Home for the Holidays

2011 travel is officially closed out. This past weekend we made one last trek to Destination: Chicago.  I don’t quite remember how or why we decided to go since we still have plenty of local shows...   Maybe it was habit after going so many times this year, maybe it was because we just loooove Illinois or more likely it was that we are somewhat masochistic since that is one painful drive.

But at any rate, we somehow ended up at the ol’ soccer arena again over the weekend.   The courses were…difficult.  Not really in an obvious way- very subtle with sneaky hidden serps and depressed angles and off-course opportunities that just kept popping out and saying “HI!”  

I mostly just noticed the very evil entries and exits for the dogwalk.  Lots of ‘into the nothing’ and lame obstacles before or after (DW to the table or weaves? Thhbbbbttt).  We’ve done a lot of turns to jumps and call offs, but haven’t even started thinking about incorporating the dogwalk into sequencing like that yet.  And I’ve never worked more than one or two ‘nothingness’ exits in a session so we were educationally unprepared for a judge with an apparent anti- running DW vendetta (I can only assume?).

Alright, I think that covers all the performance disclaimers? Those being said, I think The Dog did a stupendous job.  How about a recap? Ok, reader, since you asked- why not?

Gamblers:  1 for 2.  Round one had a crazy wild opening including one dogwalk with a crazy wild leap, but then another with a lovely perfect dogwalk.  She did the Gamble up until the last jump, finding it easily, then shot off to an even harder jump randomly.  Watch the video. Hilarious!  Round 2 was a Q, leapy dogwalk with odd stride and I think I pulled her off.  She was clearly tired of dumb exits and just plain tired. 

Standard: 1 for 2.  Round one had a PERFECT dogwalk with a tough turn.  Kind of wild still and pretty wide but clean.  Round two had a knocked bar at the very end and a collected dogwalk- this was on to a table though and out of the weaves. How demotivating. 

Pairs: 1 for 1! First place with Black Dog on a tough course.  Collected dogwalk- I cued the turn VERY early.

Snookers:  0 for 1.  Sigh.  I fail Snookers lately.  I’ve got to figure out why.  She knocked a bar early in the close. 

Grand Prix:  0 for 1.  Sigh! The Grand Prix curse continues. One bar, one missed DW. Again, I think I cued early since it was a 90 degree turn to the weaves again. 

Steeplechase: 1 for 1…sort of?  Awesome round one with a Q and 1^st place!  Round two continued our Round two curse and she found a super weird off course.  That’s my girl, who needs that money!? Oh, wait…

Jumpers: 2 for 2! Probably the highlight, oddly.  Second place round one and first place round two! I was really proud of her speed and attention on both courses.  Only one poorly timed front cross in round one leading to a WIIIIIDDDDDDE turn but otherwise perfectly in step for both courses.  Round two she found this invisible line buried in the last 6 jumps and performed her secret power of just …going.  Most dogs were frazzled and missing jumps or just checking in for the last sequence but not The Dog. She said ‘c’ya at the leash, k?’

Hm, think that’s it?  Things to note for the weekend- she really needs to have motivating dogwalk sequences to continue running throughout a weekend.  There was just too much calling off and no drive in to keep her speed up.  It’s ok- training point.  Another training point will be jumps after tunnels. Naughty bars down a few times!

Good lessons- thanks to the notes I got at the recent seminar… we can do serps again!! She didn’t miss the middle jump on a single one all weekend.  I finally figured out the right cue for her and got some patience and wouldn’t you know? It worked! 

I also- for the most part- was much better on my decel cues coming at the right time.  She didn’t have any China moments as a result.  And since I didn’t cue too early either, she didn’t slow down and start second guessing me.   We totally synchronized our decel watches finally. It was awesome.

She, lastly, gets a big virtual tennis ball toss for having awesome weaves. Good girl on her entries (I even trusted her a few times!) and really good speed.

Annnnnnnd video:

So at this point, USDAA is done for the year. Tear!  Even bigger sad face since The Dog has her Silver ADCH hanging now on 1 pairs Q, and is within a Q or two of three gold titles.  Guess we have to save something for next year!  

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Also have to share a mashup I made of The Pup’s seminar.   Thanks to the videographer for living in the danger zone for the day. She was only mildly maimed.  

Mostly outtakes, but some good girl stuff too.  If you like what you see- go see Tracy for more!

The Day Grand Prix Became Our Beotch.

(…I can’t believe that in this day and age ‘beotch’ isn’t recognized by spell check. Oh well. *ADD WORD,* check!)

