The Runaway Liz...aka, why I do not trust Liz to trial

Not the best picturees but...it shows how we started our day of herding. I got to the ranch and was going to let the dogs run and stretch their legs in the agility yard. All was right with the world. It all started out so nicely.



Here is the faintest hint of trouble to come...of course I did not pick up on it, but check it out everyone is running and Liz head spies something and turns...ever so slightly.


Next Liz peels off the group, and I am pretty slow, so I still have no clue what has been put into motion........I am really not up to the challenge of having a little Lizard dog.


Without a change of stride and with no hesitation she is under the fence and off to FREEDOME. CRAP! That was the last picture I took and I tell you I was in total shock when I figured out that an escape had indeed been made! The other dogs both looked at Liz with a mixture of shock and awe, I do not think they knew what to think.


FOUR sessions of recall classes, there is not a day in that dogs life I have not worked recalls, all the other dogs AND I are sitting in the one yard and what does that dog do? I was so totally shocked and thought we were beyond that.

What was horrible was that I thought she was totally loose, (this was at the other end of the yard which was a LONG way away from where I was..) I could not imagine how I was going to get her and the other dogs were running in the yard and had seen Liz run out, so Breeze has a little seperation anxiety, and Cricket is a pup, so did I go after Liz and leave them in the yard or get them and then take off on the chase and loose all that time?

I opted to put the dogs away, not knowing how long I would be chasing the escapee Lizard. I realized putting them away I did not have my keys in my pocket and the car had locked itself, REALLY? Dang car has been doing that and it is really, really annoying, and the worst thing was the last time I saw my keys was in the PORTA POTTY....yep you heard me right. The porta potty in all its glory.

A few minutes later I got the dogs into a pen that was at the side of the yard, and by then Liz had figured out she was in the big sheep pen and suprisingly she had not found a way out so she came over to the gate by me....whew! I was able to go into the agility yard and find my keys, thank heavens....crisis averted, or maybe not averted but cleaned up.

Breeze was an awesome herder, no big suprise there and got to go into the BIG FIELD. She is so awesome and so much better then I am and understands the whole thing better then I do.

Liz was a spazz....and when we got to work on our own I started experimenting with rewarding by releasing the pressure. A girl is doing this with the table in our agility class, they get the dog to get on the table and IMMEDIATELY release her and reward her by letting her get off and some people were talking about it for ring stress, by going in the ring, clicking and leaving and delivering a treat outside so not much we can mess up with Liz, so when she did a fetch I would immediately tell her good dog and to lie down, instead of asking her to do another fetch. I got her working a lot longer, so I really want to experiment with some of this and see if it helps her turn on.

Agility class super stars, ...well, sort of at least in my eyes!

Well, It FINALLY feels like we are getting somewhere in agility with the border collie gals.

After 4 years of training and recall classes, breaking things down, blah, blah, blah, you get the picture.... Liz had a great class this week. We walked in and they had rototiller the yard, bringing up all new smells and Liz acted like it was a totally new place. I could not get her head up,she was very distracted and stressed, I thought we were hosed for the night-and Deanna later told me she envisioned chasing Liz around the yard all night long.

The great thing that is happening with Liz is that she is loving agility enough that once I get her going boy she is just right on it, and does really well. When she is distracted like she was that night she has no tolerance for any mistakes, and when my feet indicated the wrong tunnel entrance and I tried to put her back in the tunnel she ran off and I had to chase her down...but once I got her back and threw her in the tunnel (well, now I did not throw her into the tunnel, I put her in front of it and let her go, LOL), she was spot on with the rest of the course.

Liz need a little maintance work on the teeter-she is not coming to the bottom and she did not stick her 2020 on the Aframe, but you know the big thing was she stayed with me even though she was really distracted-the rest of it is easy enough to fix at home.

Breeze had her class and wow, we ran all the courses without any mistakes, that has never happened, and this was a hard class, she is on fire. More then being on fire she looks physically terrific-Breeze is very happy spring and the warmer weather is here. I am thinking I will need to get my training, trialing, what ever I want to do in while the warm weather is around before winter next year.

