Pupdate 10.0!

My baby is ten months old. 

It’s not as bad as nine months.

Ten months sort of seems more like a ‘fun age.’  The age I’ve been waiting for.

You see, for a small-medium puppy, ten months means that the fun can REALLY start. I think it’s safe to say she’s done growing so now we can get to work on the last few elements of training.

Like…

Weave poles!!!

So I know I initially said I wanted to train channels, no wires.  But I hit a wall where I wasn’t able to crank them any tighter because of her age. And now that she’s old enough, its basically winter and there is no place to work channels every day.  And believe me, I don’t want to wait until spring to start the long process of teaching channels.  Magic solution?

2x2s!!!

I was very… thbbbbtttt about the thought of teaching this method.  But knowing what I know now about The Pup’s food-drive, and that she prefers challenges and shaping to repetitive muscle memory tasks it seems that 2x2s are the best method for her. 

I decided to go with MEB’s method of 2x2s, a slight derivation of Susan Garrett’s.  You can see MEB’s method here.   The main differences that I see are that the poles are always in line (not opened up for an easier approach) and that it’s less um… particular. There are some dos and don’ts but it made more sense to me and less like a ticking time bomb of failure if you didn’t do EVERYTHING exactly as prescribed.

So we started last night and boy, do I like being right. The Pup was much more into it than she ever was with the channels.  She caught on right away and after we raised the bar from ‘any offered pole passing behavior gets the cookie’ to ‘correct entry only’ she never offered anything but criteria.  She was even an angel about running back without back weaving.  But the best part was how fun it was for both of us.

***

So that’s it, that’s the last element to her obstacle training. 

However, now we go back and start filling in the outlines.  For the progress record (that was the basic point to the blog, so sorry if lists are not the most gripping text I could share):

Tunnels:  Good drive to and from (better from).  Needs some work on committing; she will turn back in an ‘are you sure’ manner if there is a cross before. 

Chute:  If Marvin awaits her at the exits, awesome. No Marvin…eh…  sometimes she forgets that she must burrow through.  Work in progress.  Probably the weakest obstacle now.

Tire: Awesome!  Really good about going through the circle, hasn’t discovered going under or around (jinx?).  Will seek the tire from any angle.

Table: Also awesome! Very nice auto drop and will stay for a 5 count.  I can move around, run past and send, but I can’t circle her yet.  She likes to follow me around (though at least tries to remain down then?).

Jumps:  Nice at 12”, working on 14”.  Not ready for anything more yet.  Solid on lines, angles and pinwheels, pretty good sends and commitment, NICE wraps and post turns. Backside annoys her.  I plan on doing a lot more one jump work this winter to start putting commands to the maneuvers and keep her motivation up for jumping in general (though it’s been really building on its own funnily enough. Hmm.)

Teeter: Love her performance now.  Drives through the tip and has a true understanding of the 4 on.  She will stick it if I run past or cross or drop all the treats everywhere (oops).  Sends to it very well.  Might be her favorite thing, close call between teeter and table.

Aframe:  She’s still working out how she’s doing this.  I have Marvin out for most reps still; when he is there she thinks less about what she’s doing, in a good way. She doesn’t do scary boingings over the apex anymore with him there either so, phew!  Without him she has the tendency to rock back much more and take more small steps. Not bad, but not running like she can. 

Dogwalk:  PERFECT with Marvin.  Fast and good extension.  She needs more exposure to different dogwalks at this point, finding entry from angles, and continual work on fading Marvin.  When it’s dogwalk into a tunnel I get a pretty close performance to Marvin, but to nothing I can beat her. She has still yet to leap though.  That makes me happpeeeee.

Hmmm, if I forgot anything, someone had better tell me!

***

As for what it’s like to run now… mmmm… better than cupcakes.  She figured out quite recently that there is no “I” in “Team” and it feels like we are working together now.  Her agility switch is officially on. 

Like I mentioned, I started her this week in classes. She was a star!! Quite loud and obnoxious, as promised, while waiting to go but focused and brilliant for her turns.   I admit, when we first started doing obstacle work and handling groundwork I really didn’t see how she was going to end up with the running speed and style I wanted.  But now… my baby is fast! AND smart!  