Yes, you are reading this correctly- after living in the land where Grand Prix qualifiers go to die for SEVEN MONTHS The Dog gets TWO clear rounds in a row and cinches up her 2011 Cynosport qualification. Yay! Now we actually have a few months to try and get like, consistent (imagine that!)  so maybe we won’t go off course in round one again this year…

SO yeah.  While she had another good show at the RACE trial, I have a few items to focus on before the next trial at the end of the month, and in the name of that ol’ rascal ‘consistency.’

First- the good stuff:

LOVELY weaves: swimming like a happy fish the whole weekend. One missed entry in the Gamblers opening, BUT she went on the get the distance weave gamble that I was honestly not thinking would be in the cards. I also didn’t try and limit her number of weaves for once and she still kept up speed.

GREAT contacts: Houston, We Have a Pattern.  Zero missed contacts. Not even a close call. The Aframe issue has been solved- case closed.  The Dogwalk performance we’ve been toying with continues to prove successful and no reversion to ‘stickiness.’

GOOD attention:  Something is wrong with The Dog. She is becoming… reliable! She shows up where I expect her to on course!  Only one or two China moments all weekend. She has been such a ‘worldly traveler’ in the past that it is strange to see her making an effort to dig in and follow my line more closely. It is even stranger for me to drop my hand down for her to come in… and for her to do it!

FAST times: I would describe a few of her times as BUTT KICKINGLY fast. She had a new personal highest YPS in Jumpers yesterday. It was a bit shocking to see where she fell in the field a few times.

Overall, she ran clean in 7/10 runs. She also had some very nice placements and so got some Top Ten points where she needs them. Yay.

As for those other three runs, or non-placing runs… HOMEWORK!

Jumps into Tunnels. ALL THREE NQs were due to a knocked bar before a tunnel.  One was my fault. (Thou shall not scream “COME” when Dog is jumping. Bad Leader.) The other two were just plain old flat, inattentive jumping.  I suspect I may have cued the tunnels early (in one case absolutely sure of that), so ok, they are ALL my fault but still- jumping the jump is her job on some level and we can work on that.

Sending to STUFF in between STUFF from afar. Our Snookers run was a Q technically, but a bit of a mess. I wanted to test her send to a tunnel across the ring while threading through jumps. Ah, not quite there yet. I know I didn’t drive appropriately and was worried about her taking a Red-Red. I guess the jumps are still more tempting to her over tunnels too. So we need some value-building in this area, it seems.

Me. Moving. Occasionally, I STILL find myself waiting for The Dog instead of moving. It’s not as horrible as it used to be, but I can think of three times specifically (and that’s only what I recall- I am sure there were others!) where I was watching her from what was apparently quicksand instead of getting to my next place.  No disasters, but resulted in a hesitant rear cross, getting behind, and a super wide front cross. When we are getting down to tenths and, this weekend, only hundredths separating the placements then these hesitations can make all the difference.

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Anyways, I am mostly glad that both my girls are alive as of this posting.  The Dog, in addition to her weird shoulder bump injury (which is largely diminished and obviously not bothering her) also had a giant thorn thing buried in her back foot, apparently for some time as it was working itself out like a splinter when I found it. This was not until Saturday afternoon. And this morning, she gashed herself on an open drawer.  I wish she had a teeny bit of self preservation. Just an itsy bit- enough to at least let me know when she is gushing blood. 

A mere FLESH WOUND! Can I haz ball back now? 

The Pup is absolutely 100%. She no longer looks emaciated but has her cute puppy potbelly back again. She seems to be maturing a bit mentally.  She will sit and wait for her dinner which is pretty amazing (considering her levels of starvation the past few days).  We did some loose leash heeling this weekend and might as well call it heeling at this point. She walked at my side in a straight line with her head up in pretty perfect position the length of the arena and back. Both sides!  We’ve been working on her homework for the Silvia Trkman online class and she is doing really well. Pretty consistent recall (and consistently rewarded) at this point, four feet in a box is down (gonna need a smaller box now!), and doing really well on giving me eye contact on behaviors (as opposed to staring at the food while she sits, drops, etc). I think working on this behavior is what led to the great focus in heeling.  AND she got a gold star in hotel behavior this time and another one for car travel, despite the WI traffic jam!

... Are we there yet? Traffic jams SUCK BTW.

She did discover one new way to be naughty though. The flags they use to mark gas lines. Did you know the wind makes them wave at you? And when something waves at you, you have to rip it out of the ground and run away with it…