantra I have always remembered, WORK EACH OBSTACLE UNTIL IT CAN NO LONGER BE FAULTED, I quit worrying about how I was going to handle three steps forward and just worked each obstacle and IT WAS FANTASTIC! When I took a breath and settled myself down and concentrated on just doing my job, Cricket turned into a confident looking, quiet thinking dog just doin' her job. She was GORGEOUS!

I was so proud of my girl. I got a little video, on the first part I just isolated the aframes, and I noticed when I edited the video that my stride regulator was zinging all over the place, poor Cricket. After the aframes there is video of the aframes in sequence, and you can see her awesome dog walk end.

WEAVE CHALLENGE UPDATE

Miley and Diana posted their third week weave challenge video, they look really great. I love how happy Miley looks doing weaves ;-).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wD1tbepwDd0#at=33

I do think that Diana brings up a point with how she is doing her weaves that it is a super good idea to throw in 12 weaves ever so often so the dog is not patterned to think weaves just come in 6's with all the weave work we are doing.

TRY IT YOU'LL LIKE IT!

2011-06-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

Today might be a very cool day, agility people were asked to blog about some aspect of volunteers at agility trials.

I do not remember any subject that seems to have sparked as much discussion or controversy and to tell you the truth it surprised me.

Some people felt they pay their entry fees so they felt they did their part;-). I can sure see feeling that way.....

Unfortunately the cost of entries would not cover a trial with all paid workers unless the entry fees were raised a lot. I wish I could come up with some sort of brilliant discussion for or against volunteering or perhaps some really funny or profound thoughts on the discussion-but I have to say I am sitting here drawing a blank!

The most profound thing I can say is that I understand how intimidating it is to go out of your comfort zone, but I am just going to encourage anyone who is new to trialing or new to volunteering to try it-just jump in-they always need volunteers and it feels good to go out of your comfort zone. I was extremely nervous about volunteering because it was intimidating not knowing how hard the jobs were to do, and it is hard to feel out of your element. I have to say once you get your feet wet, most jobs are set up so you can learn them quickly, and there are just a few things to know there is usually someone around who will take you under their wing and show you what to do-you will be suprised at how easy it is.

Volunteering is great for getting to know some new people, as you are sitting at the scribe table next to the timer, you can make a new friend. Building the course can help you work on your skills for seeing the patterns in a course and memorizing a course. Scribing can help with understanding the judges calls. Working as a gate steward can help you learn more people/dogs names, and it helps with ring nerves as you see you are not the only one who feels nervous and lost before a run. Doing a job helps to pass the day ;-).

I love when clubs reward their volunteers with lunch, or trial bucks to use towards future entries.

I think we should all help when we can and understand there are times when it can be hard-if we all do what we can to help then we can all have a good time. It is disconcerting when we are about to run novice and they can not find any bar setters, and things get delayed trying to find enough help ;-(.

Some of the jobs you might want to try ;-).

Scribing-writing down the calls the judge makes-taught me a lot about the different faults and calls. The hard thing about that job for me is that there are a lot of dogs/handlers I do not know so it makes it harder to make sure I am scribing on the right dog/handlers sheet and you are not supposed to ever watch the dogs/runs you are just supposed to watch the judge for his calls. I find not watching the dogs is hard for me. If you know a lot of the dogs, or have a timer that does it is a pretty easy job. There is a little cheat sheet that shows the hand signals, it only takes a second to learn them, by the end of the class, you will know the signals well ;-).
Course building-that is a great job, you get to help build the course and see how it feels, what a great way to know the courses.
Gate Stewart-is a favorite job of mine...you just make sure people are at the gate and know when to go in, and let the scribe know if there are changes so they can keep their scribe sheets in order.
Leash runner-jump setter-tunnel/chute straightener, or runner to pick up the scribe sheets-are jobs that you might end up running around a bit if you are a chute straightener and need to straighten the chute out after each run, but they are really nice easy jobs if you want to help out without feeling a lot of pressure. You get a front row seat to the action for most of those jobs.
Timer-with the electronic timers, usually it is just a matter or pressing a button, making sure the timer starts and stops correctly and writing down the times. You can watch the dogs and the runs if you are timer unlike being the scribe, so I like that one better.

WEAVE CHALLENGE UPDATE
Yea one of my favorite dogs-Jive,who is Crickets brother-look how good his weaves are looking, he is on week 4!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdFJU6ppkIQ

Nari is doing week 1-Look at Nari,wow, great weaves,what a cool dog.. and a wicked running dogwalk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7TUmBoRaFA

Then on Sunday Nari got right back to work and did week 2. I LOVE Nari, what a cutie. I really like how they did a full set of weaves at the end, I think I am going to do that too because Cricket and I have had some popping on the tenth pole lately ;-(.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcjXm_37IQ8

our weave challenge #4

2011-06-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

Cricket/me with jump in position 4:

humm, I am super happy with our weaves....but yikes we seemed to have lost our forward focus in a lot of our training this last week, and the weaves seem to be no exception-guess I will have to watch that......

WEAVE UPDATE:

This seemed very appropriate since so many people are working on our weave challenge.

One of the things that is fun on youtube is seeing all the enthusiastic young trainers and how they are progressing with their dogs-you know they are the future of agility ;-). Our of the girls Megan who has a yellow lab-Amber made a video with videos of dogs from youtube weaving. My girls are in there and there are some nice weaving shots of Breeze, who is no longer weaving ;-(, so those ones esp made me excited. You did a fantastic job on the video Megan.

Pam and Twix posted a video for challenge 4-good job!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnQ970Gdy0k&feature=feedu

Twister has got to be the cutest pappillon ever, Twister got a great video--GOOO Twister!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YniFsRJ2hk&feature=channel_video_title

Learning to Run ;-) Avoiding Trainwrecks

2011-06-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

(this is what it sometimes looks like when Cricket and I run, LOL)

I was on the road a lot yesterday traveling to do agility with a friend who is visiting from out of state. I worked with Alicia for a few years when she lived her, but she has since moved away. I managed to go from Point A to Point B yesterday without getting lost.. I did not end up in Sacramento like I had the week before ;-), (Yippie!).

I used to have no doubt Cricket and I could do anything together, just because we were determined, I had no question in my mind...but lately I have had my confidence somewhat shaken. Working with Cricket at this stage is either super exciting and a total rush, or just scary wondering how I will ever figure this all out. We either look like we are dancing or it is some sort of train wreck, not a lot of inbetween.
It all feels like an such an awkward stage. I am remembering now that running a baby dog has a lot of highs and lows, it is never dull or boring!

Not suprising Cricket is doing FANTASTIC at individual skills, and she has plenty of drive, she is SUPER FAST, of course she does not totally get the game yet so she has to be supported just as all baby dogs do so I can not yet get as much lateral distance as I need to move to the next area Cricket will need help at. When that happens there are sometimes little collisions, or Cricket and I both sitting and looking at each other totally confused, her wondering where to go next and me wondering how will I ever get there? POOR US!

My friend Alicia is a good person for me to be working with right now because I have been feeling somewhat intimidated-I can totally see how I can keep up once Cricket does not need to be supported as much as she does now, and once she gains the confidence to not check in quite as much, but for now it is a real challenge to keep up with the baby dog, because I am really slow. Alicia always been good about just having a quiet confidence in me when we are working together which makes it easier for me to just take a breathe and take one step at a time without panicking. Alicia is just visiting from out of state but I am not sure I can allow her to go home at the end of the month ;-). I think we just have one more week together and that is definitely not enough time to get us straightened out, LOL!

I keep reminding myself of the biggest rule for this whole thing, it is all a game and should be fun...no one will live or die if I get to where I need to be for a front cross, LOL, at the end of the day if we are lucky we will all go home and the dogs and I will cuddle up and watch tv or read a book together-that is what really counts.
*************************************************
And yet more WEAVING UPDATE: ;-)

I have to say it is so much fun seeing how many of the dogs/people have been doing so well and I for one have noticed how confident and happy the dogs have all seemed in all the videos. That is just so cool!

Miley and Diana posted a video of them working with their weaves in the second jump position, check out how fast Miley is and how happy she looks-like how happy does that have to make you to see your dog doing something you taught and looking so happy doing it? They did awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NCtKVH4zs_8

Dare and Marie got their week 3 challenge done-WELL DONE! Check out how Marie is rewarding Dare after she comes to her in the recall. Seems like a great idea ;-).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4jrJasbvbo&feature=uploademail

Amanda Shaynes Contacts 360-what I thought ;-)

2011-06-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

I was exhausted after our Saturday afternoon fun run and it was a really hot day so Sunday afternoon I went through my video collection and watched Amanda Shyne's DVD CONTACTS 360. There is a video preview on youtube for the DVD. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlJVVmZO5Hw

The DVD is filmed at a seminar. I have had it for a few years but I have to admit that I had never watched the ENTIRE thing (there is 4 hours of video). At the very first I have to admit I found it distracting that there was a horrible rain storm, which made it hard for me to get into the dvd. If I would have persevered I would have found that the rain soon ended and the DVD was back to a better energy in a fairly short time ;-).

I have seen Cricket is doing her dog walk really nicely, nothing to complain about but I do see some stickiness and I would not be surprised if it started to slow down eventually....I was not sure what to do about that, but I was hoping this DVD would give some me some ideas so I would know what to work on.

I do like Amandas approach which is to train each component you might look for on your contacts separately, like you work on speed, you work on control, you could work on position, but you keep in mind which component you want to work on and you carefully evaluate how you reward so you can reward for what you are training for. For example Amanda says she rarely ever does a full teeter. She trials every weekend so I am sure her dog does a few full teeters at every trial but every day she works on speed across the board or she works on the end position, but she keeps them separate so she can make it clear to the dog what she is looking for.

For speed across the dog walk Amanda will use a board to have the dogs run across, when the dog is running quickly then she will let them go across the dog walk when they have built up speed. I can not wait to get my board in place and try that game. She says she rarely does more then one dog walk, if she gets a good performance at anything then it is time to stop. She also will not reward a slow dog walk or poor performance by the dog to avoid confusing them.

In her video she covers working on the 2020 position and some games for that. How to build some speed on the dog walk. How to use stride regulators on the aframe to get a faster aframe and a nicer stride. How to work on speed on the teeter or how to work the end position on the teeter. Basically I thought there were some very good ideas, and I am glad I took the time to finally watch the full DVD, I got some great training ideas for the Crickster.

I also liked there was a section on training the dogs to line up to the equipment to make for safe entries, and she showed how to train some exits you should train and practice on the dog walk and aframe, like a flip back into a tunnel, how to teach the dog to let you run ahead to say put a jump in between you and him so you can handle a serpentine to the next obstacle, how to train so the dog can know to wait for a release even if you are pushing past them, pulling, or flipping them into a tunnel on either side of the contact.

I could not resist going out today as soon as it cooled down to try one of the games. I could not believe how great Cricket did at this game since it was her first time trying it. I think the girl knows her target position! In this game I am supposed to move into different positions and give her the "touch" command and without helping her have her jump into position, releasing fairly quick to make it a fun, quick game. Eventually I should be able to run alongside and have her get in position and wait for a release.

WEAVERS CHALLENGE UPDATE!
Check out Ricky who apparently WEAVES FOR WATERMELON. I still can not believe his sends and check out his moms running-they both look so AMAZING.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Rickyagility#p/a/u/0/JCvjc1jST20

Pam and Twix did the jump position 3 and check out how beautifully Twix is weaving, he is a very new weaver and check out how Pam has added in lots of toy distractions, they are doing GREAT! Very Impressive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23oheyGr3L8

Check out Cynthia with Tatum-Tatum is doing great and seems like she was getting the idea of a send, what a good girl!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7V1erwfbQ&feature=uploademail
and Cynthia is no slouch so she had both her dogs weaving! Look at how great Jet did-he has some speedy weaves!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20nYirXd0Lo&feature=uploademail

I just want to remind everyone that anyone can join our challenge at any time. If you have a video you want to share the link to and I missed you you can email me your link at mochos@charter.net .
The directions are posted at http://kathy-agilityadventures.blogspot.com/2011/06/mastering-independant-weaves-challenge.html

Mr Toads Wild Ride....AKA our Funmatch

2011-06-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

Cricket and I went to our first real fun match. It was a totally new place...and just like I suspected it gave me a lot of info about where we are now with our SKILZ.

I really wish I had video but I was not able to get video so I will use a little clip art to sort of help you visualize the days happenings, because I really wish I had something to show you all.

First off the flyer for this fun match said they would have a novice and open ring, but they lied. There was one course all day and it was a pretty challenging course, at least it was for our team ;-).

THE WEAVE CHALLENGE PAYS OFF ALREADY!
THE BEST PART OF THE WHOLE DAY WAS that I went to walk the course and there was a jump, about 20 feet to a set of 12 weaves, and then about 20 feet beyond a pin wheel. I have a baby dog that is just understanding how to stay out to get jumps so there was no way I could hope to get to that pinwheel and be ready for the front cross after it.....

EXCEPT.........WE HAVE BEEN DOING THE WEAVE CHALLENGE, and proofing our weaves ;-). so I could get to where I needed to be....independant weaves are a beautiful thing!

.