***

And in life…well, she’s grown up there too.  I’d never thought I’d say this, but she can sleep out now!!  All of a sudden, she turned into bedtime snuggle pusher.  As soon as I am in bed, she’s there squishing up in a little Pup ball next to me.  And there she sleeps, the whole night. 

Still a holy terror during waking hours though.  Some things never change. Why o why did I teach a dog to be so explorative?  No cupboard is safe. 

***

That’s it! Ten months, in a nutshell (though it’s a big huge hazelnut shell I guess). 

***

Because you can’t post without mentioning The Dog, here is The Dog in her new PINK Thundershirt. No, not scared of thunder, just anxious about life.  What can I say? The Dog needs a big pink hug. 

Post Apocalyptic Agility

Ok it’s happened. I think I finally need therapy!  I've had the strangest agility dream ever.

While it isn’t unusual for me to dream about post apocalyptic societies or agility, it’s rare that the two combine.

I mean, I thought the dream where I was running at the Nationals staged in a fiery Zombieland was relatively normal in comparison- the worst part about THAT dream was that my teammates totally blew the relay final. 

So anyways, we are at Cynosports and its being held at this crazy square building on a military base in a barren, remote location and then it was suddenly World War 3- bombs flying, huge planes coming and going. Total chaos (and of course we are still running). Then it got weird. So, we are at the USDAA Nationals. But it’s really the World Games, see? So USDAA is actually revolting against the USA… and siding with the world stage?  So it’s rebels and Japanese and some people from Mexico, etc. And most of us are banding together in packs to fight off the onslaught and then all of a sudden all the people on the AKC World Team are putting on their Red, White and Blue uniforms and turning on the USDAA supporters! And then they let the American Government in and woo boy. It was all over pretty quick. It wasn’t so bad though, being captured. I mean, Karen Holik was nice; she helped get me medicine for my injuries and I was being marched off to the internment camp.

What does it MEAN??

I must be feeling more subconsciously conflicted than I thought about wanting to do more AKC in the next few months?  

Or my first theory- totally losing it.

***

But we had a nice lazy (read: recuperative) weekend involving no agility and very little training.  The dogs are both bored and hate me now so that’s the end of that. I suppose it’s time to get back into it again- veerryyyy slowly though. Don’t want to pull anything. We’ve got one half day of showing this weekend (in search of elusive GP and pairs Qs!), then THE FIRST SEMINAR with The Pup (EEK!) the following weekend, then an out of town USDAA show (again, elusive GP and Pairs Qs), then AKC at the end of November and beginning of December.  

To prepare, I’m even going to start heading to class again for the first time in months, this time though with BOTH dogs. I’m excited (nervous) to see how The Pup handles it on an on-going basis.  While I don’t love taking group classes, I need to not always run my own sequences and get both dogs working happily around distractions and when I am annoyed (though The Pup will be the annoying, distracting one in HER class so that will be a fun change!).  Also winter here really limits getting on equipment so there is some necessity if we ever want to see a dogwalk again (though I REALLY hope The Dog is past the need for twice daily reps…).   Though the table and a jump fit well in the living room so we can keep drilling happy table (which hasn’t happened since last winter, oops) and cik/cap turns! The Dog remembers it really well from all our work last spring though she did try and hug the standard the first dozen or so times.  While I’m still not sure I’ll use it with The Pup it really can’t hurt (and admittedly she probably does need work on driving out of turns joyfully since I recently discovered her hated of decelerating).

***

Our one thing we did over the weekend was take a nice walk on probably the last gorgeous day of the year.   We went to a popular park filled with people and screaming children, partly because it’s huge and purty so kinda worth it but also partly because I’m putting The Dog into those icky loud situations when I can so she can learn to deal. She got her ball and was mostly happy. 

Attempts at cute dog posing:

Mostly giant fails since THE PUP WILL NOT LOOK AT ME!!

She is always staring off at…something?

At least she didn’t run away.

More than once.

When Jumps Attack and Other Scary Things

As promised (warned?) here are some of the gazillion pictures taken over the course of as many days spent at Cynosport. 

First, RV livin':

Sweet sleepy girl.

Can you believe it, no posing for this one:

Head tilt!

I think it was good enough for awkwardfamilyphotos.com 

***

White Dog the Pig reckons herself an awesome kitchen assistant.

