CONTACTS and SUMMER IS HERE!

Well, it is officially summer and way over 100 degrees, I am not a fan of the heat! Having to work three dogs in this heat really is an incentive to plan my sessions, have everything ready and know exactly what I want to work on and keep the sessions short.


In trials Breeze has CONSISTENTLY done a 2020 when she is on my left side going over the dog walk, and done a four on the floor when she is on my right side. All the recent trials have had the dog walk on the left side so I have got a 2020 consistently, a beautiful 2020, but not a four on the floor. I really just thought it was doing the job so if she gave me a four on the floor or a 2020, it would all be good, until I talked to Daneen Fox at the trial last weekend and she gave me her opinion about remaining consistent and making sure criteria was black and white and always the same-I am glad I asked her about it. As soon as she voiced her concerns I knew she was so right, and I do not want to have to remember to keep the contacts on the dog walk different for different sides of the dog walk, it would be so much easier if she is supposed to do one behavior no matter what way we are going! See how picky I can get? I went to practice today at the yard and got some video of her dog walk contacts. Guess I am going to just have to keep training it and hope it all kicks in and if she does the 2020 in the next trial then I will know it is a trial thing, either way I am going to have to find some fun matches and different places to keep working it and see if we can fix this problem. I was suprised to see my four on the floor was back at my house and at the practice yard, the last few days anyway...So I will be anxious to see what contact the next trial will have in about ten days if I keep working and doing frequent reps until that time.

BREEZE CONTACTS, ABOUT THIRTY SECONDS IN I GOT SOME MORE CLOSE UP SHOTS OF WHAT THE FOUR ON THE FLOOR IS LOOKING LIKE-I LOVE WATCHING HER STRIDE INTO POSITION.



Breeze did NOT get to go to class last night, it was so hot and she had counter surfed and got about 2 1/2 pounds of Natural Balance I had set out to cut up for treats. Of course right after that my husband gave her her dinner and she ate all that too!!! Is Breeze a little food motivated? She likes her vittles! I was scared she was going to get really sick and more then a little annoyed. I did not want her to go out in that heat and run and get bloat or something, so no agility for her!

Liz did get to go to class-she is doing so good but I have got in the habit of using my arms to tell her where to go a lot, and she waits for me to give my late hand cue and gets frustrated and mad. I am working hard on not using my hands and teaching her to trust my feet and body again which will give her much more timely info and help with her frustration, me and Lizzie are always a work in progress!

This is Lizzie this morning at our little practice, just loving life and how I usually see her, she is always so happy and I just love seeing her smile! She really is the best doggie ever! She is a smart doggie with the water because it was over 100 degrees!!! Did I mention it was HOT?



I did get some video of the CRICKSTER doing baby dog agility and I will post those later, she is just soooo cute!

Three Border Collies Dreams Can Come True.....in the CA desert!

How cool is this? We were hanging around the house and I took the the dogs out for a walk and found this.....sheep....as far as the eye can see. We all wanted to herd them, LOL, wouldn't that have been FUN! Of course the most we have ever worked is four or maybe five??? Anyway, a lot less then were running around our little town. There was one person tending the sheep with the most laid back border collie, I went up to find out where they take the sheep to and where they are coming from, but he only spoke Spanish, and I just speak broken medical Spanish, which was not a help in this situation, so it will remain a mystery, LOL. The sheep used to come through a few miles away where there is now a Lowes, and a Home Depot and a Target, so it has been a couple of years since I have seen the sheep come through here and it does not take a lot to get me excited, I love seeing the sheep ;-). So the border collies thought they were very lucky someone was bringing sheep to their house, and they did not have to drive hours to see the sheep....although they were disappointed we did not get to play with the sheep!

GREAT DOG, SHAME ABOUT MY FEET!

I really had a great time today, I did much better and just decided I was not going to let ring nerves get me too wigged out. We did not melt at our trial today-that was good. Actually it was over cast until an hour or two before our run, but it was really hot when it was finally our turn. Breeze ran better, and looked happier, watching her tail in the videos makes me happy because she was having a good time. She did not keep looking behind for me and seemed more confident, and I will take that with or without a Q-which is a good thing because thanks to my BAD feet, there were no Q's to be found today for Breeze and I! LOL

What can I say, but I am very lucky Breeze puts up with me, LOL.


STANDARD RUN

First the standard run-it was a challenging course, but we did not mess up on the challenging part, LOL. Figures. Here is the course-you can make it bigger by clicking on it if you want to.



I was sooo happy because even with the heat Breeze looked happy today, she did like the parts of this course where she could extend and open up a little bit. Breeze did EXACTLY what I told her, that was the good news and the bad news!