Boy I was happy we had worked on recalls through the weaves and I could trust little Crickie to do her job and I did not have to babysit those silly weaves. We ran the course THREE times, with 12 poles and the third time Cricket missed the entry with the first try, but got it the second. It was like a sign from above telling me that yep, the investment we are putting in now will pay off over the long time. I was not sure because we have worked with SIX poles in the weave pole challenge and this was 12, but little smartie is understanding so much these days!

THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF THE DAY:
Yikes, not totally unexpected but Miss Cricket was a NUT around the ring. Yikes, lunging and pulling and so over stimulated by the dogs running. It did not help that the way the whole thing was set up you had to get over to the entrance of the ring and wait, and the order and what they were doing kept changing. Waiting right outside the ring when it was almost our turn was challenging and it did not help that they called and said to get in the ring, then some people just walked up and started walking the course, for about ten minutes.

HERE IS OUR VIEW OF THE RING FROM WHERE I HAD TO SIT TO WORK WITH CRICKET ON BEING CALM AROUND THE RING-We had to go out a bit far to keep her under threshold. LOL.

I was worried what would happen once Cricket got in the ring because she was so excited and over the top while we were waiting our turn, or when we were within say 2miles of the ring.

No worries, once she got in the ring she was all business. What a good girl. She held her start line stay, she was totally into the game. It was like someone flipped a switch as we walked into the ring and the over the top puppy disappeared and the working border collie appeared.

I jumped Cricket at 20 inches, which is pretty new for us, and she did pretty good....I think she is going to do ok at 20. She read a really hard serp into a very tight wrap to a front cross. She did not however read a line from the panel to the tunnel to a double at the end, it was an insane course for a novice dog and one that was hard for me to break down.

THE WHOLE THING LEFT ME A LITTLE SCARED.....SCARED I MIGHT HAVE BIT OFF MORE THEN I CAN CHEW, scared I might not be up to this challenge-Cricket is going to be quite a lot of dog ;-).

Cricket was SOOOOOOOO fast: way faster then she is in practice...she was like a speeding bullet or a racehorse...

WHILE I FELT LIKE A SWEATING TURTLE!

Wish Us Luck!

2011-06-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

Cricket and I are off today to a fun match. It is the first fun match that is not at the local club-a totally new place for her. Why did I leave packing until this morning? It is never the best plan to do that, and geeze seems like ya need a lot of crap for trialing in hot weather. ;-).

WEAVE UPDATE

It has been so cool to see all the great weaving and how great all the dogs/handlers are doing with the weaves. I hope everyone has been having fun with the training.

Dare has an awesome week 2 video-they are looking great, check out how great Marie does at running TO the thrown toy as a reward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZwYUnE9BXU&feature=uploademail

Check out Miley and Diana-look at Miley go, she really looks like she aced the first jump position!
http://4dogcraziness.blogspot.com/2011/06/weave-pole-challenge.html

How Can There Always be More to Learn About My Dog...and Myself?

2011-06-17T08:55:00.000-07:00

I think the cool thing about training/trick training/agility training is that you really see how your dog thinks, and how you communicate. I have been doing so much training with Cricket right from the start that it is suprising me to find out that I am learning even more about her learning style with the weave challenge.

It is funny because what really shows with the weaves is that we go out to work a new thing and it is always seems like a totally NEW thing-it is ugly and I think wow, this is going to take forever. Once Cricket gets anything "wrong" it really does not fix in that session-no matter how it is trained.

What I learned about me is that I want to keep repeating what we are doing until it is right. Hummm, sound a little ineffective?

The weird thing is that if I leave it alone and go do something else Cricket can be successful at, or wait until the next day...as soon as we go out there it is all MAGICALLY fixed and perfect.

I found out with the Aframe training that I do not have to control everything, really precise marking a good behavior and controlling consequences can be powerful and have its place but lately I am also learning that sometimes the dog can figure it all out-there is so much in the aframe training that I can not really go out there and show her to jump like this right here, and it happens too fast to say click the exact right thing. Our training is really feeling more and more like a partnership and I am really seeing that my little girl can really figure things out-she really amazes me the amount of thinking she must be doing.

I am seeing some of that now with the weave training. I think Cricket has a solid foundation with the weaves and really basically understands them, and now she just needs a little help to really figure out the harder entries. With just a little help she really does a good job getting it all worked out. I tend to want to break it way down, help her a lot and sometimes that is good, but sometimes just backing away and letting her have some time for it all to gel is the best way to go. WHO KNEW?

WEAVERS UPDATE

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO WITH SELINA AND TWISTER-they did an AWESOME job! Check out her blog while you are there! I am so glad Selina and Twister are working along with us. ;-).

http://mani-pap.blogspot.com/2011/06/week-1-weave-pole-challenge.html

HERE IS CRICKETS JUMP POSITION #3 VIDEO:

we had to train this one, I got out the 2x2, so I am thinking I will really need to work with the next jump position-I think we have found our holes ;-).

How about those Handstands?

2011-06-15T23:06:00.000-07:00

I am weaning off the props getting more wide open things where the dogs HAVE to pick their feet up and not climb...I think Breeze has the idea, I just wish I had not taught it with me in front so I could have her use my legs for balance. The rest of the dogs get tired fairly quickly working these, but Breeze just keeps going and going. Not the best video but I just wanted to let ya all see where it is going!

WEAVE CHALLENGE UPDATE
Yea we have got a bunch of videos and it is cool to see everyone doing so well with their weaves! I hope everyone saw the link yesterday for Dare and Marie, they look like they were doing awesome, I had added the link late so I hope it does not get missed.

Last night I got a treat when I saw Jive has done his first video, and he looks great! Jive is one of Cricket's littermates. http://jumpnjive.blogspot.com/2011/06/jive-wins-novice-agility.html

For anyone wanting to join the challenge and work on getting really solid, independent weaves the original description is at http://kathy-agilityadventures.blogspot.com/2011/06/mastering-independant-weaves-challenge.html

Basically the place most people are at is for the first week we will put a jump approximately 16 feet in front of the weaves. We then send the dogs to the weaves without leading out or going with them, from the left and right, then run with the dog trying to blast ahead of them once on the left and once with them on our right, then we rear cross the weaves from the left to the right, and then the right to the left. Last we stand facing the weaves about eight feet past the poles and call the dog so they are recalling through the weaves. Seven trials for the first jump position, so the dog is doing some weaving with handler movement, some where they just need to understand how to find the entrance without help, etc...

Week 2 we move the jump a little to the right as you look at the weaves and repeat all seven ways to do the weaves.

Week 3 we will move the jump a little to the left so offside of where the original jump on week 1 was. I drew a little picture on the first day if I am not explaining it well.

Personally we are working on position three and I am having to do a little work with 2-2x2's because all of a sudden Cricket is having a hard time when I am blasting past the poles,she wants to go with me and has a hard time understanding to tap her breaks and get in the weaves no matter what my movement is doing ;-), so guess it is good we are doing the challenge!

An Unplanned Day at the Beach!

2011-06-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was supposed to do some agility with friends. Last week I went all the way out there and left my lights on in the car, so everyone had to wait around while I waited for a tow truck to find us in the middle of an orange grove.

This week I trekked all the way out there but my directions I had printed out from map quest missed one CRITICAL turn, so I found myself almost in Sacramento. I got stuck going up the grape vine where there is apparently no way to turn around, no offramps for long periods of time and I have never been in that area. Ughghghg, my friends have to think I am such a nim rod. I was so far away that I could never make it to the field before there were other people scheduled to use it, I felt like I had been driving for days, and it is stressful not having any clue where you are....so I figured it was a good time to remember when live hands you lemons you gotta try to make lemonade.

Luckily it was close to the Contact Point Ranch, so I asked Karen if she would mind if I stopped by to work on shaping Cricket to get measured nicely with a wicket and if I could use her aframe. When we got to the ranch the sheep were being sheared, so I watched them, visited with Karen, got to say Hi to Cherry, my buddy that lived with us for quite awhile Then we went and played at the agility yard. BY THE BY......Near as I can tell even with the wicket Cricket is just right on the line of being 18 inches, sometimes I got 17 3/4, sometimes right below 18 and sometimes just scotch over 18. I think she could jump 20 nicely but it sure would be nice to have the option ;-).

When we got done at the ranch Breeze/Cricket/Liz and I headed to the beach. Is there anything that ales a person that the beach can not make better? It was hot everywhere else, but gorgeous at the beach. I did not see another person the entire time I was there, it was about as perfect as it gets.

AFRAME PROGRESS
We are now at full height and sequencing after the aframe. What Rachel Sanders says is that you sequence after the aframe first with some front crosses and pushes because when you start sequencing TOO the aframe you will have some off balance tries as the dog works to figure out how to handle their body. Well, I have seen a few of those hits where instead of landing with the first hit, getting all four feet down then pushing into the second hit of the aframe, ....Cricket sort of flies over the aframe a little too hard, ends up trying to save it and just puts her front feet down then passes her back feet past the front and sort of falls into the box. I have only seen one of two of those so I figure she is just trying to work it all out now that we are adding in more factors.
The other funny thing is the last 3 new aframes we have tried, Cricket has rushed right past the aframe like she does not see it. It is the same set up each time, and I do it in the same manner and seriously most aframes look pretty similar and are hard to miss. OOOH Cricket.
Overall I am very happy and it is going FANTASTICALLY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmQTz377dAE

WEAVE CHALLENGE:
A couple more people are up for the challenge, anyone can join anytime of course. Dare and Marie are going to take up the challenge ihttp://www.dare2train.com/2011/06/weave-pole-challenge/ and got their first jump position done and they look FANTASTIC, check out their send and Jive and Geraldine, Jive is Crickets fantastic brother who is an amazing dog-Cricket loves her brother!
Also Amber gave me critique and on the recalls she says they do them from about eight feet in front of the poles and face the poles, so ....I will have to do it that way the next time we work on them! ;-).

Cricket and her Pretty Pink Ball, it was fun for awhile...

2011-06-12T21:23:00.000-07:00

Cricket and her pink ball...just because she is so cute. I am having troule with the videos playing on the web site now, so I put the links in case they wont play from here. All of a sudden I am feeling so computer challenged-nothing feels like it is working, ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Bz8xpW-zk

WEAVE CHALLENGE UPDATE:
Anyone can jump in anytime if they want to work on their weaves, and this is a training challenge only so there should be no pressure to hurry or rush through anything, it is designed to help us see any holes in our training and give us a chance to have really independant weaves, ;-).

Pam and Twix got right to work and here is a link to their video for week 1-she even added in some distraction with her squeeker ball:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OavSk1Naz14
they got right to work and posted week 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bahMGIv1j8I

Ricky and his mom got right to work and did FANTASTIC here is a link to their blog where you can see their video:
http://rickyitsadogslife.blogspot.com/
Nat and her dogs will be joining us and Selina and her dogs-so it should be fun.

I started a week earlier so we just did the second jump position=the jump is a little to the right of the first jump. I was pretty suprised because the last test we had no problem with the recall through the weaves, but we did today. I left that in our video. We had to work through that so I will stay at this level a few more tries until I feel like we are really solid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZXqbFjhjIM

MASTERING INDEPENDANT WEAVES! A CHALLENGE!

2011-06-10T14:39:00.001-07:00

I have to admit I stole this idea, and the instructions from Amber Abbott who is from Arizona and is a FANTASTIC trainer who has great training ideas-her students are very lucky ;-). You can email me and I can hook you up with her if you want to sign up to do the challenge with her. Otherwise seems like we could informally do a challenge amongst ourselves with anyone who is interested. I am signing up with her ;-), so that makes me feel a little better about stealing the idea. The training is based on an article by Rachel Sanders from Clean Run.

I would like to do the challenge with some others, so anyone who wants to join it, just let me know. I would love if people your videos to inspire everyone else. If you don't want to post on your own blog, or don't have a blog send a link of your video to me and I can post it to my blog so everyone can take part. If you can not take video or can't video, have no friends who can video or what ever.. then just email me when you pass a level so you can get credit, see how easy it is? Everyone can play! My email is mochos@charter.net if anyone needs to ask questions, would like any help or needs to send me something. Knowing how everyone else is doing will help the rest of us keep going and make it easier for all of us to keep going. Perhaps anyone who wants to do the challenge can even post a little gift they promise themselves or their dogs if they complete the entire challenge by the end of September. If no one else wants to do it, then that is OK too, LOL, Cricket and I will be working on our awesome weaves, LOL.

I think this is something that people should work at their own pace, I like having structure so that is why a challenge is good for me to make sure I finish all the weave pole training I would like to do, it is so easy to get the weaves "good enough" and then stop, always with good intentions of coming back and finishing up the training, ya all know how that goes! So seems like a good guideline to suggest you try to do a challenge a week. That is seven handling maneuvers from a jump to the weaves with the jump staying into one place, then when your dog has got that position down, you move to the next jump position.

The Goal:
the goal is to teach our dog how to enter and finish the weaves, TOTALLY in dependant of you.

How many Weaves to use:
because you are having your dog attempt the poles many times you want to limit the poles to six poles. When your dog really understands this training then you can try the long set of poles. Also I would not do the weaves more then six times each session.