Only one pepper was harmed in the making of this dinner:

Hungry piggy!

The Pup is still working on her Pig status. 

Pleez push nom closer, can't reeach!

***

And then of course there were all the BS Reunion/Smackdown pictures. 

I don't quite know what is wrong with my dog's face in all these pictures. But I can easily see how she came to sprain her jaw after sorting through...

Pirate impression? Argh matey? 

Sadly, there were about 20 shots of her doing this. Mean sister! 

Though she still looks pretty sweet with a hunk of Sister in her mouth...

Sister's fighting style is um, bodily. 

And then meeting Brother Crime for the first time as big kids. 

He liked them a lot. As in REALLY liked his sisters. 

So much love. 

A sweet Angel who would NEVER try to eat her siblings:

***

And as if that wasn't enough, we threw in all the OTHER sibs too! 

Handsome older brothers:

The Pup LOVES this particular brother. Until two days later when she tried to eat him. Oh wait, she would never do that?

A swarm! 

And of course, a requisite clone picture. 

***

So anyways, after a little hiatus we went to practice last night before the classes I teach. The Dog was back to her normal amazing self; even a bit improved since her Aframe was all kinds of awesome.

I couldn't resist setting up a small portion of one of the courses at the WC- the section on the Agility course where the A entry was hugged on both sides by the tunnel, with a wicked approach. She nailed it; in fact, was a veritable genius regarding all kinds of discrimination. Now, naturally, I want to punch myself for worrying so much about that Team Snooker course. Live and learn. 

***

The Pup was the one that REALLY blew me away. I told her to study a certain Border Staffy VERY carefully while we were in Kentucky and I guess she did! Or she just really missed her time to play. 

There was even a fun class happening next door and she stayed focus on me the whole time. 

Not too shabby for my little ADHD baby.  

***

She was very fast and into jumping more than before so I took advantage to start working offset lines with her and other interesting jump formations. She was great! I love to see her actively searching for jumps, since she prefers actively searching for me more. 

I ended up running her on the same sequences as The Dog. I learned that she largely prefers me to stay out of her path- front cross are ok as long as don't squash her speed or in the case of wraps. Wraps are allowed. Overall though, she seems to prefer a very subtle side change. 

I think it's a good thing? 

Because she wants to keep running and not slow down?

Good, right? 

So just a different form of path management. 

Whatever it is, its very cute. 

I do love my genius baby! 

And I love how baby dogs keep you so honest in your handling. 

No matter what The Dog feels about The Pup, she will thank her in the long run when I remember to run clearly and not stand there with my arms pointed all directions like a sign at a fork in the road...

***

Oh, and a jump kicked my butt yesterday. 

No, not when I was running. 

I was standing there, directing clean up.

I was holding a jump wing casually.

Then all of a sudden, down on to it I fall. 

Did it trip me? Decide to collapse? 

Use tae kwon do take down tactics? 

I don't know. All I know is that is smacked my face (bloody fat lip today!), bashed my knee (looks like I'm hiding ostrich eggs under my patella!) and the metal jumps cups left a bruisy, scratchy trail down my other leg.   

Today I feel like I was in a car accident!

It totally kicked my butt. 

So if you see me in the next few days... NO, it wasn't The Pup!! I SWEAR- THIS TIME SHE IS INNOCENT!!

Cynosport Travel Dictionary, 2011 Edition: Unexpected

The Travel Dictionary defines “Unexpected” as pertaining to that which happened that you would have never, ever thought of in all the pre-game scenarios.

As in, that was REALLY unexpected.

***

You think you know The Dog, and then she throws you more loops. More!  We’ve got more loops here than a cable knit sweater.

Before I get into the analysis too far, let’s first congratulate our well-deserving travel companions:  Black Dog was an amazing baby, making it all the way to Finalist Status in BOTH the Steeplechase AND Grand Prix where she had a lovely clean run for an 11^th place finish out of a bazillion 22” dogs originally entered.  She was a real star (really, she claims full Diva Status now).   White Dog was White Dog and may have been the Aframe-hating butthead we know and love, but was her good reliable self all week. Her team finished 4^th out of 174 teams, their best finish yet!  The Dog’s third teammate, BFAM, did really well too- especially in the team classes- so he earned Team VID (Very Important Dog!) for sure.  Lots of MN teams ended up in various final events (and some even ended up on the World Team!) so it was overall a successful week for our frigid state.  I’m really proud of you all, and I hope you heard my cheers, you earned it!