We have had major weave issues and she got the entrances beautifully two times, so I did not attempt them the rest of the class, I just told Deanna that I did not want to do weaves again and we would just walk by them and start again after the weaves. I know we still have more work to do and I did not want to take a chance on having any mistakes after we had done so well.

THE BIG NEWS IS.....I feel pretty safe and happy with Breezie's contacts, of course they will always need to be worked on, but they are looking pretty safe I think. I KNOW when we trained the 4 on the floor Ann Croft had not come out with her modified training plan-which addresses the tendency of dogs to curl back to look at the handler ;-), so Breeze definitely does that...but to tell you the truth it is not affecting how it works, and when we are really running straight on a course, it straightens itself out. I am working on being able to run past, but Breeze is doing pretty good with waiting for her verbal release word. I am not silly enough to think that is strong enough right now to run past her and have her hold her position, but we are working on it, and it is coming along.

Excuse the mess in the yard, I have Crickets jump bumps set up and the kids had dragged a bunch of things in to the yard...time for a little agility yard spring cleaning!

MUD PUPPY!

Just a little rain last night,....just a tiny mud puddle,....just a few minuets outside and look what comes in.....how did she do that so well?

SHE IS GOOD!

GAMBLERS---Who? Surely not us!

BREEZE: AKA SUPERSTAR!




COURSE FROM YESTERDAYS HANDLERS 3 CLASS-THE RED LINE IS THE LINE THE HANDLER IS SUPPOSED TO STAY BEHIND WHILE RUNNING THIS, YIKES, THAT LOOKS LIKE DISTANCE-WHO SIGNED UP FOR THAT?



Yesterday was Breeze's class, who will from this day forward be known as SUPERGIRL. I was so proud of my girl, she is so amazing and she knows so much more then I give her credit for. I got to class and found out the subject of the lesson was DISTANCE HANDLING AND TRAINING. I really thought about turning around and going home-I did not want to set my doggie up for failure and we have just started training any distance in just running a regular course. I run with Linda M's APHS, and it is a big no no to do things like Gamblers because it is so easy to disregard your motion cues and to untrain the handling you work so hard to teach. Anyway, to make a long story shorter...I decided to run and to just pay attention to what I was doing, make sure I was showing motion and not doing anything that would disregard my own signals and if necessary I would just cross the lines and do what I had to do to make it understandable for Breeze, who has done no layering and is a pretty inexperienced dog. That is what class is for right...to try out new things where you can fix them if you need to.

Well, first run through was a DISASTER. LOL, it was laughable. We were by far the WORST team out there, by far the worst. Whooo Hooo Deanna was able to step in and showed me how to use all the cues we already use and just extend them out a little-and then of course use proper reward placement (reward out away from me where I wanted her to know that is indeed where I wanted her to be). OMG, second run through it was gorgeous. The first two runs were just the part that had the teeter and the tire in it, and after I got that worked out the third time I ran the full course and was able to do the whole thing really well. I learned a HUGE lesson, to not let myself get wigged out looking at something and to just use our skills and settle down and just do our best.

I so feel really good about my decisions last night because I wanted to run the last time with the full course and not stop, I knew she could do it by that time and it would have been so much fun....but because this was all so new for Breeze and a few times Breeze made the right choice but she was not sure she had done right so I set up four points that I wanted Deanna to throw the ball and reward Breeze because I knew those would be the places she was not going to be totally sure she made the right decision even if she was able to do it. It was awesome, I did not get to run without stopping which I would have enjoyed...but it sure made it really clear for Breeze that she had made some TERRIFIC choices while we ran the course.


Some days I am just so amazed when I find out that my dogs know so much more then I give them credit for, especially Breeze. We still have so many things to work on and so many short falls, our list of items we need to train for would curl any ones hair,... but I am just so in awe of my little dog and all the things I keep finding out she can do. Whoo hoooo. I would have bet BIG MONEY that last nights class was going to be so totally over our heads....We were actually able to run the full course and never cross the lines....you could have knocked me over with a feather!

So similiar and yet........

