Agility training

More handling sequences with Kili in class. We finally get to start weave poles probably next week. Poor class has been held up by having to wait for Kili to reach 15 months! hee hee. Weave poles are basically the last thing we need to do. Teeter is coming along really nicely. We are about half height and instructor is hardly touching the board to control the drop now. Frame is still a work in progress as she sometimes likes to launch herself off it from the top. Oy vey. Not sure when we'll start trialing. What I do love is that we've been taking it nice and slow with the contacts and such but have really worked on some tougher handling. I think most of the sequences we do in class are more difficult than those seen at the Novice level so we should be more than prepared for that (thoughts on this... maybe I'm deluding myself!). Not sure when we'll be able to trial. I think I'm casually aiming for about 20-24 months.

Anyway, first sequence was kind of fun and involved some handling move I don't know the name of. lol. Second sequence had a blind cross which I am starting to really like. My instructor wanted me to put the cross in earlier but that just messed me up. ha ha. I did it well (I thought) the first time, but then trying to do the cross earlier I kept muddling myself up, so although Kili managed to figure out what the heck I was trying to do it felt awkward. More work needed.

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Grumble grumble grumble. I decided I had to pick one seminar or the other - I was told Gusto should be in the masters day for both, so it would have been 8 hours Sat/8 hours Sun. I picked the one I really, really wanted to attend and gave away my spot in the other. Now the one I was going to got cancelled because of the cold (really, who expected MORE than 28 degrees in late November?). So now I am stuck with no seminars, no class, no nothing.

Whine whine whine.

I need to move somewhere with more agility opportunities.

Ack, what a bummer

That sucks. If it makes you feel better... I took the dogs to the arena to work tonight and it was SO cold. I couldn't feel my toes or my fingers and both dogs were looking at me like I was nuts. Which I might be.

Until four years ago, I worked outdoors year round in Vermont - I'm pretty much immune to the cold!

I'm just grumpy now. I feel really stuck with training right now, and feel like there is nowhere to get the help I need. Blah. I'll get over it. Just grumpy and disappointed.

There's a intramural this weekend and at my place and I'm trying to decide what to do with the girls. I'm thinking about just entering Mia in one or two really beginner classes and just making sure it's FUN. Then running Summer in the lowest level competition classes? Ugh cant' decide. Also not sure how much running my foot will take.

I would be super grumpy and disappointed if I were in your shoes too. What a bummer.

I'm still riding pretty high from my house league last weekend. (Still no video -- a friend took one on her phone, but getting it from her is another story.) A friend relayed to me that my previous agility instructor complimented Cohen's performance during her class last a few nights ago. She's used to Bar Knockie McGee.

So, I'm signed up for a trial this weekend. I'm not expecting any Qs, but I'm expecting to have some fun.

We had some fun this morning, as we opted to have our private class LOL. It was nice to go to Thanksgiving dinner with two relatively tired pups at home

Kimma is getting back to her old self, slowly but surely. I'm missing trialing, but I know that this hard work and the waiting will be worth it. I think I'm on to something with how I set her up before her runs, and that can easily transfer to a trial environment. "Think" being the key word LOL.
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And Jari. He's just awesome. He may never be the fastest dog, but I have a feeling (and a hope!) that he will be a pretty consistent. As for now, I'm proud of my little guy. Even as he's going through his, "I'm not listening, LA LA LA, I'm a boy and must sniff ALL THE THINGS" stage.
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He's also developed teeter-suck. Yeah. We have the teeter super low, and he just like wants to KEEP DOING IT. OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL FOREVER. At least he has no fear?

Fun run today. Overall we had a lot of fun.

Mia was.... flaky in tunnelers so in standard when she got really into it and going fast and I stopped her a few obstacles in and we had a PARTY. Lots of fun party. It does frustrate me that she's so off and on. I want to know what the cause is because she does a 180 in and out of the ring. I think it's just pressure and I get nervous with her too. After the run she gets so crazy and is running with me so well and jumping, doing tricks. Before runs, she's upset. So I think I'm just learning that she's just not made for agility competition and I'm ok with that. We have fun in class and we'll keep working but I just don't anticipate her really ever being competitive. We reached our goal of one competition and also got a Q. I'm ok with that. She's my best dog and I need to focus more on having fun. Our nosework is going back to weekly so that will be fun. Tentative nosework ORT this spring and trial in September!

Summer is amazing. Our tunnelers we got second primarily because she ran on top of a tunnel or two. She was NUTS and everyone was cracking up. Summer certainly has fun no matter what. Our standard run was AMAZING.... except I totally walked the course wrong and made up the middle part of the course without realizing it. Summer did fantastic though. 100% no errors and just great. I also ran her in a 'twists and tunnels' class and again she did 100%. Was getting a bit tired at that point but she did all the threadles really nicely. She's such a happy dog and so much fun to run. Ear to ear smiles with her.

This is where I am with Gusto right now, but I'm not giving him the choice to decide he's not an agility dog I mean that is a little joking - obviously if I thought he was miserable he could be a professional hiking and snuggling dog. I think I've made some mistakes transferring his skill from training to trialling. I've got one more trial scheduled for December so I can test out some stuff I'm wondering about, and then we are going to work really hard this winter on adding pressure/distractions, getting rewards OFF me, and ... I don't know. Other stuff that I think will help. The skills are there, he loves training, he just turns into a different dog from the start line to the exit gate.

Glad you guys had fun overall. Summer sounds like such a ham.

With Mia yeah it really sounds to me like she's responding to your stress level. Before a run you're tense so she flatlines. After a run you're relieved and relaxed and so she's wild and engaged. You both just need some mileage so you can learn to regulate your emotional pressure and she can learn that it's okay when you're stressed and how to work through it.