First obstacle was a tunnel, and I was sort of standing there trying to figure out how to handle it and not paying attention to my position when Breeze got out of the tunnel, I just was thinking so much about further down the line that I was not careful, I just took it for granted that it looked like a super easy entrance to the weaves. Well, of course I had not rotated around and in the video I spent a long time with my WHOLE body telling her to go to the dog walk, and good doggie that she is-that is EXACTLY what she did.

Of course when I messed that up, I was all a twitter sending her to the weaves, did some funky front cross and pulled her out of the weaves at the end, something she never does....she was mad and yelling at me, so I gathered myself and the rest of the run was fabulous, LOL. After the table there was a serpentine with a pull through to the tire and I was really worried about that but she did stellar.

She did not read the rear cross I did before the Aframe, so it was funny because it has never happened to us that she ended up laying facing in the opposite direction from where I was, so that looked pretty funny.


FREAKY CONTACT PROBLEM REVEALED

OK REALLY WEIRD thing that I have been noticing is that Breeze thinks when she is on my right side on the dog walk, she does a four on the floor contact. When she is on the left side she does a 2020. YEP, only my dog could be doing that. Well, I figure no big deal, but then I was talking to Daneen Fox who runs papillons and is on the world team, and she said well, that is ok if you make sure that is how it is every time, but how do I handle making sure her expected behavior is black and white, what if she gives me the four on the floor after I have been saying that yes the 2020 on that side is what I want, anyway, she gave me a lot to think about... and she warned me about the problems of doing retrains on the contacts, yea, I know about that ;-). So I am still not sure what to do about it. I am going to have to do a lot of thinking about what I want to do so I can be clear with Breeze and know what to reward and what not to reward, I guess we are going down a grey zone if I accept that, it might be really hard for me to remember what I expect on what side, ughghghghg, why do contacts have to be so hard??? I noticed this weirdness a few weeks ago, it started at trials, and I trained the four on the floor a couple of times a day for the last two weeks and thought we had it all squared away but when I walked today I thought, hummm, this is the left side and the 2020 side, wonder what is going to happen? Well, she did the 2020. Ahhhhhh, ADD IT TO THE LIST.


JUMPERS WITH WEAVES RUN

The JWW run, same song different verse. Breeze did fantastic, released slightly before I released her but I did release her while I was walking to my place...I sort of got stuck in the pin wheel walking too much so we both sort of stalled right before a jump and got a refusal, Breeze did a marvelous job with the weaves, we got through the next part and second to last jump I think my feet told her to go to the weaves, and I should have did a cross on the take off side and not the landing side of the jump, but, always easier to see that afterwards... but the run was happy and fast, and she did fantastic at the weaves and caught the entry without me having to have her check her speed, so I am WAY happy with that.






SO NO Q's but a happy dog who I think ran really well, I am pleased. I would not have minded giving better info to my dog and Qing, but we got the really hard parts of the courses we worried about so it could have been a whole lot worse.

THE HEAT AND DEALING WITH POOR HANDLING TAKES ITS TOOL ON A DOG:




SWEET GIRL SHE IS, I KNOW SHE WILL BE HAPPY TO RUN WITH ME AGAIN NEXT TIME, HOW GREAT ARE DOGS?




THANKS DENISE! YOU ROCK!



My Buddy Denise came to watch today, she filmed my runs and she brought me this great ribbon board that is to hang my ribbons on. No ribbons to add today, but hopefully soon ;-), so I put Breeze's title ribbons on it and can hang it in the hall by the dogs agility pictures. THANKS Denise!

Wish my luck on the weather, LOL!

WHAT HAVE I DONE? LOL, I decided that I would sign up for some trials while we were still doing classes (there will be up to a three month break before the next sessions start), and try to just get myself and Breeze more used to trialing before we have to take time off classes and after that we can work on what training holes I am sure we will find as we are trialing. Of course we will add the new found holes in our training to the ones I am pretty well aware of already, LOL. I am sure we will have a hefty training list by the time we finish the trials we signed up for......

So all that sounded like a marvelous plan when I signed up but.....we live in Southern CA, and in my area anyway, in July the temps are usually well over 100. I am a melter....I melt in the heat, so as soon as I sent off the registrations I thought, YIKES!!! I just might die if we get a heat wave in July, and you know that is not that unlikely..... I am a worry wart, so I will stress on the temperature until the trial dates get here, although that won't change anything! If you all read about a trial where they found a competitor in a little melted puddle in Southern CA and they are wondering who that could have been.... you all can let them know it could be me!