HELPFUL HINTS:
1. use toys or a target so you can reward your dog in front of you and to keep your dogs focus forward, esp on the send exercises. It is always good to run to the toy when your dog gets it and tug and play.
2. Weaves can be tough on dogs physically. Don't do too many reps and do not do this work everyday.
3. End on a positive note, in your next session repeat the last thing you ended on. You do not need to do all seven positions in one session.
4. Do not go move the jump into a next position until the dog has mastered the one they are at!
**********************************************************

HOW IT WORKS:
For the first week place one jump about 16 feet in front of your set of weaves
these are the maneuvers you will do:
1 RECALL-stand behind the poles, and call your dog over the jump. If your dog has trouble doing all six poles, just stand between the 3rd and 4rth pole and try again, rewarding when they get to you. Set the dog up again and go one pole further back, repeat until they can do all the poles.

2. RUN PAST, DOG ON LEFT-your goal is to keep a brisk pace and be ahead of your dog. You want to start with your dog at the jump then race past them while they are performing the poles.

3. RUN PAST DOG ON RIGHT-done the same as #2 just with the dog on your right.

4. REAR CROSS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT-without leading out, send your dog forward to the poles, move behind him from one side to the other with a rear cross before the weaves. KEEP YOUR SHOULDERS FACING FORWARD AS YOU MOVE.

5. REAR CROSS, DOG FROM LEFT TO RIGHT -same as #4 just cross in the opposite way.

6. SEND DOG ON LEFT
WITHOUT LEADING OUT OR MOVING FORWARD send the dog to the poles. Throw your toy as a reward, timing it so that it reaches your dog as they complete the poles, then run and play with them. If your dog is having problems, lead out to the poles (or further if needed) and release him to the poles, stand still as he passes you to complete the rest. Reward, then try again,without leading out as far.

7. SEND DOG ON RIGHT
Just the same as #6, you just start with the dog on your other side.

After your dog can EASILY do all seven maneuvers with a jump straight onto the poles you can move to jump position #2 with all seven maneuvers. Continue like the picture shows.

click on the picture to make it bigger or to print

HERE IS CRICKET/MY WEEK ONE TEST:

Broken cars...broken blogger, BUT A GOOD AFRAME!

2011-06-09T16:23:00.001-07:00

Yikes! I went to train agility yesterday with a really good friend that I have not seen in a long time, it was a red letter day, agility, Cricket and a couple of good friends ;-) how fun is that? Unfortunately, I had to drive almost 3 hours to a field in the middle of NOWHERE! The field was in the middle of an orange grove and sort of a hidden garden type of thing. Very pretty but very private.

YEP, I chose this place to forget to turn off my lights on the car while we were working (I had to drive through a couple of those day light headlight required areas on the drive there). Three hours from home, probably 20 min from a tiny town, way far away from any big towns, and have you ever tried to direct a tow truck to a location in the middle of an orange grove-there were a couple little turns to the agility yard.

I was really sweating it because my friends had jumper cables but we had not been able to jump my car with our cars, I was really worried the tow truck was not going to be able to jump the car, I was having trouble coming up with a Plan B if the car would not start this far from home and with the dogs in the car on a hot summer day-but it was all good in the end.

My car used to have the little warning "bing" if I left the lights on, but that is not working now ;-(, and no one tells you if your lights are on anymore because so many cars automatically turn the lights off. I unfortunately don't have one of those, LOL!

BLOGGER WOES...my gripe of the day-
The real irritant in my life right now is blogger! First off I do not know what the deal is, but blogger started not letting me sign in to leave comments in a lot of peoples blogs, ughghghggh. How irritating is that? What happens is that it tells me I need to sign in, then it brings me back to the blog, then it tells me I need to sign in and it is a never ending cycle. Sometimes I can use my lifejournal account to sign in and sometimes not, just to keep it interesting. Sometimes I can sign in under an open ID and sometimes not. The really irritating moment was when I wanted to sign in and make a comment in my own blog and I can not do that, LOL. So there are a lot of posts I have been dying to make comments on, but just can not get signed in, so if I have been reading and enjoying, it is just a challenge to comment sometimes ;-).

AFRAME
If I could have commented on my own blog, I would have commented about Cynthia's comment and say that what she said hit the nail on the head, a good running contact does take a long time to train, and I it has held us up from being able to trial doing standard courses. Rachel Sanders (whose method we are using) says that if you are REtraining you can go ahead and compete while you are retraining, just try to not do too many aframes in competition on any day while you are retraining. I am not sure that applies to a new train, and I would not do it... A 2020 would have been a lot quicker train, but I could have started a lot earlier training this then I did. I was wishy washy for awhile trying to make a final decision on what I was going to do with my contacts. So length of training is definitely a consideration but I knew that when I started and that was ok with me ;-). Now I have been promised that once you get it,....it is pretty easy to maintain so....hopefully that is so.

A red letter day for us!!! We started the next step of this aframe odyssey. I moved the aframe from 5'3"to 5'5" and added in some handling after the aframe. So I did one trial standing still in the front corner of the box, I did a push past from the left, a push past from the right, one poorly done front cross and one good front cross. We had a 100% success rate and all of a sudden this does not even feel like the same exercise, it is more fun with the movement and it just feels like something has clicked-VERY EXCITING for me!
As always do not feel anyone has to watch this, it is just exciting for me and I can not get enough! LOL, what a dork huh?

Aframe Obsessions.....

2011-06-08T06:54:00.001-07:00

MY AFRAME OBSESSION LIVES!!! (but it is getting a little old!)
It is my theory that anyone who has TRAINED a running contact...(as opposed to if you have a dog that has always "naturally" ran through their contact because they naturally run through -the running contact is built in, or you know how to manage so they do it) goes through a little obsessive phase.

WHO KNEW there could be so much to think about even if you were looking for things to think about...lots of thinking about all the little components, dogs strides, how their back feet look as they run-together or split, watching other peoples videos, watching your own videos of your own practice, reading about other peoples journey with running contacts, etc...LOL, my poor family and friends and poor people who visit my blog ;-). All this obsession and I have not got to the part of how to train exits and how to go to the next obstacle, I am sure that will be a whole new area for us. I am getting really ready to move on to the next stage and get this Aframe all put together. We had a big set back a few weeks ago and had to go back to the start,but you know what they say it is always darkest before the light, and they were probably not talking about aframes, but...that saying works for those too! Now I just feel like things are clicking and it is time to shift from slow and careful to HYPERDRIVE. It is very exciting!

I moved the aframe up 7 inches in two practice sessions, we are FINALLY at 5 ft 3-almost at full height. I am soooo excited that we had a 89% success rate, so we can move the aframe up another few inches at our next practice, how cool is that? The one trial that was not successful in our last practice was when I did a different entrance to the aframe which I was not supposed to do. I think Cricket got off balance and on try three she set her foot down on top of the apex, so not her fault she just was not ready for that entrance challenge and it caught her off balance-but she almost made that one too.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT WE ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO DO THIS!
Do not feel you have to watch this, this is part of my obsession and my feelings will not be hurt if you choose to pass on this ;-). If you do watch, check out trial 3...not successful. I had given Cricket a bad entry, which I am not supposed to do yet, she does not yet know how to balance herself with a harder entry, so on the top of the apex she sets her right front foot down-I never saw that even watching the slow motion-Brittney her breeder saw that-and it totally explains why she had to put her foot down before the box, what a miracle she is smart enough to figure it out and even being a little off balanced she was so close to that being a good hit.

This has totally been worth it to train a running aframe because I really am learning a lot, and I have a lot of thoughts on the good and bad of this method--I can not wait to see if my opinion changes as we head into the next phase, and as we get to start competing and see how this baby holds up! It is still aways away, but the end is getting in sight!

As tired as I am of training this, I am already thinking I know someone who I am pretty positive will let me borrow one of their dogs, hummm....and when I get Cricket trialing.., maybe I could borrow a dog to try to to see how I could do trying this another time with the benefit of knowing where I messed up the first time. ;-) Wouldn't that be fun to do with the benefit of some recent hindsight? LOL, see there is an obsessive quality to this training...at least for me. Hummmm....something to think about.....hahahahahahaha

Experiences and Some Thoughts on Contacts!

2011-06-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

OUR AFRAME: I LOVE training challenges and trying to teach new things. I think that is one of the reasons why I wanted to train the 4 on the floor with Breeze for her contacts. I did not know anyone who had trained the 4 on the floor and I learned so much by teaching it, some of which has helped with the aframe we are doing now, some has helped with our 2020 we are teaching now, although we had a lot of detours with Breezes four on the floor contact.. I love Breezes contacts now. Learning by trial and error really does make the whole thing take longer. I will say that in the back of my mind up until now....I was worried that we would never get a decent running aframe, but all of a sudden I feel a new found confidence, and inside I no longer have doubts that we will get a good running aframe, now I can focus my worry on wondering if I will learn how to handle speedy Crickets running aframe ;-).

When it came time to teach Cricket some sort of contact behavior I could not resist the challenge of trying to teach a running contact on the aframe. I liked the idea of the challenge of learning to handle a course with a running aframe which I **HOPE** is doable, but it will be different from our stopped contacts of course. One instructor told me she would not recommend teaching a running aframe with a dog unless it had a "natural stride", she did not know how I would accomplish a running aframe with a border collie, either how to teach it or how to reward it or how to handle it, so of course I had to try it after that comment.

I got the Rachel Sanders Running Aframe DVD, I signed up for the Yahoo Running Contact list, and I trolled through youtubes to watch videos of other peoples training. I was suprised at all the things you had to think about, training the dog to handle turns because they will not be stopped to give you a chance to get there to handle that say if they need to turn back and go into a tunnel, it is really important where their focus is, I learned that if Cricket is paying too much attention to me she will leap off the side way too high because she is looking at me, I learned that if she sets one foot down too high she is likely to quickly to start to launch right over the contact. The other thing that is suprising is how fast it can all unravel if you do not really stick to all your criteria and evaluate what is going on.

The biggest thing I would recommend to someone thinking about running contacts is to video as much as you can, so you can really see what is happening. Recently I had a session that I thought we had a 100% success rate, I looked at the video and found that Cricket had CONSISTENTLY stuck her left front foot down on the aframe, it was happening because she had started not going far enough over the apex and so she was starting to lose her stride into the contact zone. Luckily I saw that quickly and Brittney (Cricket's breeder)helped me figure out what was going on so I could put a stride regulator (a pool noodle on pvc so I can attack it to the aframe).

We are back on track now and cooking (I think, LOL). It is all looking really good now and we have had several sessions where things are looking GREAT. For the most part I really like this method of Aframe training, although I would really like to try Sylvia Trkmans method of training a running contact,....maybe with my next dog????

I know it really seems like we are taking forever, Crickets brother did this method and has been competing for awhile, the just seemed to zip through it and has a gorgeous aframe, but guess Cricket and I do everything a little slower then some ;-) ... even if we are slow, TEAM CRICKET is going to get there and I am confident it will be beautiful so who cares if we are taking the scenic route to get there? I am doubting how much better it is for the dogs joints from a 2020, just because of the sheer number of repetitions I have had to do to teach it, ....way more then I thought,although Rachels method is supposed to limit the number of reps you need. Maybe the number of reps I have needed is related to the mistakes I made, maybe next time I would not have to do as many?

DOG WALK CONTACTS: We have been playing a lot of games with the dog walk contacts. I stuck a board on a stool in the hall and when we are rough housing I run down the hall, dodging the dogs and cats and Cricket jumps on the board and runs into position. I also moved my baby dog walk to the gate going out to the agility yard. Cricket LOVES going into the agility yard, it is one of her highest value treats, so a couple of times a day we run to the gate and play the touch game, she runs into position and then I release her into the yard to go do some training for a few minutes. I really want Cricket to understand the position and to think the position on the contact is a very fun thing ;-) .

contact board and aframe practice, and it is a red letter video,....my 150th posted video! Whooo hoooo!

I know watching other peoples aframe videos of the same thing over and over are not very exciting unless someone is doing the same training now...but if anyone wants to watch any of our other videos they are on my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/bordergirlsmom

Cricket goes to school...

2011-06-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

Cricket got to go to agility class last night. I was not sure where our skills would be...and I had planned to do at LEAST half the class with Breeze.

Cricket actually did really well, and except for one near death incident, when I thought I could get ahead and do a front cross...(in my dreams could I get ahead, LOL) so we did crash-I even caught that on tape! Luckily I managed to stay upright so it was all good. I imagine poor Crickets life was flashing before her eyes too, LOL. OOOH forgot the other bad moment when I was getting ahold of Cricket at the ed of a run and the next gal started running...Cricket got away and chased her dog on course, yep, Cricket is pretty stimulated by other dogs running. Luckily that ended well too.

The last run of the night I ran with Breeze, it was so weird running with a baby dog all night then bringing Breeze out who I now realize is a pretty experienced dog, she turns so tightly and reads me so well....what a dream girl! I have to admit after tonight I really think Cricket is a dream girl too. Not sure she thinks I am a dream handler after tonight, sorry Crick.

The classes at our local club are CRAZY though, we started at 7:30 and finished at 10:30-how is that possible? I did not get home until 11:10, it was a long night. One of the lights was out at the yard, and it was pitch black, even with the shadows and working at night which is a first for her, Cricket was not thrown by anything, what a good girlie!

