From trainwreck to DANCING WITH THE STARS!

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!

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

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

(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.
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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 ;-)

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

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!

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?

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 ;-).