***

And then there was The Dog.  

So I think I left off after the warm up day, before Gamblers ran.  We had the advantage (really?) of waiting all day to run.  It was a terrible design- I really hated the time penalty premise and the fact that the on course gamble was weaves, again.  But we ran, The Dog did the weaves, and so we moved to the other on course gamble which we blew as The Dog blew past the last obstacle. Then the whistle blew while I tried to save it. Bye bye points!! Sigh.  28 seconds of well, blowing.   I was happy she did her weaves but couldn’t believe how badly she missed my cue. Very unusual move for her.

The next day was Steeple QF and Team Standard.   I got her out and headed to the big arena with her for the first time.  

Where she promptly melted.

She didn’t want to walk around the rings- she kept diving for the exits. She didn’t want her treats. Her eyes were popping at everything but I could barely get her to look at me.  When it came time for our turn in Steeple, she wouldn’t go into the ring.  She came with me at some point, after hiding behind the partition, but then didn’t want to leave the line.  She did run eventually, but was not herself.  A bar down clinched it- no semis for us again.  More concerning to me though was where did that come from?

I took her to get checked out on the chance that there was some physical reason- she did have a sore back and a large lump on a muscle in her knee- but I knew it was more than that. 

Team Standard sometime later (in the other, emptier building) was better. I spent 20 minutes playing tug with her before our run outside and waited until they called for me to get on the line before we went in the building.  Her immediate start wasn’t great but we did survive and she was pretty happy once she got to do the Aframe and a tunnel.  I was still left thinking a lot after that day.

***

She is such a sensitive dog; I could only guess that the atmosphere was overwhelming her.  It was extremely intense by the main ring- crabby people, high dogs, everything was buzzing.  After that day I decided not to crate her in the main area anymore and instead kept her in the RV whenever I could.  I also switched to the ball for warm ups and kept her away from the bustle of the crowds before our runs by hiding on the stairs or in the stands.  After some serious shaping we got to the point where she would head up pretty willingly but she never really looked herself on the start lines in the main arena the whole week (where the rest of our classes were).  There was a lot of zoning out and for all the runs the first 4-5 obstacles were pretty rough. 

I can really only describe it as feeling extremely disconnected from her.   This was kind of how it felt when we first started showing. I felt barely on the edge of her consciousness- like something else was on her mind.  And it showed a lot- besides those unfocused starts, we had an off-course almost every class.   The two clean runs we had still had that fuzzy, unplugged feeling and I think we made it through based solely on the type of course (and a nice judge) as my path was forced to be in front which made it impossible for her not to notice me.   

It was pretty similar to the Regional too I guess. Not on the same scale, but I think the loud and crazy is just not for her yet.  It took her a long time to enjoy training, to enjoy trialing and to enjoy traveling.  This is only her third big event and by far the craziest.  My hope is that she can enjoy this type of setting as well, but it will probably take time.

***

Good things…hm… I am proud of her for trying.  She was clearly unhappy in the facility so anything she gave me was just because she’s a good girl. When we got going, she tried to run fast (probably why there were Es this year and not last year- she was moving quicker). Certain things held up which I really didn’t think would survive a whole week.  She had fantastic weaves actually; I think she has missed 22” poles.  She hated the slow tip teeter to start but really accustomed to it well and started charging through the tip (eventually getting a fly-off! Good girl!! never thought she’d be that brave).  In fact, she had really nice contacts all week.  For being the Year of the Contact Calls even (they were down there with microscopes!), she didn’t miss one.   There were four dogwalks this week of varying difficulty and she ran them all. Legitimately.  As in, really truly running like we trained. The most difficult set up for her was the GP QF: it had a bad entry as far as no speed into it, was on my right and exited into nothing really, with the tire off to the side.   She totally rocked it with great acceleration on the descent.   And that was her other clean run, so we did at least get to play in the semis for GP (on that one I completely failed to manage her DW exit correctly and lost her right after that). 

***

So now what? I feel really bad about Team, but who saw this coming?  All I can do is continue to expose her to things like this- chaos and noise- and make it fun.   I almost wonder if it isn’t time to get her into flyball.  What’s louder and crazier than that? 