THE COURSES:a lot of running,...you can click on the map and it will enlarge so you can read the numbers ;-) if you are interested.

THE VIDEO:not the best video, I did not get most of our work, but gosh a few sequences to give you and idea and for me to look back on in years ahead to remember how my baby girl is. It was pitch black, so the video was a bit hard to see so I adjusted the colors, so it has a weird look, sorry about that. The dog barking is not my dog for a change-I have been known to have the barking dog on more then one occasion.

A super easy trick taken on the road

2011-05-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone is having a great Memorial day weekend.

The dogs and I have all been working hard on completing our assignments for the Sylvia Trkman Puppy 2 class. For awhile it seemed we were hopelessly behind but all of a sudden we are almost caught up. One of the tricks we were assigned is closing doors and drawers-a good prep for teeter work. This was one of the EASIEST tricks we have done. We just started with a paw touch to a rubber spatula, then held the spatula to the door once the paw touch was really strong. A few times of touching their paw to the door and closing it-all three dogs had got the idea. It is the only trick I can think of that was easy for all three of the dogs, usually a trick may easy for one or two dogs...but will be difficult for the other dog ;-).

We were also assigned doing tricks in new places. It is always fun to combine assignments and this gave us the chance to see if the dogs were generalizing the task to all sorts of drawers and doors different then the ones at home, and it gave us a chance to work with different distractions. The home center employees are always great to my dogs and did not have a problem with letting the dogs close the cabinets.

Working on Handstands!

2011-05-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

We have not finished training a handstand but we are getting there. The handstand was one of the tricks that we are doing as part of the Sylvia Trkman Puppy 2 class we are doing now. It is funny I am doing the course with all three dogs and as usual ...all the dogs learn so differently. Each dog has tricks that come easy to them and tricks that do not come so easily. Breeze is definitely the best with handstands-who would figure that with her back. Cricket is catching up and does pretty good. Liz is working with backing onto a small pillow, LOL, she is so far behind it is not funny.

I started doing this trick before the ST course by backing onto a board resting against a wall. I even painted the board with sand so it was non slip. A few weeks into the course Sylvia says to another person that working on a slanted board does not work as well because the dogs have a tendency to walk up the board and you want to encourage them to push both feet up at the same time, like a hop. DUH, wish I knew that to start out with-I was sort of doing all the wrong things, hahaha. When I read that helpful advice I started over again, first rewarding a 2o2o position, then when called off they naturally hopped back into position. From there I just kept finding higher and higher things for them to hop their back feet onto. The chairs or cat tree work well because they do not encourage climbing up with the back feet. It has been a fun trick and I hope we see it through to the point where we can fade the props. We have a good start ;-).

Here is Cricket just because she gets into her handstand practice and does not want to stop, LOL. She really is such a character.

Old Partnerships and New Teams

2011-05-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

It was a red letter day I had someone who could video Cricket and I actually doing agility. I had so much fun with Cricket at a fun match this weekend. Running a baby dog is so much fun....poor Cricket is trying to figure out what she can trust me to do and I am trying to figure out how much to just let her go and how much support and help she needs ;-), it is all new and feels so different..a new relationship.

I did not particularly like the course that was set up, it had some weird angles for novice dogs I thought and the only weaves you could do were a set of 6 with 21 in spacing, so I had to sort of make my own course so that we went to the set of weaves with the 24 in spacing..Cricket did great. The first run felt disjointed and I was just nervous and not sure what to expect ;-), I imagine Cricket was feeling the same about me, LOL. The funniest thing was we just started doing the broad jump a day or two ago, and I have not sequenced the dog walk, so I was going to do the broad jump and then stop and reward...sit Cricket in front of the dog walk and probably just take her to the down ramp and release her to her 2020 from there. Well, baby dog Cricket did the broad jump and read where we were going and she just ran up that dog walk like no ones business. She got to the top and it looked like it hit her that she was doing the dog walk, I don't think she was sure it was ok because I was behind her.

I wish I had got video of Breeze. I really had to alter that course so she did not do weaves, but she got the most gorgeous contacts, she was running faster then I have ever seen her run, she was so happy and excited. She was reading lines, it almost made me cry how wonderful it felt-like we were an old couple that just knows each others every thought. The contrast in running a baby dog and running a partner of a long time was really striking I remember how much fun it is to run Breeze, just sucks she will not be able to do much trialing.

CRICKET IS TRULY THE BEST DOG, LOVE MY GIRL, AND SHE CUDDLES TOO!

Doing things at a Snails Pace...doing things slowly

2011-05-20T17:22:00.001-07:00

LOL, lately I feel a lot of pressure with my progress toward my goal with Cricket. No one else is putting the pressure on me, but gosh I feel like a Loser with a capital L because we are not trialing yet. We could in all honesty do some jumpers runs...I think it would go pretty well, probably much better then I imagine. My Aframe is taking FOREVER, we are marching forward and progressing but definitely at a snails pace. I am happy with what we have but boy I know I have not put that on the fast track. Crickets brothers are trialing and doing fantastic, but we crawling around at our own pace.

WHY? Why does it always feel like we are a bit behind? Hey we are really making some hugely amazing progress with LOTS of tricks, and lots of foundation exercise, I really am loving the Sylvia Trkman puppy class even though we are a bit behind even with that,... I am working on all three dogs and working on quite a few easy things and it seems like a lot of hard things. Some tricks surprise me when we can get them in one session and some tricks look so easy to me....but then it takes us forever to get them done, LOL.

None of this bothers me so much that I shifted into the fast track, I still just really want to savor our training and our relationship and have fun. It is the pace I am enjoying, but I still feel guilt, guilt for not being more driven. It is almost summer and to start trialing right now....most likely I will end up at trials in the middle of the summer sun....I remember one of the last trials I did with Breeze, the one she was injured in--it was 118 degree heat wave and we ran at 1:30 pm three days in a row,it was not fun.

So I LOVED reading this from the daily OM that was in my email today--such appropriate timing. Anyway, you can call me slow, you can call me lazy, but I feel like I am in hyperdrive toward some other goals,...it feels like my goal SHOULD be to hurry and get trialing with the AMAZING CRICKSTER...but guess I really want to explore a lot of other training and that has sort of taken over -but I really hate that I feel guilty about how time seems to be flying by.. ;-) .. is so silly because who besides me even cares what we are up to? LOL. So I am sure not cutting down any of the people out there that are working hard and will have their dogs trialing the day they are eligible,....I am envious of those people and maybe with my next puppy ;-), but for now -guess we have our own little pace and as long as we are having fun....guess that is the whole point of dog training as a hobby...having a good time with your dog.

http://www.dailyom.com/

Take time to slow down, rushing never gets you anywhere but on to the next activity or goal.

Life can often feel like it’s zipping by in fast forward. We feel obliged to accelerate our own speed along with it, until our productivity turns into frenzied accomplishment. We find ourselves cramming as much activity as possible into the shortest periods of time. We disregard our natural rhythms because it seems we have to just to keep up. In truth, rushing never gets you anywhere but on to the next activity or goal.

Slowing down allows you to disconnect from the frenzied pace buzzing around you so you can begin moving at your own pace. The moments we choose to live in fast forward motion then become a conscious choice rather than an involuntary action. Learning to slow down in our fast-moving world can take practice, but if you slow down long enough to try it, you may surprise yourself with how natural and organic living at this pace can be.

I am sure the rest of the article can be read at the link-but you get the idea of what they were saying

;-).

MORE AFRAME PRACTICE: I AM CONFIDENT WE WILL GET IT ONE DAY ;-)

CAVALETTIS: Sylvia Trkman said she included Cavalettis because the dog needs to step over the obstacle one leg by one thinking about where his feet are in relation to the object. Jumping would be very easy but your goal is stepping over obstacles of different heights and different distances. A nice rear leg exercise and is especially good for dogs who run with their hind feet close together-which helps with running contacts if you are teaching those. Cavalettis teach the dog to move more efficiently and smoother.

Cavalettis are one of the things Breeze should work on, it was on her list of rehab exercises. I like Sylvia's idea of using boxes or bowls, or what ever, it makes it very portable and easy to change the spacing. Just a quick video of Cricket working on hers. ;-)
CRICKET WORKING ON CAVALETTIS FOR SYLVIA TRKMANS PUPPY CLASS ;-)

Liz and Breeze are also working on Cavalettis but they are sort of a mess--but that brings me back to the start of this post--I will embrace the journey :-)!

Getting to know my dogs gaits, and ZOOM

2011-05-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

Not really a trick for tricky Thursdays, but one of the homework assignments for Sylvia Trkmans running contacts was to video your dog running-what a great idea it seems that would have to help with really getting to know my dogs gait-and to have something to look back on if I am not sure if she could have any gait changes in the future.

Another of our homework assignments was really fun-we were supposed to get our dog running as fast as we could and make sure they were really excited and happy and then use a word....I am going to condition "zoom" so that when the border collies hear that word they get excited and run faster! ;-). I think it was working because when I was editing the video Cricket heard me saying ZOOM and she ran into the room with her ball, she is so cute!

I did the same thing with Breeze, esp. with the things that have been going on with her back...to me I thought I would see more changes, I think she looks a tad stiffer toward the end...but not too bad considering. I wish the video was better, but my daughter was trying to figure out the camera, so I will have to redo this on another day.

Aframe training marches on...

2011-05-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

We had a small victory yesterday...

I got to go to a new place to train, a really nice girl invited us over and we were able to practice the Aframe..so with a new place we were able to add in a few new variables:

New Variables added yesterday:
1. A new person standing and watching her do the Aframe-(like a judge would do)
2. Totally different footing-this was a shredded bark like mulch.
3. Totally new Aframe-this was an Aluminum Aframe which sounded and I am sure felt totally different- (mine is a fiberglass Aframe which has a fair amount of bounce)
4. The aframe was raised several inches-I think this one was about 5 feet
5. I started Cricket further back, I think I have been starting her too close to the Aframe at home.
BY GEORGE I THINK CRICKET IS GENERALIZING HER AFRAME PERFORMANCE!

RESULT-
It looked good, my friend was impressed ;-), the only problem is that I keep seeing Cricket slightly ticking the PVC box with her foot....if the box was gone it would be fine, if the box was not still slightly raised I would not see it either, so I am not sure what to do about it. I put in a 911 email to Brittney Crickets breeder about her thoughts when I got home (she has been helping me with some of the finer points of learning the Aframe during this adventure) It was funny to start with I am not sure Cricket understood this was an aframe and I had put her further back then I do at home....she ran around the aframe a few times, but once she figured out it was the same thing we had been working on, she knew just what to do.

THE MOST EXCITING PART
WE ALMOST HAVE A REAL AFRAME PERFORMANCE-we are getting close to having a real, live, full fledged AGILITY DOG!!!!! WHOOOOOO HOOOOOO!

A little less exciting but still has me doing the HAPPY DANCE is that it is an hour to drive to my friends house...but she has a good eye and wants to work together-working through some Linda M exercises, do some of the recall games and put together some sequences for Cricket. SHE EVEN USES THE LINDA M HANDLING-we are all on the same page! She has a great yard with a lot of room and since she takes privates with Rachel Saunders- she has suggested car pooling to RS's for privates (RS is about 4 hours from here).

After we worked yesterday I went over to Natures Farmacy West http://naturesfarmacywest.com/StoreFront.bok where I buy the dogs supplements...one of our assignments for the Sylvia Trkman puppy class is going to a public place and train. I asked if I could do some training in the store-they are super nice - so I was able to get in a really great training session which went really well. How nice of them to be so accommodating.

GREAT THINGS THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY
Great conversation and lots of dog talk..
Great progress toward our Aframe goal...
A good plan for future progress...
Even though it was busy I got my homework done...always a good thing!

How Bizarre

2011-04-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

ASHE AND PIXIE AFTER A ROUGH NIGHT KEEPING ME AWAKE WITH THEIR PLAYING:

I have to say it feels so weird today....I have been alone and have the house all to myself. That does not happen very often but my husband took the girls to San Diego so my youngest daughter can go to a swim camp. I have been home taking care of the zoo. Kimmie the cat got outside last night and I could not find her for a long time,... I would have been dog meat with the kids if they were off for the weekend and I lost their cat-I was SO relieved when I finally found her. Kimmie is not allowed outside but sometimes she gets DETERMINED to get outside-laying in wait for the door to open so she can dash out. The kittens Ashe and Pixie were little terrors all night running all over my face and wrestling next to me while I was trying to sleep. I wonder if they do that every night?

Emma's swim clinic is at the San Diego University. I can not believe how self confident and focused she can be, and she was very excited to go to the clinic even though she will not know anyone and it will be a totally new environment. The clinic is for sharpening up turns-which is something that she has been working on....and how to get a little more speed. It sounds totally cool but the kids will swim about 4-5 hours today, have lunch and go to the college bookstore. It is really cute how they seem to treat the kids like the little athletes they are. I love being able to watch Emma do something she seems so focused about and has such fun doing and watching her gain a so much confidence.