SO.... I may be lucking out this first weekend-I am trialing at Woodley Park in Van Nuys, this is the forecast for Saturday as of right now....

Saturday: Some clouds in the morning will give way to mainly sunny skies for the afternoon. High around 80F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.


As far as our training, Cricket did FANTASTIC in our last stretching, and strengthening class. We did some recalls in an open field and we were supposed to have the dogs run between two people. Just so happens that my partner was the girl that taught the recall class I did with Cricket. Well, in the recall class Cindy had tried to lure Cricket away from coming to me by showing her food, and Cricket learned that reward was way more likely if she stayed with me. So not sure if that is why when we did recalls she would not leave me. When we really lured and got her to run towards Cindy ( a really slow run..) when she almost got to her she would WHIP around and run to me at warp speed, as fast as her little legs would go.., she was so happy to come to me. LOL, it sure made me feel good and built up my ego.....MY PUPPY LOVES ME! WHO KNEW?

Breeze is doing SO much better at the weaves, but during class she was supposed to catch the weaves after a long stretch and a tunnel....so she was going so fast and it took several tries for her to figure out how to check her speed. I have been working weave entries a lot and she catches them from all angles, but we have not put in tons of speed yet... so we are working on it. Well, the rest of the night she was supposed to come out that tunnel and do a sharp turn into a serpentine of three jumps. Breeze was sure she was catching those weaves again, she would pop out of the tunnel and race for the weaves, she knew she was right, and because I have done so much weave work lately she has been heavily rewarded for the weaves-she thinks those are pretty cool, so hopefully her next trial will not have a really fast entry into the weaves, or some sort of trap where I have to pull her off where she thinks the weaves belong in the course, we may be in trouble. ;-).

Lizzie, poor Lizzie, she has went back to taking a jump and whirling in front of me-one of us is going to be killed when I trip over her one day. I think I just need to work some baby dog sequences with her where I just encourage her to drive ahead. She does gorgeous treadles, some really difficult sequences, and gets huge lateral distance from the weaves, she can do amazing things, but give her a straight line and it falls apart very quickly. Poor Lizzie, I just love her, but, she is a lot of dog! She is fond of pointing out my holes in my training skills!!!

Stretching and Strengthening Class

As a person who hates change....I hope the new layout of the blog is going to work well, it seemed to fit and feel a lot like the current summer season.....however, it was too easy to do, so now I am worried that there is some little thing I am missing, LOL. I am wondering if it is going to be hard for some computers to load??? so if anyone has problems, let me know, not that anyone could not live without my blog, I am sure it would not be missed that much, but I do like to make things easy ;-) and I love all my blogger friends, what would I do without you all and your posts when I get up in the morning?



CHECK OUT RELAXED LITTLE CRICKET DURING OUR CLASS, WITH LOTS OF DOGS WORKING ALL AROUND HER-She is going to be a fantastic dog!






















I started attending a fitness, stretching and endurance class. It is 3 weeks and was meant as a fund raiser for a friend who is very ill, and is taught by the lady I took the tricks class with several months ago, and Deanna who is my agility instructor.

A HUGE BENEFIT to this class or doing any of the massage or strengthening work is that I was really sorry when Breeze got hurt that it was harder on her then it had to be because I had thought I had her used to being touched and manipulated, but really it was very hard on her to have the doctors, therapists and myself doing all that we needed to do with her when she was hurt. I hope that I will have everyone more used to these things in the future so if they do get hurt we do not have to add the stress of being handled like they are not used to to the list of stressors they have to go through. I also wanted to learn as much as I can about how each dog usually feels so that when there is something different I can get on it right away, and doing the stretches might help find small injuries before they become big injuries. I did the warm up routines and stretching with Breeze at agility class last week and had an UNEXPECTED HUGE bonus. Breeze was more focused and felt way more connected. I am wondering if adding this into our warm up will help Breeze be more relaxed and excited at agility trials, because I have not been as good as I should about warming her up and just getting her all mentally ready before her runs. It only makes sense that would help us both.

Cricket got to be the lucky participant...even though I wanted it mostly for Breeze, but Cricket has not gone to that many classes and I wanted to see how she could work. I knew this would be a great opportunity to work on our relaxation and focus work.

This turned out to be a super fun class. We taught TONS of tricks that we are now working on. Tricks are fantastic for stretching and strengthening dogs. Play relieves stress and increases focus and strengthens the bond between human and dog-so you can see where this is going, it was a great class. We went over stretching your dog and then we worked on a lot of tricks with clicker training (I LOVE clicker classes), so I thought I would list some of the tricks we are working on. The thing with tricks for stretching or strengthening is you can lure to get the tricks, it still works the muscles we are trying to work, so even if you don't have the tricks perfected you can get their benefit by luring the trick.