TWO DOGS
Both border collies
Both females
Both spayed
Both roughly the same size
Both roughly the same age-born within six months of each other
Both have been doing agility the exact same amount of time
Both trained by the same person who of course had the same knowledge with each of them or lack of knowledge, WHAT EVER! But you get the idea, the same trainer with the same level of skill was used to train both of them
Both trained with the EXACT same methods
Both trained at the same places, with the same instructors

Yep, you would think that running either dog would pretty much interchangeable with running the other dog. Perhaps you would expect very similar plans to run either dog....I would expect some very similar problems, you know some of the same training holes and strengths being they were both trained by the same person-everyone has strengths and holes, right??

WELL, let me tell you the truth--I feel like I have no chance, I am seriously going to be messed up! Those two girls are just as different as night and day and who knows how I will ever really "gel" with either one and feel like I just read their mind, like we are one out there. I have heard that babies that grow up in bilingual homes are later to talk, and it takes longer for them to learn either language but all of a sudden they will be able to do both and end up further ahead of their single language counterparts one day....I can only hope that working with two such different dogs works that way for me, I will look retarded for a long while but I keep hoping it will be awesome when we finally do it, and I am seeing some glimpses of hope for myself, LOL. Just glimpses though.

I did a class with both dogs,...that is the first time in months I have done a class with both of them. Right off the start line, Lizzie went over a jump that was very angled, then turned and went through a tire where I could do a front cross, then over another angled jump into a tunnel--easy smeezie, and made me look like a pro. Next same sequence and Breeze could not go over a first jump at a big angle with me further on down the line, so I had to stay back and babysit that jump...which left me way too late for the front cross, and silly me, I got so stuck thinking of Lizzie's plan I did not even consider a rear cross, DUH. So then we have this 270 where there had to be a cross right after the 270. Breeze does that like a pro and I can slide across laterally to catch the front cross as I am supporting her out in the pocket, whew, that looked nice. Liz's turn and she could not stand me moving while she was out in the pocket so I had to wait and do a rear cross afterwards. Next going into the weaves....Breeze could NOT handle a rear cross because it makes her pay just a little too much handler focus and she misses the entrance because we are having some trouble with those, so I needed to get in place for a front cross for that. Liz loved the rear cross and the freedom to just run ahead of me, that really HELPED her catch the entry. At the end of the weaves Breeze needed a front cross to transition her to handler focus to get her past the entrance to a tunnel and the aframe and get her in the right end of the tunnel. Liz did so much better just decelerating and pushing her to the right end of the tunnel. The whole class continued like that, with both girls needing almost opposite plans. Both with such different challenges and weaknesses.

Anyway, you get the idea-they are sooo opposite and I was just slapped in the face with all the differences last night running one after another. I am keeping them straight and doing some of that already, but gosh I do not know how in a trial when you get one try I will ever keep those girlies straight.

Second class of the night I brought Cricket for some socializing. YIKES, she is a scary one, nailing everyone with her jumping. I was able to finally get her to settle and do some good work, so it all ended good, but she can sure be over the top when we walk in the gate.

Breeze ATE my jacket, a HUGE hole when I put my jacket over her crate so she would not freak out when Liz ran. YIKES, I should have known better, but now my new jacket is toast unless I want to wear it with a huge hole in the middle of my back....OOOH BREEZE!!! That was sooo naughty!

I was at the yard and in classes for almost 4 hours between all the dogs last night and I was so tired after dealing with all that border collie energy all afternoon, LOL.

This afternoon will seem like a vacation because Breeze has her class, and only Breeze gets to go today.

ALMOST twins!

Twin B Cricket




Twin A Lizzie-

The only reason this is funny is that I think Lizzie and Cricket look as different as night and day. One is obviously a baby, and one a full grown dog, one is black and white with a lot of black on her face, one is red/white with a ton of white and a split face, one has shorter straight hair and Lizzie looks like she got a perm.

I have taken both girls out at least two times a day to a public place lately, Liz because she is working on just staying calm and loose leash walking and reducing her stress/excitement level out in public, and Cricket because she seems to be going through a little fear period-not with people but with some places so I am getting her out with no pressure and just letting her say HI to lots of people because that keeps her happy and relaxed.