I am just tickled pink Emma got to go and that she has found something that she really seems to like. It is really cute because when we are leaving practices there are always a couple of kids that will come up to us and tell her how fast she is or that she should be doing some swim meets, it just seems like a great little group that all seem very supportive of everyone, I think the coaches are pretty strict about everyone working together and not forming cliches or not supporting their team mates. It is suprising how Emma has never complained about all the work and is now talking about wanting to get ready to actually compete in some swim meets.

If Breeze can not do agility....perhaps we can join the circus, LOL!

2011-04-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Breeze is too funny, I wanted to work on pivoting on the bowl. The way this was supposed to go was Breeze would put her front feet on the bowl and then walk her back feet in a circle with the front feet on the bowl. Breeze remembers we were working on putting four feet IN a bowl, so guess she thought this was a variation of that trick. The balancing is really hard for Breeze when she has to get all her feet so close on a small area, she knows what to do it is just physically challenging, sweet Breeze is willing to try anything if there is the promise of a ball to play with ;-).

On the personal front, I went to one of those hair cutting places where you get who ever is there to cut your hair. I had no waiting but after the guy started cutting my hair.... he says it had been a slow day and he had been in the back watching videos on youtube before I got there. As he is cutting my hair he says he had seen a video showing some sort of technique for cutting hair and he was wondering why they had done it like that but he said it was working really well and he liked it. WHAT??? He was trying something he had seen on youtube and was not sure what the purpose of the technique was. YIKES, I have to say it all made me a bit nervous. It did not help when I said I wanted a little layering in the front and he was doing some heavy duty layering in the back, but once he cut a few cuts and I realized how much he was layering, what was the point of complaining, I figured at least we should make it all even. LOL, not to worry the hair cut seems OK, but it was a bit of a scary experience.

VISITORS!

2011-04-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

We had visitors on Saturday. It was a real bordercollie palooza! Pam came to visit with Bandit and Twix. Pam is a friend that I met after seeing her videos posted on youtube. She lives a couple of hours away so it was so neat that she drove all the way up here to visit with us.
http://www.youtube.com/user/IsabelleBandit
http://www.youtube.com/user/pamelamarxsen

It was a fantastic day,the dogs all got along wonderfully and had the best time. I had a great time too, it was great company. Pam brought some frisbees-my dogs have not really played with frisbees but they thought those were a lot of fun.

Lizzie suprised me the most because she usually tends to just hang out on her own and not really play with other dogs. Well she LOVED the dogs and really loved Twix,she was really flirting with him, but then he is pretty handsome. It was really cute how much she really liked playing with Pam who taught her a few freestyle moves. I was really suprised at how much Liz liked doing the freestyle moves, we just might have to explore that a little.

So how often do you just get to hang out for an afternoon in beautiful weather talking dogs? LOL, it was right up my alley.

Pam made a video of the dogs playing and check out how much fun they were all having.

just a little practice...

2011-04-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

I have not worked on verbal "rights" and "lefts" in awhile, so I was impressed Cricket remembers so well. One of the assignments for the Sylvia Trkman course to shape four feet in a smaller and smaller bowl-well it as taken us a long time to almost get there, all three of my dogs were moving slow with this trick, but it is soooooo close now ;-)
.

Running Aframes and Running Shoes

2011-04-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

The NEW shoes that make me run faster and jump higher! (at least it feels that way, LOL)

I kept reading what some people said about the Vibram Five Fingers shoes, so when I was at the REI store, I had to check them out. I LOVE going barefoot and I had heard Dr. Oz talk on TV about how good they are for foot health. Everyone who talks about them says they love them, when I tried them on- they felt marvelous so I went ahead and bought a pair.

I got the model that said it is for trail type uses, the sales person said this type is a good choice for your first pair of Vibrams because they are easier to adjust to. There was a little less BRIGHTLY colored pair that was tan and maroon-which would not have been as obvious, but my arch is just a little too high for those to fit well, so yep, I got a bright cornflower blue and yellow pair. I think these will get noticed,...probably noticed a lot more then I would have liked, LOL.

I got my shoes home and did have some pangs of remorse thinking I might be a little embarrassed to wear these to class or a trial the first few times....I know I am far from being a teenager and can imagine people wondering who I am trying to fool, and wondering if I really think I can fool people into thinking I am really running, hehehehe, but I have to say they are really comfortable.

I am sure everyone has seen little kids when they get a new pair of shoes and they swear they can jump way higher then before and they fly like the wind because of their new shoes.....LOL, well, that is how I felt. I really could move a lot better and for the first time since the hamstring injury I could really run, or my version of running. So guess people can laugh, because they feel great and I like my new shoes!

I know these are made with a little thicker sole or something then some of the Vibram models but it is freaky--it feels like I am barefoot but I have taken them through the pile of rocks, and the dirt and it feels like I am running barefoot but I can not feel the rocks and stickers. Whooo hooo! I am LOVING THEM!

AFRAME-
I started teaching Cricket a running aframe with the Rachel Saunders box method,...a long time ago. It all started out marvelously, but over time we started having problems. What was happening was that Cricket would be pretty much perfect on the grids but on the Aframe kept ticking the box with her foot. The criteria for this method of learning the Running Aframe is that-
1. For Cricket she is easily able to do two hits on the aframe on the way down, so that is her criteria.
2. All four feet need to hit inside the box, and there should be a pounce into the box
3. No foot is to touch the PVC box
4. Most importantly you should NEVER reward the dog just hitting the aframe once on the way down, even if the hit is in the yellow.
5. The dog should have minimal looking at the handler or checking in-this was the criteria that I was not sticking to enough and I think it was the reason Cricket was hitting higher on the Aframe then I would like, and she was ticking the PVC.

I tried to fix our problems working with grids on the ground...and placing the reward out front instead of throwing it. We had a lot of problems with that, so more training so we could do that, and it felt like this would never work out, but HEY, CHECK IT OUT, I think we are on the right track now!!! We are running an 87.5% success rate over the last three sessions, so we might even be ready to move on to the next step. FINALLY. The video is nothing excited but if you want you can check out our progress, if not just trust me it is looking better.

Considering this aframe is with me moving a lot while Cricket is doing her aframe, I have moved the box lower on the aframe and I am able to move in many different positions-we have had a couple of big steps forward in our training..., by George I think we are going to get it.

A little training idea...not my idea but I like it!

2011-04-18T06:19:00.000-07:00

Susan Garrett/Lynda Orton-Hill mentioned a thought about training our dogs that I found intrigueing. Their point was that in training (and I suspect in a lot of things in life in general) we practice/do the things we are really good at-we play to our strengths. Those are the things we find the most fun, the most rewarding because we do them well and want to repeat. We end up doing the same things over, and over, and over. Of course the problem is that our weaknesses and the small holes in our training do not get as much work, and the dog ends up bored doing our same go to behaviors all the time.

The suggestion was that you put down all your little training games, for example the 1-2-3 game, your restrained recalls, your crate games worked around distractions, maybe paw touches to a target, fast sits/downs at a distance, what ever little foundation behaviors should be revisited on a regular basis...put each one on a card and then put the cards in a baggie. When you go to train just draw a card at random from the baggie and work on what ever that card says. I deceided it sounded like a good idea, so I made about forty cards, I used most of the games from the SG recall course since most of those are nice foundation games, and made a few cards for some games that seem really important to play more frequently.

I think part of the reason going to a class or doing something like the SG recallers course, or the Sylvia Trkman elessons ends up being so great is just that someone else gives me a list of things to work on that might not be things I would remember to work on if left by myself-so I am hoping the cards work the same way and help my dogs and I keep our skills more up to date and our training time more fun and fresh.

Of course because I have a little OCD type behavior sometimes, I had to take my cards, write the game on one side, the other side has a few words to remind me of how to play the game, and of course I had to put some cute dog stickers on my cards, LOL. You can never have too many decorations on anything now can you?

OUR WEEKEND
We had a great weekend. Saturday Cricket got to go to a fun match- she ran a full course and did really terrific. The course had a lot of different skills from what we have been practicing, so it was really helpful by pointing out a few key areas to work on. OOOH and by the by....might be nice to teach the poor baby dog the broad jump. You would think since I have a dvd from Mary Ellen Barry about that...and have looked forward to teaching it, it would be something we would have done by now.. but this is our third time she has seen it and run right over the top-BAD TRAINER. The other things that we need to work on are helping Cricket understand me converging on her line. The great thing was Cricket was nailing some really hard fast weave entries and we really were communicating suprisingly well.

Breeze and I needed a little time together after last weeks news-so we went to visit and watch the DART USDAA test trial on Sunday. It was fun hanging around and seeing some of our trial buddies that we don't see that often now that we have not been trialing. Last week we had some snow flurries here in So. CA, but this week it was blazing hot. YIKES, the first few hot days are rough!

Who said life is fair?

2011-04-14T17:15:00.001-07:00

Breeze comes from a pretty impressive family. At AKC agility nationals the owner of Breezes dad-Tracy Golden- won the 24 in class with Breezes half brother Blink. Breezes littermate Zing! owned by Gabrielle Blackburn won second in the 20 in class....Breezes Aunt Quick, and her aunt Driven have both had awesome careers. Breeze has the drive, the desire and she is so much fun to train and run in agility so todays visit to the vet was a hard one and felt just plain unfair ;-(.

Breeze was injured last summer doing weave poles and we took a very long break from the weaves- we have had regular laser treatments, chiro appointments, and lots of conditioning games. But once again it is really looking like Breeze just can not physically do the weaves without hurting herself. Even doing minimal reps of the weaves has ended up with her not able to do the weaves again. About three or four poles into the weaves she can not keep turning her back left and right to get around the poles, and she starts crashing into the poles-and looks like she just can not make it to turn before she crashes into the next pole- usually her hip gets hung up on the poles- she has bent a bunch of poles- When I see her do it it is obvious it is not a training issue but a physical issue. It might not be so bad if Breeze did the weaves slowly, Breeze doesn't do anything slow ;-).

Today my vet said that she does not feel that Breeze's back can handle the weaves and that she has come to the conclusion that this is not something that she feels is going to get better. With nine months of rest, treatments and exercise, she feels that if it was going to get better it should have had plenty of time by now. She said I could look into other treatments, or go to other people for more opinions to help but she has run out of things that she thinks will help. The vet said she feels Breeze could do agility runs without weaves ...

Of course Breezes long term soundness is the most important thing, and we have all known this day would be come sooner or later so when the vet was talking to me....I was pretty calm and agreed with her, we talked about other options for Breeze, and it all felt fine.

I got out to the car and all of a sudden it just did not feel real. I was having a hard time even thinking about it or trying to process the whole situation. I think I was afraid to think about it because I know I would have started bawling and getting home would have been hard. It had seemed we might be at this point a few times before...but Breeze has always rallied and we have had a reprieve. Breeze is just such an awesome dog to do agility with... and she loves working so much...I just wish all this had not happened to her-it feels so sad to think of giving up and moving on.

I think right now the plan is to keep conditioning her and maybe think about doing some USDAA jumpers, maybe some gamblers and just not do the weaves, maybe some NADAC tunnelers for fun and we can always do lots of tricks at home. I will take her in to get some xrays of her back although the vet said she just does not feel like they will give us any answers, but I guess it is a way to rule a few things out. My vet says that where her injury is seems to be in a place that is very difficult to isolate and exercise to overcome the weakness. I think it will take a few days of sitting and thinking about the whole situation to really accept a new plan. I know after things sink in I will remind myself that I am blessed and lucky that Breeze will be able to live a pretty normal life and is generally pretty comfortable-and she can still play, I am lucky it is just the weaves she can not do, it really could be a whole lot worse. Today it just feels pretty bad.

This was the last time Breeze was able to do the weaves, this was just last month and this time she was able to do them for a week or two before she started having problems again....It is just not looking good for her to stay sound for more then a few weeks. Watching this such a short time ago really makes it hard to really believe...

Breeze with the Spring Flowers

2011-04-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

The California Poppy Field Preserves April 10, 2011
PHOTOS BY KAREN MOUREAUX-thanks so much Karen!

Today Breeze was the special doggie of the day-she was chosen to go on a special girls day out adventure!

First we went over to Leona Valley for a herding trial, a place I have never been. I had a heck of a time even figuring out even the general are the town was at, much less how to get there. We got there in time to watch a lot of duck herding, which seems so tedious and hard, and one duck even got hurt, which means...the owner of the dog had to buy the duck, YIKES, I do not think that is something I am going to take up anytime soon, but it was fun to watch. The ducks were very smart and did not want to move away from the gate where they get let out at the end of the run, they were tough ducks. Breeze was a little miffed that we just went to watch, she wanted to show everyone how herding is done-it has been awhile since she saw sheep and she knows it is high time to get back to herding.

I have only been to a handful of herding trials, but they seem much smaller and definately a different 'vibe' then agility trials. This was a very small trial and there had to be less then 20 people total there, just a handful of dogs. Within minutes of being there, the person who owns the ranch had come up and got my name and introduced himself, a lady who is involved in the Border Collie club had asked if I would like an application to join, I had met a few people that I ended up hanging around with for the rest of the trial, it was a very friendly crowd. Before I left the person who owns the ranch came up again and asked if I had any questions and gave me his card, web site address, etc..