So these are some of the things we worked on in the first two classes-

Weave through your legs, figure eight-great for the dogs sides, you can start with your legs wide and then make it more challenging by putting your legs closer together, you can also have the dog weave around cones.

Bow-I have a super cool way to teach that, you get the dog sort of going down and when the elbows just bend then you throw the treat so the dog has to go and get it without finishing the down. Takes a few tries to get the timing but it really works. You want the dogs head to be really low to stretch out that spine and have them hold it for about 15 sec eventually

Dig-another super fun trick, I am using it to teach the dog to scratch their nails on a board I covered with sand paper to do their nails. You can call this wipe your paws which would work really nice for days when your dog has muddy feet. We learned that by letting the dog see us put a treat under a blanket, and then shaped them digging, OR you can capture them digging outside or digging their "nest" before they go to sleep. To shape them to do their nails, once they are digging on the blanket put the blanket on a board covered with sandpaper, and fade out the blanket.

High Five, Wave-you want to make sure to do this on both sides. I realized I have lost one side on Cricket because I always do Paw on her side she does the best with, so now that is the only one she wants to give me. The wave can stretch and make the muscles that take the brunt of the landing after a jump more flexible.

Beg/Sit up and Beg-again great for the core and balance and the back. You want to get where they can sit for 15-30 seconds eventually.

Roll Over-you want to go both ways, a fantastic strength builder.

Back up -rear end awareness and strengthens the spine and back and increases the suppleness of the back

Crunches-those are the dog sitting and you stand right in front so they do not move their legs forward on standing up.

Down to Stand
Sit to Stand-you want both of these to be very slow, controlled, deliberate movements, not just popping up. I did not realize until Breeze was hurt that she could not do that.

Crawl-great for everything

Straight up on back legstand >-this is a great spine and core exercise but ONLY for dogs WITH NO BACK PROBLEMS

Catch a treat or a ball-great for focus, eye mouth coordination, concentration and attention

Tug-great for spine flexing, overall strength, release of stress and tension. Try to keep the dogs spine in a straight line and no jerking or lifting dog off the ground.

Tomorrow is our last class and I will be sad because it has been a lot of fun. Cricket has been a super star. She gets really excited when she walks in the room but then just settles in and has learned all the tricks really fast and been able to work around the other dogs without going over the top.

Crickets Birth Family in Oregon..

This is a picture taken today of Cricket's birth family. Singe is her dad-he is the red dog in the center, her mom Rumor is in the picture and then three of her littermates-Jazz, Jive, and Moe. The picture was taken by Brittney from Hillcrest Border Collies.






I think Crickets face looks like her brother on the left side of the picture and I think her head shape and expression sort of looks like her dads. You can click on the pictures of her family to see their faces better ;- ).






Now Breeze is in no way related to these dogs, but as far as her coloring, she does look like she could have been switched at birth with Cricket, LOL!

What we did when class was cancelled-and working on those weaves!

Well, agility class is cancelled this week for the dog club meeting, so I found myself with an evening with nothing to do...so I did what any self respecting agility addict does...loaded up the car and went to play with the pups at the agility yard. I got some video of Breeze doing weaves, not the best but her weaves are looking way nice, I got some box work footage with Liz, after our disastrous fun match it was good to see her able to play with me, and I got some video at the end of the Crickster. It was funny because everyone was tired and no one wanted to play with her, so she had to work hard to get someone to play. Breeze is not usually a tugger but the toy Liz likes to use for agility really gets everyone excited. It is a pain in the rear because it is hard to tuck into my waist band while I am running and it really looks like an animal. Deanna got freaked out when I had her reward Liz in class, in the dark she all of a sudden yelled, WHAT IS THIS????



I know how important independent weave entries are so we have been working on those. I taught my dogs weaves with Susan Garrett's 2X2 method, using her written materials and DVD and I LOVE that and plan to use it with Crick when she is ready for weaves.

I do think weaves are one of those things that I will speak for myself, but, it is easy to get them good enough,...and then move onto other things and leave huge holes in a dogs skills. So I have been using Joe Canovas program from World Class weaves, a video available from Clean Run. I believe he uses just channels to initially teach the weaves, but it was so long ago that I watched the initial training chapters that I could be wrong. I really like his chapters on the DVD that sort of walk you through the proofing process. He shows how to teach the dog if they are within a 15 foot radius of the jumps and the weaves are able to be seen by the dog, the dog should find the entrance like a heat seeking missile. That is what he uses to describe it and I love the mental picture!