I got the ok to finally take Punky off leash and go back to some agility 3 wks ago. Yay for non restricted exercise!

Here is a vid of us at the Jess Martin Workshop today, Punk was a wild one and on fire. Discovered she gives me crap if things don't go 'right' lol. This is her first time doing sequences, prior to this we worked on just skill building, 1 or two obstacles

Next weekend we are off to a seminar for a Justine Davenport foundations.
So very happy and excited to be back play again with my wee girlie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukNscVuGgQk&feature=youtu.be

Handler mess up, Punk is not impressed lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Np5h0HoGP4&feature=youtu.be

As if. I don't believe that for a second. Those are some pretty tough sequences! Good job!



Just had to brag a little as my little heart is about to bust with pride. I am taking an Agility-U course taught by Tracy Sklenar. Well, I posted my most recent video yesterday of Kili at agility class yesterday morning. I titled the video "Kili agility 15 months". Pretty straight forward title. I'm not creative. Tracy posted back to me today "I noticed the video was titled 'Kili agility 15 months' is she really only 15 months? I thought she was a mature dog. She is doing QUITE well for 15 months. She's further ahead than some of my dogs at that age". I'm sure her dogs are actually further along at that age, but I'll take the compliment. So proud of my baby dog. Here's the video in question.

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And in case anyone wants to see the A-frame problems and problem solving... another video:

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We had happy Mia today at class. I love happy Mia, she is astoundingly fun to run. Wish I could figure out why happy Mia is at class only and not other days. She's so observant sometimes it has me thinking it may just be something small that is bugging her. Or maybe it just is the other dogs, etc. But at the photoshoot and also at private lessons she half asses it. Then our normal class, she excels. I keep playing around with time of day, etc? She has mellowed out a lot and is calm all day until 5 pm and then is wild (because of work schedule). The other times we're running mid afternoon and she's usually asleep then. I'm trying to make her run every friday and weekends during the afternoon and morning now. I think we've gotten too into a schedule and too lazy. Anyways, was glad that we had happy bouncy Mia tonight.

She decided to be a super jerk to the other dog in the class though. It's a sweet, sweet little dog that is a bit timid and Mia hates her for some reason. She loves the other little timid dog in our class and these two are both shih tzu mixes (probably with poodles). One's a male and one is a female though and Mia hates the female. She's had a couple other dogs she's hated in the past that were all timid toy breed bitches. This makes number 3 of that mold that Mia is a bitch to. The other dogs she's had issues with were all terriers that have gone after HER and started things but this poor dog has done nothing to her. She actually charged that poor dog for about 15 feet and I felt awful. I dropped her leash coming in on accident while trying to shut the gate and not realizing the other dog was loose. I felt like a jerk.

Summer was solid but what else is new? lol

I also got to run my trainer's border collie on the twists and turns course we did on saturday and I think I am sold on a superfast larger dog for the next dog. That is an adrenaline rush. Summer is decently fast and Mia is very fast when she wants to be.... but Shamus had me sprinting all out and lots of thinking on my feet. Sofun. I was imagining a train wreck going into it but overall we did well. I did lose him at one really tight turn where I was front crossing with my dogs..... Yeah.... front crossing a fast border collie.... yeah. I was barely making that with Mia and Summer and no way was I getting it with him. It's neat running other peoples' dogs and different sizes of dogs though. Nice change of pace.

Just got to see Punky's videos! She looks great!

I love this dog. We haven't played for a week and a half at least so I got together with a gal I usually train with and a newer gal who has progressed a lot.
Ran a tricky JWW course. Set the weaves open enough and she was pretty consistent and HAPPY about weaves, which I'm happy about. Ran the course the first time, I was ugly and got in the way. Ran a second time, I did better. Mimi was a star both times and I think only silently judged me for my newb mistakes. Practiced slightly open weaves during our next turn. She nailed them. Closed the weaves. Mimi nailed it, we celebrated. Tunnel to weaves, nailed it. Jump, jump, tunnel weaves, nailed it and decided we weren't going to do closed weaves anymore today. Yay! She's slow, careful, but she gets it. I'm not sure if there's any logic to this, but I still want to practice her on open weaves to build her confidence and speed.. would this make sense?

Helped with the beginner agility class that followed our training session, Mimi demoed the easy course (with visibly open weaves so she could go quickly though them) and we ran it at the end so she could have an easy speed run. I let the gal I train with run her.. which was fun to watch. The gal has a Dane and I don't think expected Mimi to be as fast as she was, thus didn't cue her early enough. I also let one of the beginner agility students run her, since this gal was having trouble figuring out when to cue for the next obstacle. Mimi did fantastic for both of them. It makes me happy that my dog runs for other people (or at least, runs for food...) and I think it's good for me to SEE her run.

If you're ever in Ohio, come run Mimi. I know it's going to be a fun course to practice if part my mental notes while walking the course include "Run like hell".

Hurray for rocking Punky (boy she came back from her time off speedy and engaged, Ado!), happy Mia, solid Summer, and super sighthounds!

I managed to squeeze in 15 minutes of training yesterday between work and dark...darn winter. And now it's all drizzly and gross. *grumble*

Punky is awesome! And I love the Kili vids too!!

Crossbone is all CPE registered & first trial in 2 weeks! OMG! I keep debating on which level, but I think we'll just do level 1. Considering all if the training & practicing we haven't done! lol

I really liked starting out in level one with Recon- I think it's a great introduction to the environment and actually being expected to work under pressure for them (AND YOU) and even if it's a little too easy, it's great motivation and fun regardless!

I can't wait to see how he does! We will be there that weekend, but I'm not sure what days, yet.... I have to work saturday unfortunately, but I might enter a later class and show up in the afternoon.