Karen who is Breeze's breeder was there. Breeze has not seen Karen in at least a couple of months and it was so funny because Breeze was whining and crying and would not leave Karen alone. Geeze Louise, Karen does not feed Breeze, she does not throw the ball for her....but she gets that reaction? I have never seen Breeze act that way for me. I guess she LOVES her original Momma. After the trial Karen was kind enough to suggest going to see the California Poppy fields and getting a few pictures of Breeze. I LOVE them and I can see a floating frame for four photos to hang in the hallway with my dog pictures.

A Little Bit of then...and some Now

2011-04-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

I truly love all my dogs, but Cricket and I have worked so much and so hard together from day one and that really has really made us such great friends-there is something about the bond you get when you work that much with any creature. I can not say enough about this little girl. So anyway.....this is our favorite recall game which was on the agenda for our ecourse yesterday. I had to throw super special treats so Cricket would go away from me.

The only thing I regret is that Cricket is about a year and a half old, dogs just do not live long enough and I am having so much fun with her that it makes me sad that a year and a half of our time has flown-it has gone so fast. I would like to be on this journey with her forever. How Corny is that? It might be Corny but Cricket has me wrapped around her paw-she keeps me smiling and laughing no matter what else is going on. How can you not love a dog who can do that?

Another first for the Crickster!

2011-04-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

It must be spring fever, but it feels like we are finally shifting into high gear here. Our recalls are looking good and we are having a blast with the Susan Garrett course, because it is the second time around it is so much easier to take the games to the next level and we aren't struggling with the mechanics of the games, so we just get to have fun.

The Sylvia Trkman puppy course is a little intimidating-even though the lessons are not that hard, we are making good progress on our assignments but boy there are some fellow students that seem to be making amazing progress, way faster then our progress,a good reason not to indulge in comparing ones self to others...but it has been fun and I feel like we are doing fine.

Since I had my hamstring injury shortly after Thanksgiving...I have not been able to run so I have not worked on a full dog walk. I knew I would not be able to properly reward it or help Cricket out if I could not move. Well, today my leg is FINALLY starting to feel better and I can move a little more then I could so we tried our FIRST FULL DOGWALK. I had no idea how it would go, but considering this is her very first try......I am really excited with how it looks. Our hold at the end seemed to have disappeared somewhat....although toward the end of the session it seemed it was coming back to Cricket, but I am going to have stick to my criteria on that because I do believe Cricket is prone to getting a little excited at times.

We had a very sweet song to go along with our first try, but geeze, I tried to upload my video to youtube and first off I uploaded her first AFRAME video (not the dogwalk), so I had to delete that and then I uploaded my video with the nice song and they muted it....so I had to go back and put in another song -about that time this song was sounding fun, LOL, and youtube has not muted it, yippie!!!

Recalls...not always a non contact sport!

2011-04-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

The highlight of my recall work this weekend was today when I took the border collies to the park to do some restrained recalls...Cricket is doing so well, and I am able to get pretty much the whole way across the park and do her recalls-it is awesome to see her and how fast she runs to me-she is AWESOME.

It all went horribly wrong when Cricket caught up to me and I did a 360 degree turn with the toy, she had so much momentum that when she grabbed for the toy.....she caught my shirt, I heard a RIP!!!!! and sure enough....you guessed it....she had ripped my whole right boob area out of my shirt-Who knew it would rip like that??? OOOH CRICKET! It was great having to march with my dog past the playground full of children, the sheriff's dept and the parking lot before I got to my car. Unfortunately I had also cleaned out my car the other day and with the warm weather I had taken out my jacket. Ughghg, what a time for the car to be totally out of gas-the next stop in our adventure was supposed to be Target and the gas station. Well, we skipped Target and I really hope the car will make it back out to the gas station because I just did not want to go pump gas with my newly restyled shirt, thanks Cricket! I think the dog has a little drive!
(Cricket says it was NOT her fault!)

I will spare you all pictures or film of the event, LOL, no need to thank me for that!

How about a trick in progress???

2011-04-02T00:32:00.000-07:00

Breeze and Cricket driving us to the park-guess it is safe as long as they are working together, LOL.

I got some video of our adventures and our trick in progress...check out the shorts, the green grass, all the kids at the playground at the park....yep we had some 90 degree days here in California.

With the work we are doing on our ecourses the girls and I needed a fun little trick to work on, and besides....it is super good practice working around the kids, there was a kite flying right next to us, people walking by and bikes.

Did I mention my dogs are terrified of kids? Except Liz...but boy get them working and they really don't notice kids. This was our second try at skateboarding, I can not believe how easy it is coming....so not a finished product yet....but...this is a video of how it is going.

Quick to judge, LOL!

2011-03-30T12:15:00.001-07:00

Ughghggh, maybe I am just getting grumpy in my elderly age, LOL, or technically challenged,or resistent to change, but I spent some more time trying to figure out the Susan Garrett web site and maybe I can just go in and find my lesson for the day and leave-now I feel a bit silly for all my earlier comments-although I still dont feel it is as friendly as before.....and I found Diana with Miley to "follow" which might be fun (anyone else on the course can find me under Kathy M if you do a user search), it is the same great info from the first course and I noticed they just posted a tab with the first weeks lessons (which panicked me at first thinking I had missed a whole week ;-) but no they appear to just post those tabs in advance ), it looks like it will not be as hard to find as I thought at first.....so maybe it will not be so bad once I figure out where things are, but it still seems way confusing to start with, more confusing then last time, LOL, but perhaps I should hang on and not judge too soon! (hanging my head in shame)

Treading water, Isnt this supposed to be Spring break?

2011-03-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

I had big plans to get out there and get some video to post of just a few tips that have worked magic for us to get more play in or training. UNFORTUNATELY life has had other plans for me this last week, and I am feeling a bit overwelmed right now, so hopefully soon I will get caught up with everything else and I can get on that little assignment I had set for myself.

It is Spring break for the schools here and since my husband is a teacher,...everyone has been home this week. what a time for our very old, HUGE, TV that had developed an hourglass shaped picture with wavy edges finally died. Can you believe my husband and kids were not complaining about a picture like that and really did not want a new TV? Go figure! ANYWAY, the TV did DIE and I had to replace it. I have no cue how old the old TV was-but it was really old and really heavy and HUGE. Going to shop for a new TV was like going into a new country, it is so hard to get up to speed with what is going on with TVs now days-and I felt totally lost trying to compare and make a good choice-but we did get an awesome new TV, that actually cost way less then I thought we would have to pay. How often can anyone say that?

Next the new Susan Garrett recallers course started. I do think it is going to be fun because the dogs and I really worked the last one and have incorporated a lot of the exercises into daily life, and this time I think we can work on more difficult levels of the games. It is still the type of course where you need to keep up to really get the most out of it...so I feel a big pressure to get going-we started last weekend.

What do I think of the new Susan Garrett course? This is HUGELY PREMATURE...This is only my opinion....and I may be eating crow as time goes on but I really feel like the new ecourse so far has sort of taken a lot of the magic out of what was in the first course. Have to say so far I am a bit disappointted in the delivery of the info, although the info itself is still pretty terrific.

There is a new web site that is S L I C K! It is very professional looking, and set up to be like a social networking site and a whole world. You go into the web site and there is your dashboard and from there.....well,not sure where you go.

The problem for me is that it seems very difficult to figure out what is posted and where and you would have to sit for hours and hours and wade through pages and pages of posts saying things like "I am so excited" and "hey where are you guys from" to try to find relevant questions. IN the old site you went to her web site every morning and the daily exercise was right there along with the video showing you what to do and all relevant questions, comments and clarifications were right there on that page. To me it seems to take a lot more time to figure out what you are supposed to do then doing all the training. You can pop in and just get the info but the shame is then you miss out on the little details that you get when you can more easily see all the comments related to what you are training-but who has hours to pour through a web site like that every day?

The worst part of the changes is that to me it seems to have taken away the warm, comfy, we are all part of a big group feeling. I think they are trying to foster that by letting you follow certain people on the website, sort of like a social networking page, it seems to foster a lot of conversation that is not necessarily related to the course. I really don't have the time to wade through tons of social conversations to find peoples questions about what we are doing and the answers that I know fit with what the course is trying to teach. It is a shame because the information is really great and maybe I will find my way around it and come to like it, but not a big fan so far.

So I freely admit I am not a big fan of change so hopefully as time goes on and I figure this whole thing out I will feel silly for making these comments, but for today I am very disappointed because it just feels like another job to try to even shift through way too much useless info to find the relevant information. I just want to get in there have all that I need in one place, get in and get out and spend my time training and if I want to do more social networking then I could go to a site aimed at that.

At the same time the Sylvia Trkman puppy ecourse started....so far, first week it is mostly stuff we have sort of worked on except one exercise which will be a HUGE challenge, but it will be good to get it all more polished up. Day three and so far we are having a lot of fun.

Three dogs, two courses, trying to keep working on the weaves and contacts with
Cricket and get a little handling work with her in....spring break with everyone home....of course, normal life keeps marching on...so I am feeling a bit overwhelmed getting started. Hopefully in the next few days we will get our routine down and it will not be a big deal.

Today I feel like I am treading water and trying to make sure I don't fall way behind-and at the same time this is supposed to be fun and it is important to keep balance in life, soooooo..........
THE GOAL FOR THIS WEEK IS: Keep things short and sweet, I am trying to make sure to have everything ready before we train, have everything planned in my mind and do really, really short, sweet sessions. I do think that my training skills will be improved by having to learn to work more efficiently and keeping the time spent much shorter.

Some thoughts on tugging....from a TUG-tard

2011-03-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

First off let me say I was hesitant to even post this because I do not want to sound like an expert or like what works for us would work for everyone else. I was always a tug-tard and felt like I squashed all my dogs play instincts-not that I wanted to, I just did not understand how to inspire play with my dogs, even though I really wanted to. Ricky's mom asked a few days ago how we found our tug, esp. with Chloe and Breeze who would not tug. Liz was a good tugger but at some point in her life decided she would choose not to tug most of the time, I figured that was me working my non-play magic, ahhhhh... hers was mostly gone. It took me awhile to answer but I had to think....So ya can all groan...hahahahahaha, but I am going to do a few posts on some of what we found worked for us. OF COURSE I DO NOT CLAIM TO BE AN EXPERT, I was just a frustrated trainer who tried a few pretty simple things that for us made a lot of difference-but I definitely have no masters in dog play but I can say I am pretty happy with what we have now. My dogs are FANTASTIC TUGGERS now and I really treasure what we have- because the dogs have more excitement when we train, even if it is training with food.

When I had non-tuggers, I found the whole thing intimidating. You know it seems that everyone tells you you have to get your performance dog to tug and tells you how much you are missing out of if your dog is not a tugger. It seems like a lot of training videos or seminar presenters assume we all have a great tug. If your dog didn't tug they do not always tell you how you can create some of that excitement with food or tell you how to get it, so often then just tell you how much you NEED it. Hummm...I always resented that talk to tell you the truth. My dogs did not tug and I tried a lot of things to shape it, different things to tempt them, lots of different toys and toys with different textures and toys that were supposed to bring out the tugging instinct, I worried about it and tried to get my dogs to tug.. but it just was not happening. To tell you the truth it ticked me off to keep hearing we should have this great tug but no one would give me any clues about how to get this. I wish I had a good answer and could market a formula because I know a lot of people feel like I felt. Unfortunately I can only share what I think made it easier for my dogs and for me to be in a place where play flourished a little more and tug sort of came out of that.

The interesting thing is that we were not actually working on a tug and not really trying to get a tug per say when we finally were able to find out inner TUGGERS and bring them to life. So I am not the expert on tugging but I do think it is worth perhaps sharing a little of some of what I think made a difference, because even if we had not got tugging, it made a huge difference in the excitement level of our training. So anyone can take it for what it is worth...I will probably make a few posts...but these are just some things that worked for us.

I know what I would have said earlier B.T. (before tugging ;) ), like why do I care or why bother-we do OK without it? Hey, I do not think tugging is a necessary thing, although it is a really nice thing to have because a lot of times I do not have to use food, or find as many treats....I enjoy feeling like we are playing and not like I am just dolling out treats-it is more fun for me, but I do notice even if I am training with food now there is a new level of excitement that really makes things more fun for all of us.

I will go out and try to get some video today of one of the things I think really helped us one of which is TREAT DELIVERY, or how I learned to reward behaviors with food that helped us add a little more playful behavior and excitement. So how is that for a teaser? ;-)

My AMAZING dogs at the park!

WHOWZA!!!! Have I said lately how much my dogs just blow me away! For the last few days during our recall practices at the park, Lizzie has been so spot on and done her recalls so well-- straight out of the car. This is the dog that had no recall for so long, I think repeating the recallers course is going to be so good for her. Breeze of course is fantastic and loved chasing the Orbee, and looked so fast until I saw Cricket taking her turn. Cricket just hunkers down and runs- I can not believe how fast she runs. It is AMAZING-she just looks like she is flying. Of course Crickets recalls have always been amazing and to see her running full speed at me when I call, boy it makes every minute we put into practicing recalls seem so worth it. I can not tell you how fantastic it felt to be out at the park,enjoying the fresh air and just watching how happy the doggies were.

Thanks and what has been going on with that Aframe?