Well, it has happened soooo many times in the past few days....I stop and talk with a lot of people and the dogs do their tricks, Cricket jumps all over everyone...you get the picture. I take the dogs in one at a time..take one to the car and switch dogs then go back in and work again with the opposite dog. Well, inevitably people come up to talk to me again a second time, talk to the dog (which by now is the other dog from the one they have already met...), eventually about half of them get a little bit of a puzzled look and say this is the same dog isn't it? LOL.

I am sure I would do the same thing if I was in their place, but it just reminds me of that experiment they do where they set up a "crime" and then ask people what they saw and they usually are pretty inaccurate, and it is so funny because it has happened so many times the past few days.

Videos from AKC nationals...

One day these might be our runs....but not today for sure! I found some of the highlights from the AKC nationals. I was in and out of the house too much that weekend to subscribe to get the feeds so I was excited to find some of the winning runs that I had wanted to see. I loved watching how they all got that last tunnel entrance, even though most of the handlers were behind, and the last runner, Daisy Peel and Solor, she is my hero being able to get out there and get a FRONT CROSS into that last tunnel entrance, YIKES! I would have died attempting that, LOL.

The winning runs of the AKC Nationals in the regular class.




Congrats to Breeze's brother Blink who got forth in the 24 inch finals-way to go Blink and Tracy. Tracy owns Breeze's dad Blew and has been so terrific in the past helping me learn handling and even used to have me over for practice sessions and really helped me out when I was first training Breeze. Tracy and Blink won 2nd in jumpers out of 82 dogs to make the finals, yippie! It was really to see how terrific they did. Breeze says YOU GOOOO BROO!


Also Congrats to Breeze's litter mate Zing handled by Gabrielle B who made the finals-way to go!

Homemade Puppy Puzzle

Well, they are predicting SNOW in the Southern California desert and it is almost April! Last week I almost died from heat exhaustion. It is really windy and rainy so it was time to find some things to do inside.

I decided to try making a puppy puzzle. Super easy to do...just take a plastic bottle and carefully, using all safety precautions drill two holes across the bottle from each other so you can insert a dowel or some stick type thing. If you put the holes about half way down the bottle that is a pretty easy setting, I made mine with a couple of different holes, if you put holes further up then it is harder.

I did figure out that the treats come out really fast, so I just put in a few at a time, or I was thinking you could put the top on and drill a smaller hole in that, but then it is getting complicated ;-). I have also seen this type of thing where they made a base that could hold the bottles so you did not have to hold it, but again this was a rainy afternoon project that I wanted to try NOW. Of course different size bottles would give a totally new challenge! I used am empty soda bottle because that was closest to where I was sitting, and I used some kibble for the treat.

Each of the dogs did things differently, Cricket....true to her nature, attacked the thing and started grabbing it and forcing it to yield its treasures. Breeze was ever so delicate and just gently nudged the bottle and Lizzie sort of sat and tried to figure it out before she wanted to really work on it.



I am playing with fetching, the dogs sit and fetch the remote while we are watching tv, which could be a really super useful trick....they fetch the cell phone-probably not the best thing for them to fetch because this is my new cell phone that has to last two years and it is super nice ;-), and a plastic dumbbell. Actually they will fetch lots of things. I am going to teach an obedience fetch, but am just working on happy fetching right now and getting the idea and being very happy about it. I have been reading two books with some excellent fetching ideas...Schutzhund Obedience-Training in Drive--I had got that book when some agility people I really admire were talking about training in drive which simply means always making the dog keen to work and having a very excited attitude. So the way they start out fetching is very interesting, and I am going to try it, and I will report back on what I think. The other book that I am using to formulate a plan to teach the retrieve is the Clicked Retrieve book, hummm, not sure that is the correct name....and I don't see where I put the book at this moment, but it is excellent too. So I just did a video of the dogs playing with retrieving different objects.



On a side note, gosh what is the deal with Youtube? Every time I figure out just where everything is and how to get all the info they change it again. This afternoon I was thrown for a loop trying to figure out where to find the embedded code, grrrrrrrr. Don't they know the stress that change causes me?