He shows how to work through so your dog understands how to recall through the weaves, how to run with your dog through the weaves-well, guess you are running next to the weaves, LOL, and how to send your dog through the weaves. I think he makes it easy to work through each step so you can train the entrance for different positions, the left, the right side, then adding in more speed and then lateral distance.

In one of Deanna's classes our homework was to list all the ways to train weave entries and exits. Well, I went and did all the research I could and found 278 things to train and quit because I was tired of writing-I did get the class record with that homework assignment so I get the honor of them mentioning my wining list each time that homework assignment is given out. Joe's list looks a lot like mine, but I will say I had my list before his DVD came out, so not saying he copied me, LOL, but I think it is a fairly basic program that everyone says to do, it is just I like how he laid it out in an organized way.

A few hints about weaves I have read/watched/been told recently, if you are working on weave entries you can use 6 poles, or even less....if you are having problems with popping out then use twelve or more. If you have a problem at the entry...go back to the obstacle that was before the weave, but if your dog pops out you can just go to the start. One thing that Joe suggests too is to slightly open the poles except the first two so the dog looks for the weave and needs to learn to bend their body to get into the weaves, but then BLASTS through the rest of the poles to keep them used to going fast.

Crickets first fun match and first swim!!!

I am feeling like one of those obnoxious moms with Cricket, I just think everything she does is so amazing, LOL, and she is just at such a fun age, it is just more fun every day! I think this such a fun stage for puppies.

Today was Crickets first chance to really swim. The pool finally got ready for the summer, and Cricket got the first swim of the season. The water was SOOO cold. If I was not so anxious to let Cricket try water I would not have got in.




Yesterday was a really super exciting day. I took Liz/Breeze/Cricket to a fun match. YIKES, three at the same time is HARD because they all go so nuts if it is not their turn. I guess I am going to have to work that out....but we had a blast.

The course that was set up had three tunnels and I asked if I could do what I wanted, so I put jump bumps on the jumps by the tunnels and back chained first a tunnel, then a jump driving to a tunnel, then two jumps to a tunnel, then did a front cross to a tunnel. We got to go and play on all three tunnels so it was the perfect place to work, one of the tunnels was right by the crating area so I saved it for last. Cricket was a STAR! I SERIOUSLY WISH I HAD GOT VIDEO, figures I get video of all sorts of boring little things but this would have been fun to watch. Anyway, babies first sequences! LOL.


I was sooo pleased that even though Cricket was a little over the top watching the dog next to us playing when it was our turn she got on the course and was all about agility. She even got the ball and did a small circle but just came right back to me. Cricket took food, she played with the ball AND was a tugging fool at the end of our little sequences-so far she is one of the easiest dogs to train because she values so many things, I have never had as much of that and boy, that just makes it so much easier to train what I want. All the things that Cricket values, and the fact that almost nothing throws or scares her, or if it does she just bounces back so quickly, I really think I lucked out on getting my little Crickster as my baby, I could not ask for a better puppy. As soon as we got off the course and walked past the other people at the fun run she was back to her little spacey self, running and jumping and trying to say hello to everyone and acting like they were all her long lost best friends.

Breeze did AMAZING at the course and caught the weaves wonderfully and there was a line of five jumps with a tunnel opening straight in front of the line, I did my handy dandy Linda M deceleration and Breeze never thought of taking the tunnel, did the hard turn to the weaves and caught the entrance, she is exciting to play with now that things are coming together. We are still working on some things but her skills are growing by leaps and bounds lately.

OK so Breeze and Cricket WERE AMAZING, and Liz just AMAZED me and everyone else (but in a different type of amazement, LOL). I have to remember SMALL VICTORIES, LOL. That is what I am looking for right??? LOL, I have to laugh and I am so glad I have one easy dog or I would really think I was the crappiest trainer around. So Liz was just too over the top with excitement at the fun run. I was the bad trainer and should have just tried for getting her to take some little pieces of the course and left out anything hard, but I tried the weaves right off the bat. DUH!! She does weaves really nice and loves them when she can think, but I totally misjudged her level of arousal. So that was a bust, then when I did start a little line of jumps Liz was so over the top she PLOWED right through a triple, she does that occassionally. The jump went flying, I dont know how she hit it but the stantions flew yards away, the bars went straight up in the air, and Lizzie was limping, ughghhgghgh. It was a bad hit. I walked her for a few min. and she looked fine and she looks fine this morning, but when am I going to learn to not push so much with my space cadet?

Tonight is our fitness for Fido class, and I think the Crickster is the lucky dog that gets to go for the socialization opportunities.