2011-03-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

THANKS SOOO MUCH TO EVERYONE for checking out my video from the Susan Garrett Recallers contest and supporting me. I was VERY honored to be selected as one of the final fifteen out of two hundred videos that were submitted. I did not make it to the top five videos who are the winners-they will win a free ecourse to the next project and some other mystery prizes, but I came in around eight or ninth video in vote numbers, so I am pretty proud of that. Everyone who entered did get a free recallers course so that is pretty cool. It has been a long time since I have won anything so it was a big ego boost to have been picked and the support I got really made me feel very happy!

As far as my training....
I have been working with Cricket on the running Aframe using Rachel Saunders method of running Aframe which utilizes a PVC box to help the dog learn how to go over the Aframe and still hit the yellow contact area. As with all good things, .....it was going so well, pretty much without a hitch and all of a sudden we just had a huge backslide. Cricket had the box on the Aframe and was consistently hitting the top of the box. I moved the box higher like the instructions say and she would still hit the top of the box, it was weird and I could not figure out what was going on.

Last week I was finally ready to buckle down and get busy working on the aframe again and by Friday I decided I had to really video and watch every practice session, I made up a flow sheet to try to account for every variable I could think of so I could try to figure out why our performance was not looking so hot after it had been going so well.

Sorry this is pretty boring, you can skip it-but I am into keeping records right now!!!
Here is what happened the last few days:

Thursday march 17: I took my aframe and took it apart so it was flat and positioned two jumps on the upside of the Aframe and put the box on the yellow contact zone. We got a 100% success rate on four tries, then the whole setup was just too unstable and the jumps were falling down, the box was bouncing around when Cricket was hitting the aframe before the box, so I had to abandon that plan ;-).

Friday March 18:I bought some more chain to lower the aframe, it is pretty low now, around 4 1/2 feet. 6 out of 7 tries were successful-two hits on the way down from the top, all four feet in the box and not touching the pvc with her feet. I have the pvc box about one slat above the contact zone, that gives us a second hit about a third the way down into the yellow, looking good! The one unsuccessful try was a two hit try but the first hit was the third slat down the Aframe and then one on the fourth slat and then leaping to the ground without hitting the contact zone. On that try I was positioned in front of the Aframe and moving.

Saturday March 19:We did grids on the ground and I could have SWORN we had a 100% success rate. I got the video inside and watched it in slow motion because I figured I could not take anything for granted.....well, 4 out of 7 tries Cricket nicked her back feet on the PVC box as she went out, What was that about. I had noticed over the past few days that there was a LOT of Cricket curling around to look at me or tracking the toy as I threw it.

Plan....look at another way to deliver the treat. I could beg my daughter to come out and throw the toy...I could place a toy in front on the ground which would mean I would have to use a non reward marker, and I really am concerned about dampening her enthusiasm esp if we end up with a lot of non rewardable tries....use the manners minder-although Cricket isn't wild about the MM so I think Iwould have to increase the value if I want to use that...hummmmm...

Sunday March 20Aframe was once again lowered as low as it goes. I decided to take out my movement while we figured this whole thing out....I got my daughter to throw the toy for me...I did not position myself too far forward. 6 out of 7 tries were successful. The first four times Cricket still was curling way back to look at me, but the last two tries she was looking back less and anticipating the toy being thrown in front of her.

PLAN
1. practicing on the Aframe about 3 times a week
2. continue trying to have someone else throw the toy as a reward-maybe work on the manners minder to increase its value.
3. work grids and work a lot to the front of the box, work more handler movement for now
4. continue documenting all I can and video taping so that I can have a record and so that I can see what is going on!
5. just work on grids and the lowered Aframe until we can get a success rate greater then 80% on the grids with more movement on my part and with more handling around the grids-rear crosses, front crosses, push past, etc...

It was sort of bumming me out that things were falling apart and everything I was trying was not working so after a good week of really watching more closely...I think I am a lot more aware of what is going on, so hopefully....we are back on a good path ;-)

A favor please! ;-)

2011-03-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

Yippie! The video I made for the Susan Garrett contest made it into the final 15. If ya all would not mind voting for it today.....I would be so grateful!

Mine is the number 4 choice "Five Minutes is Not a Lot of Time" http://susangarrettdogagility.com/2011/03/brilliant-recall-course-student-videos-contest-day-2/ THANKS!

Practice at the park

2011-03-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

Cricket was such a good girl, the nice weather brought out a lot of kids, bikes, joggers and still she was off leash and never seemed to consider being distracted by all the activity at the park. I should have planned and been more deliberate with handling-but I had not thought she would do so good so we were just sort of winging it-Crickets weave entries were terrific today even with my sloppy handling! The trees work really well and save me from having to haul a lot of obstacles to the park.

CRICKET-What a fantastic girl!!!

I was so proud of Breeze-this is her first time weaving in a long time because of her injuries and mine, and she was doing great.

BREEZE DOING SOME PRACTICE WITH 4 WEAVE POLES AT THE PARK

Poor Liz, she has done so much better staying with me, but this park is right by a big street, and there are no fences, and I was just not brave enough to have her out doing weaves off leash-sorry Liz!

entry practice...

2011-03-14T21:29:00.000-07:00

I was working on a contact board with some garden fencing for guides to help Cricket figure out how to straighten herself out and load onto the board straight. Hopefully that will help with more independant contacts and keeping her safe on the contacts. I did not push the fencing in all the way so if her foot slipped it would not get caught and when she started on the teeter I put some chicken wire between the fencing and her in case she slipped. Her teeter was not as nice as usual..., I think the guides looked way different with the chicken wire tents, so she was paying a little too much attention there. Anyway, love Crickets enthusiasm and how she figures things out, have I said lately how much I love Cricket?

Here is the link for the Sylvia Turkman long distance classes I was talking about yesterday. If anyone else is taking the class and wants to exchange videos or "work together", it would be fun to have a little group ;-) if anyone else was interested.
http://www.lolabuland.com/long-distance-classes/

Putting the Fun in FUNdamentals

2011-03-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

I am EXCITED that I have a plan!

Daylight savings time is here, there are some little yellow flower on our Jasmine plant, the days are getting longer and warmer, there are ants trying to invade the house...all signs of spring. Spring- a starting of a new chapter and a time to renew my plans and goals for training-a very exciting time!

I was a bit bummed when our local agility classes started up again and I could not sign up because my hamstring is still pretty sore. Some days I can run a little bit, which feels so nice, but then it has some harder days. I do not want to risk reinjuring myself and I plan on doing some yoga and it is getting better slowly but surly, it is a lot better then it was. Things usually work out for the best, and it is looking like it is going to be ok even if my original plans of getting back to the agility classes this month did not work out- I was able to sign up for two e-classes I am very excited to be doing and I think they will be great for us in the long run.

First Susan Garrett is having her recall class again, she said she is adding some things,most of it is just stuff you can never practice too much and we had a great time. As a bonus because I made a video about our experience taking the course last time...it is FREE, and FREE is good! (I posted the video and got it fixed so people can see it in my last post)

Next Sylvia Turkman opened another long distance puppy class, and looking at her videos of puppy classes, it sounds AWESOME. She says that you get a list of things to work on every two weeks for three months, I think that will keep us busy and out of trouble, so i am very excited. Someone asked about who the class was appropriate for, and this is what she said:

LoLaBu on March 10, 2011 at 21:46
I agree, it’s never too much foundations and it sometimes is too much technical handling instead of training the basics and having fun with the dog. So I would definitely advise foundations, it’s not just for puppies and it’s so different from normal basic agility classes that I think it’s appropriate even for experienced competition dogs, especially those who could use some work on turns as cik&cap will be our major focus. And for body awareness and fun, puppy/tricks class is the best choice – again, it’s not just for puppies, but anybody interested in dog training and working on little details (that can improve the big picture enormously).

More work on cik/cap should be great and it looks like there will be things we can really have a lot of fun with. I Hope it is not going to be too many things to work on at one time...I really think it is going to be very fun and challenging Spring for the Bordergirls Gang!

Procrastination does pay....

2011-03-11T16:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it DOES pay to procrastinate....well, sort of...LOL

Since daylight savings time was over last fall, I must have looked at the clock in the car a MILLION times and thought....I really should change the time to the regular time. The kids ask me all the time..."Is that the real time Mom?"...NOOOOOO, that is last daylight savings time, and unfortunately we were not on daylight savings time.

Changing the time would have involved fishing out the owners manual and finding the section that explains the magic combo of buttons to change the time. Well, I almost changed the time last weekend, then I was listening to the news and they said DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS COMING THIS WEEKEND!

THANK HEAVENS I DID NOT CAVE AND CHANGE THE TIME, otherwise I probably would have spent the whole summer with the correct WINTER time on my car clock, LOL. Surely I would not have remembered from one day to the next how to change the time.

Last summer I took the Susan Garrett 5 min Formula for a Brilliant Recall course, and really felt like I got a lot out of it, and when I heard she was going to repeat it, I was going to go ahead and pay to take it again.....but SG posted that she was having a contest, and if you had taken the course last time, you could post a video about the course and everyone who posted a video would get a free recallers course. Five people will win a free tuition to the next course she is going to do on something else yet to be announced.

ANYWAY, this is my submission. There are some really cute videos that have been posted by others so it was almost a little intimidating to post a video to facebook. This ended up longer then I had wanted, but I did not want to edit baby Cricket doing her recall out, LOL. What a great marketer SG is, getting her name out there and getting people to advertise!

and if that link does not work, this is the vimeo link for the same video ;-)

video about our recall course from kathy bordergirlsmom on Vimeo.

Cricket, MIGHTY GUARDER OR THE KITTENS!

2011-03-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

"I have a very important job, watching those kittens, I will not let my mom down!"

"Hummm, I will not let those kittens out of my sight, ...I don't see them but if I stare at the spot they used to be ...I am sure they will reappear and mom will never know they got out of my sight!" The kittens remind me of the Siamese Twin cats from Lady and the Tramp-they like to tease the poor dog who is just trying to keep up with her guard duties!

Here Pixie has left...and Ashe is getting ready to make a break. Cricket says "Mama I am watching and I will let you know if either of those cats try to make a break for it-don't worry I am watching!" She really never turned and looked at the cats, LOL, she is such a funny girl, but you can sure tell the cats are not afraid of her anymore.

HOW DID YOU GET THERE ASHE? And WHERE is that durn Pixie?

I think that Cricket is in reality a little afraid to actually stare directly at the kitties, she thinks she will lose them if she looks at them with her powerful stare, so she does a lot of sideways stares or looking right by the side of them,-that is the only thing I can figure out she is doing when she looks like she is so intently staring at the cats and I can see they just are not there.

Daisy Peel in California!

2011-03-07T18:57:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a Daisy Peel Seminar this last weekend.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE her style of teaching. I thought she was great and really included working teams and auditors alike. She talked about the basic six cues that all dogs pretty naturally read-

MOTION-main cue
SHOULDERS
LOCATION
ARMS/HANDS
VERBAL
EYE CONTACT

Then we had some short exercises where you could isolate the cues and see how they affected what your dog understood. A handler/dog team would run a particular sequence and because it was a small sequence and as observers we could position ourselves nice and close where it was very easy to see how things like a handler continuing to give lots of forward cues but yelling at the dog to turn just did not work.

Daisy had us do something that I found very helpful-when we would walk the sequence that was coming up....we were supposed to make seven columns on our notes. In the first column we would put the obstacle number where there was a critical handling spot. Then the next six columns were each labeled with one of the handling cues -motion, shoulders, location, arms/hands, verbal, and eye contact. For each place that needed handling you were supposed to go through and say at obstacle three you were supposed to put what your motion would be doing, what your location would be, etc....across all the columns. Daisy would read the plan before the handler ran to see if they were able to follow their plan. What Daisy said about that was you should learn to plan what you were going to do at certain points and then practice it that way, maybe you will find out you were wrong about what was needed but do it that way to see. I could see over time that would lead to a better awareness of the cues and how you were using them.

Another thing I found very interesting was that Daisy said was that we should all sit down and write our own handling system. Think about what you need for the courses you run, look at other handling systems and see what meets your needs, but develop a systematic approach to handling so you do not confuse your dog and ask for conflicting things. She also pointed out that you need to accept the downsides of your handling system, say for instance if you decide to train your dog to assume every set of two jumps side by side is going to be a 180, if you have a lot of 180's in the venue you trial in that might be very handy....but know if you do see a threadle you are going to have to work REALLY hard to get that. Being aware of your handling system helps you be consistent which makes you more fun to play with.

We ended up running a short sequence where she would keep asking everyone to think of other ways to run it. Being able to run sequences in a lot of different ways lets you practice and have a lot more skills to pull from.

One of the most profound things Daisy said right before we left that running agility is like driving a car...when you watch someone driving a car it looks like their hands never move and looks very smooth, but when you actually drive you are constantly moving your wheel and adjusting, correcting and making slight movements. She said all agility is like that too, it will always feel sloppy and like you are just hanging on. She said if you are doing it right you should never be just standing around and waiting, hummm. I found that thought very reassuring.

I found the seminar very useful with a lot of ideas about how I can practice more effectively, so that was GREAT! I really liked that the skills she talked about were presented in a way that I do think I could plug that understanding into a lot of more difficult courses, which was refreshing. I would DEFINITELY attend another Daisy Peel seminar in the future!