Training-wise though, I don’t think there was some huge deficit in what we’ve been doing.  I do want to try and figure out something about her start line behaviors.  Though not usually to this extreme, she will show some stress still.  Time to experiment.  I have no problem running with her, it’s the whole' looking like she is about to barf' thing that I wonder if I can’t do something about. 

Also it’s clear that we need to work out how we are going to manage the dogwalk.  If she is actually going to run in shows now it’s time to figure out how I’m going to handle it. Details!

***

The Pup also would like it noted that she had a BLAST despite being kept in solitary confinement for part of the trip, then spraining her massive jaw, then burning two pads watching dock diving.  She still wishes every week was Nationals week. 

MANY BS family reunion pictures are on the way, so consider yourself duly warned! 

Cynosport Travel Dictionary, 2011 Edition: Gamble

Cynosport Travel Dictionary defines "Gamble" as the act of taking a chance on whether your dog will weave independently after a long day of sitting around, thus getting 20 points... Or not, thus earning zero.

As in, this gamble sucks!

***

Here's the Team Gamble info- someday I'll report how it goes, but we are the last group, running WAY behind already.

In fact, the real gamble is whether or not we will run before dinner.

(And if you think all this time is an advantage... Psh. You don't know us! We will just be hungry and sleepy and will have stopped caring hours earlier!)

Cynosport Travel Dictionary, 2011 Edition: Winning

Cynosport Travel Dictionary defines "Winning" as a pop culture term referring to an event of noted significance to one individual, though not necessarily significantly important to the masses.

As in, an E is totally winning.
***

Today was the warm up day- a redux of last years Grand Prix final. My one goal on this course was not to run clean really, but to make sure my girl had a fun confident run and to get her to REALLY run her dogwalk.

Mission accomplished!

She was fast and happy and ran her dogwalk like a champ. Thanks to a chiro work up she was moving great and jumping really well.

Of course, it wasn't perfect- I pulled a refusal before the Aframe and then let her take the jump after the dogwalk. Oops. I think I could have kept her on course if I'd bothered but I was too busy woo-hooing to work it. Don't worry, teamies, I'll pay attention when it counts.

I'm really happy now. Looking at video and being all Scientific shows me it would have been a fast round and well, she RAN HER DOGWALK! 1.5 seconds baby!!

So winning run- no. But winning on my terms? Totally.

***

The Pup also learned about winning, in her own way.

She got a giant romp with sister Triton and got to reunite with her two other awesome sibs Crime and Spanky (Er, VERY carefully with Crime!!).

Unfortunately Triton gave her the best toy ever- her first bully stick- and it's the Precious to her Golum now. She is spending all her time consumed with thoughts of the bully stick and obsessing over how to get it. When she gets it though... Mmm... Total winning.

Cynosport Travel Dictionary, 2011 Edition: Ready

Cynosport Travel Dictionary defines "Ready" as a state of maximum preparedness with a minimum margin of personal error (level may vary on an individual basis).

Ready as in, ready as we'll ever be!

***

We did get here, all in one piece, and survived the brutal Battle Royale over RV plot selection.

It could have been a difficult Final
Leg- We made it past a chemical spill that wasn't, skirted bridge closure jams twice without delay and even lifted a rental from the airport without needing to get our RV unstuck (live and learn-check!!). Been lucky really.

And then we even scored an RV spot no where near construction OR deconstruction. REALLY lucky.

***

After the site settlement, we took the dogs off for a ring rental. This is mostly to burn off the squirrelies of travel. We know no training happens at this point. (Remember- ready as we will ever be!)

But I do feel pretty good now. An extra shot of 'ready' if you will. The Dog was very good; happy and listening. Oh and her dogwalks were gorgeous. The first was a little awkward, but perfect after. Those dogwalks- may not be conventionally ready, but I will take those any day this week!

***

They also got a swim, so they are ready for a nap. Mission accomplished!

The only one not sleeping is The Pup. She wants to DO. Like, now.

Dreaming of being a Cynosport Star someday

Dreaming of more swimming!

Dreaming of... Not much. Loves Daddy. Happy BC!!

So, we are ready!

Bring it on, Play it Again warm up!

But first... Margaritas!