Liberation Day for the kitties!

2011-03-05T23:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but when ever I have got little rescue kittens...they usually come with umm....friends. The type of unwelcome friends like bugs and viruses. My vet had advised me to quarantine the kittens for awhile to make sure that we did not spread anything through the house since we do have a lot of animals.

Luckily the kitties Ashe and Pixie did not get the upper respiratory infection that is so common with cats from shelters or rescues. They would sneeze just enough to make me worry, but not enough to do anything about. The kitties did have some roundworms, a few fleas and ear mites, and of course a huge bout of diarrhea trying to get their diet straightened out, but the vet said that after five days...they could be let loose and so Sunday is the day!

I did try to make their confinement as nice as I could, the girls and I have worked over time cutting up boxes to make little puzzles and things they could run through, and we have all spent a lot of time in my bathroom, LOL, and we have got a ton of toys for the kittens, but boy we will all be happy to just let them out.

I was taking the Pam Dennison ecourse on multidog households and I have used some of the ideas from that to work with the dogs and the kittens and Cricket has seen the kittens playing in front of her on the floor and she has left them alone-just watching. I was so proud of her. We have done a lot of work in the past two weeks, but it sure seems to have been worth it. The kitties who were terrified of dogs were at the vets and three different dogs came in right in front of them and they just calmly looked. The only members of the house hold that have not had a chance to make peace and make friends is Kimmie the cat and the two kittens. Kimmie seems to want to see them, but Ashe especially will hiss an make a fuss if she sees Kimmie. So hopefully they will work that all out once they are FREE!

I have to admit I have had a blast watching the kittens and having two sure has made it easier especially since I needed to keep them seprate until we got everything straightened out. They are the sweetest kittens!

A JUMPING BEAN IMPRESSION

2011-02-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

THIS IS NOT OUR TEETER PERFORMANCE. Cricket actually has an awesome teeter now. Cricket learned the teeter following the directions on the Wendy Pape Teeter DVD which I highly recommend and really liked....something we did must have worked because Cricket has NO FEAR, LOL. ANYWAY, one of the games was jumping into the end position on a LOWEREDteeter, Cricket really likes that game, so now when ever we walk past the teeter she tries to jump onto the end, even with full height teeters, what a little nut ;-). This is not her best effort but I just happened to catch it on video.

ITS A BIRTHDAY DAY!

2011-02-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Guess who is FIVE YEARS OLD today? Yep it is a huge milestone bday for the little red Lizard-Lizzie!

It was freezing and really windy but I took Lizzie out in the big agility yard today for a run, she was so cute she ran around and did all the equipment and just looked so happy. Her and I have a little trip scheduled in a few hours to Petsmart to pick out a birthday toy.

I will never forget the day Lizzie came into my life. I saw an ad with a picture of a cute little red/white split face border collie a few hours away. I figured it was probably a picture of past puppies, but I called and she was a girl, and she was available. Yep, I fell in love with Lizzie's looks! Never a good criteria to use when picking a dog....but she was too cute for words.

The whole family got into the car and drove down to the ranch where she was at in Temecula, CA. When we got there there was a huge pack of dogs, all running loose and getting along-hey I thought that was a good sign that she came from stock that all got along with other dogs and were nice --even to strangers driving up that they did not know. I happen to like that!

Lizzie's mom was a working girl and worked full time herding cattle and had gone back up to her job in Northern CA before I met Lizzie, so I have no clue what her mom looks like (yep, this was a spur of the moment decision and I sure did not go down my check list of what I would look for when I decided to get the little Lizard). Her dad was a red/white sweet heart of a dog-he was there.

We went to where the pups were kept, and there were three sisters. A black/white split face girl, a white face girl and Lizzie. Lizzie was the one that choose me, she wanted to play with me with the toys I had brought, she kept crawling up in my lap and she made me feel very loved ;-). I loved her split face too. The curly hair was a special surprise that I did not know about until long after I had her, LOL.

The lady must have thought I was CRAZY taking so much time to decide which girl I wanted, I dropped pans to look for noise sensitivity, played lots of games with the pups and just sat in the pen checking out how the girls were playing and reacting.

Of course Lizzie went home with us. My older daughter held her on her lap and a few miles from the ranch she got her name-Leapin' Lizzie just came to me, I am not sure why. The next afternoon I set Lizzie up in an xpen and went to agility class with Chloe, I came home to the cute little split face peering out the window. You guessed it she had leaped over the tallest xpen they make. Yep, I had chosen her name well, and she fit it to a tee.

Lizzie was the most challenging youngster, and I learned so much from her and everyone loved her. I will never love a dog like I love her, I love all my dogs but Lizzie will always hold a special place. I had to go on a lot of faith with Liz, faith that she would turn out ok, and that is a hard thing for me to do, relax and have faith. I worked hard but mostly she just grew up. Now at five she is pretty laid back, she is mostly just sweet and I miss some of her wildness and naughtiness. Who knew I would be able to say that when we started this journey, BUT it is true!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR LIZZIE, THIS HAS BEEN A REALLY FANTASTIC FIVE YEARS! Who knows who I would be today if I had not found her? I am sure i would not be the same person.....that is how I know she was truly meant to be in my life and I am so grateful we happened upon each other all those years ago!

Life a series of COMINGS, and GOINGS!

2011-02-16T16:36:00.000-08:00

FIRST FOR THE GOINGS:
Well, I am no fan of change lately, LOL, but life keeps changing no matter what I say. When our neighbors moved in MANY years ago we met Arie. Arie is the neighbors' daughter and a few years older then my girls, but she has almost seemed like my daughter. I truly love Arie and almost every morning started with my dogs going wild and waking us up as Arie came over to see what was going on for the day. On Sundays my husband almost always took all three girls to the movies, or out hiking followed by some shopping. My girls are homeschooled and so they don't have as many friends as some kids but they have some really, really close friends.

So.....the time had come that Arie headed off to the Navy. Wow, that was so hard to see her go. I feel like one of my own has left, it was so hard to watch her walk off for the last time, I am sure she will be a lot different person by the time we see her again. Arie is a bit young for her age, so terribly sweet and just the nicest person anyone could know, not a bad or mean bone in that girls body.

Of course going into the service at this time in history, I am worried about her safety and it sure made me think of all the young men and women that have chosen to enlist and protect our country, and all that they must put aside for the moment to protect our interests in the world. It is so strange because with how long this war has raged .....I do not think about it, or hear much about it now days, and sadly because until now I have not had people close to me in the armed services I have not thought a lot about the people that are making that sacrifice-I have a fleeting though about it but not as much as I should be aware.

I hope anyone who reads this will stop for a second and think of all the brave men and women-maybe include them in their prayers, and remember how many young people are serving, people that hardly seem old enough to drive (guess I am showing my age -) ). The house feels so empty knowing she is not going to be coming over, and I really miss her, I miss what she meant to my daughters, I will definiely pray for her safety and pray this will be a terrific stepping stone and positive experience in her life!

My older daughter Abby, then Arie, and my youngest daughter Emma-this was taken right before Arie had her hair cut short in preparation for leaving for the navy, she donated her locks to Locks for Love. Arie has always loved her hair ;-).

Post hair cut:

NOW FOR THE COMINGS!
The kittens are sooooo cute,... and two kitties together are REALLY cute. It is so sweet to watch, they are a blast to watch them play and they LOVE each other so much, but they are still more then willing to interact with us. Both kitties are staying healthy so far..knock on wood...but they are still in isolation in my bathroom.

ASH

ASH

SISTER POWER

WORKING TOGETHER

PIXEL being held

THEY LOVE EACH OTHER ;-)

What did we pick up at Petsmart today????

2011-02-12T22:21:00.000-08:00

One thing that has dominated our life the last few weeks is the kitten search. It is not kitten season, and my kids were just determined to get a cat. My older daughter Abby wanted a grown cat, a siamese, or a white cat or a calico with a lot of white. My younger daughter just wanted one that would like to be held and actually any cat we could get TODAY and was breathing pretty much fit her bill. I wanted a cat that was going to be a little outgoing and confident so that they could handle living with three border collies, two girls, two adults, two shelties and a cat that is almost seven and has been an only cat her whole life.

It has been hard, my daughter Abby picked a pretty, sweet calico cat that was a few years old at Petsmart. The cat was sick and got sent back to the shelter for treatment....;-) she came back to Petsmart all better. We were excited, she seemed sooo sweet, very pretty and it would have been nice to help out an adult kitty, and it might have been easier for Kimmie to handle a grown cat. We cleaned my bathroom and got the room all ready for this little girl, got a new litterbox all ready, st out pretty food and water dishes, and headed to Petsmart with our carrier. We brought Chloe because she is our most cat friendly dog-sort of as a last minute thought thinking it would be good to reassure us she would do ok with the dogs...after an adjutment time of course. Well, sadly the cat had a pretty bad reaction to Chloe who was just trying to hide because the cat was scaring her. My daughter was heart broken and still wanted to get this sweetie, but as an adult cat I just felt really unsure she would feel happy and safe...esp knowing the border collies could really mess with a cat that did not like dogs. We talked to a lot of people who said that we were better off getting a kitty younger then six months unless we really knew a cat was used to dogs and other cats.

Next we saw a cute little siamese mix kitten at the shelter that had been part of a seizure. Not sure what the deal was but the kitten was not going to be available for two weeks nad it was a really fluffy kitten. My only criteria for a cat was it be a short hair cat. Kimmie is long hair and no one really combs her on a regular basis but me and I just would really rather have a short hair cat. The girls were really upset.....

So the girls have been on the net and looking everywhere for cats...there are not a lot of kittens available here right now. I kept assuring them that unfortunately kitten season is just around the corner....and unfortunately there will be way too many kittens in need of homes. After the Calico incident I really felt a kitten would be the best bet unless we could find a cat we could test out with dogs or we knew they were comfortable with dogs.

Well, we stopped at an out of town Petsmart today, late in the afternoon -and guess what we saw. A rescue group with 2- 14 week old female siamese mix kittens. OOOH dear. We looked and the girls were determined we would get one. Getting a new kitty is a little stressful for me thinking of all the years ahead and hoping that if we got a kitty it would be one that would fit for everyone. The age was great because I knew these kitties had been with their littermates until today -so they got more then twelve weeks with their families (I have been reading on the net that is good for their social development and learning things like all about litter boxes, and for their confidence), but they were still really kittenish looking and young enough to hopefully easily adjust to all the other animals.

As we looked at the kittens, the rescue people really were pushing for us to get two kitties. Emma my youngest loved the lighter white kitty, and Abby loved the darker marked cat. I had read a lot about how it would be easier on an older cat if there were two kittens to sort of take the brunt of kittens energy, and that if you get litter mates they will generally always stay close. I watched the kitties curled up and grooming each other, they were a little stressed since it was the end of a very long day for them I am sure-but you could tell they were really comforting each other. The rescue people persisted telling me they would give a GREAT discount for a second cat adoption.

Ahhhhhhhh.....I gave up and two kitties were coming home with us. Boy I was sweating bullets and I kept imagining all the animals in our house and I was feeling the weight on my shoulders of making such a HUGE decision. I had to go to Jack in the Box and get a diet Dr. Pepper and a shot of greasy comfort food (a mini funnel cake) on the way home to try to calm my nerves! There were calls to my mom and my friend to help me calm down and not panic about what I had done, hahahahaha, (it was a scary decision, because we have so many animals, and I dont think I have ever had more then one cat at a time). One thing that sort off worried me was the kitties had not purred and were a little reserved, but I was really hoping that it was because they had a long day and were stressed. I had already deceided though that the cat selection was for the girls and they should get what they wanted, and these were the kitties they wanted.

Both girls picked names, although who knows there might be changes as the kitties settle in and we see their personalities. Both girls had just the right collars in mind, LOL, we had a crate in the car.....things just flowed after signing a million papers, going through the applications, etc.

SOOOOOOO Without further ADO....here are the girls (I had wanted a boy kittie and got two girls...hummm HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?....I am just a girl magnet-all our animals are girls except poor Skyler):

PIXEL-Pixie for short-so far she seems a little quieter, and a little more confident and stable, a little more playful-but that could be because she was a little more relaxed. She is almost a white girl with little patches of really light tan, light blue eyes, and gets the pink cupcake collar. That is Emmas kittie.

SISTER TWO-ASHE-So far she seems like the first cat to purr but also the first kittie to hiss at the dogs, a little more high strung. In person she is a very striking girl way prettier in person then I was able to catch on film...with light blue eyes and she gets a dark blue collar. Her fur is a little darker tannish color.

Ashe and Pixel are set up in my bathroom for the first few days where we can make sure they are healthy and give all the doggies and kitties a chance to sort of get used to each others smells and to seeing each other. Lizzie and Cricket have been glued to the bathroom door and won't move....they are pretty happy we got new kitties, it will make herding easier ;-(, and Kimmie the cat and Ashe have already hissed at each other, but after an hour or two where everyone was able to settle down the kitties seemed to relax and were just sort of looking at Cricket and Lizzie when I opened the door to go in....and I was able to relax and not feel so panicked with worry about whether I had made a really bad decision when both kitties started purring when I walked in and jumped into my lap.....that sort of made it easier to RELAX and just trust that it was all meant to be.