Time Flies

Today was Training Troop's Aug Wee Wed Trial. Steeplechase and Master Jumpers. 2 years ago about this time Baxter and I entered our very first AAC agility trial (first dog performance event period) and got his first Q ever in Starters Jumpers.

It would have been nice to have gone to the trial, however, agility (trialing at least) is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment.

It's certainly amazing how time flies. It certainly doesn't feel like I've been playing this game for 2 years!

2 years of learning how play with my best little fluffy buddy in a meaningful way, to teach him, motivate him and to grow my relationship with my dog to where it is now. The changes  and personal growth in the 2 years have been pretty amazing.

I was looking back on old emails, and found the one for our first dog class. 15-Jul-2009 started us on this journey. It's been an amazing 4 years so far and I'm so lucky from a "pet dog" person perspective to have found positive training and gotten onto a better track.

I couldn't have asked for a better partner to learn with either. Thanks Fluff. <3

Children and Dogs

A phrase that strikes fear, or at least a healthy sense of caution, into the hearts of some dog owners - especially when they're not your children! Everyone seems to envision those wonderful heart warming moments; the child with their dog. Timmy with Lassie and so on. But often reality falls a little short of the TV portrayal.

Pretty as a picture: a dog and a kid

Small children are noisy. They behave in a incomprehensible and erratic manner and move very quickly. In short, they are just about every reactive dog's worst nightmare as a trigger. Most interactions with children are not positive for the dog either. Hair gets pulled, the dog gets squashed, gets woken up when sleeping, gets poked or scared or just bothered.

For the most part, segregating dogs from children works nicely - especially if you have dogs, but you don't have children. It eliminates the opportunity for the dog to practice and rehearse those unwanted behaviors with children or for the child to inadvertently do something to hurt/scare the dog. However, it also doesn't address any of the existing issues, such as reducing the dog's fear of children. My dogs aren't particularly children friendly and I'm fine with that. My house isn't children friendly either - it's dog friendly!

I do however have family, who have started their own families. Doing things with family means the dogs are exposed to little children (3 under the age of 3) who have their own dogs - and therein lies the problem. Auntie's dogs are not like their dogs, despite being small like their own dogs. (Auntie's dogs come with a whole LOT of special rules.) Christmas and special occasions are not much of a problem, just don't bring the dogs. The problem lies with things like camping. I want to go camping, I also want to bring my dogs camping. I go camping to spend time in nature with the dogs.

The dogs are not require to like strange children. If I am not engaged and interacting with the dog(s) when the kids are around, the dogs are kept safely away from the kids (this means I'm not watching TV "supervising" them.) I will not let them be put into a situation where they could bite. I do however expect them to behave in a appropriate manner with nieces and nephews, who in turn will behave appropriately with my dogs. To that end we've been working an array of behaviors, mostly with my 3 year old niece.

The standard counter conditioning - look at a kid at a distance, click and treat. Look at the kid from less distance - click and treat. Hang out while kid plays - click and treat. Kid does something noisy/scary - click and treat. Working with one dog at a time, or in a group. See? She's not that scary. Good things happen when she's around. 

More counter conditioning with the kid providing good things once the dogs are no longer reacting to or worried about her presence. Putting the dogs into a sit,  then get her to feed them treats or put dinner bowls on the floor and release them to eat. Oh look! Not only is she not that scary, sometimes she gives you good things! Yummy good things!

Conditioning Err, teaching the kid how to behave with dogs, or at least my dogs. Don't tease them or try to take their things away. Don't chase them. If he looks like that (eye's rolling, lip licking, freezing) you scared him and we should just stand still or be quiet and move away etc. Give them treats like this and so on.

Finally I've been building value IN the kid with the dogs. We'll play ball with them. Penny is still a work in progress, but Baxter and Spencer will play fetch with the devil if he's throwing that ball for them! This kid is great! She will throw that ball for hours. I love the kid, she throws my toy for me!

Might be the devil, but still will throw my toy!

All the dogs were very good with my oldest niece while we were camping in Farragut. (The other 2 aren't walking yet.)

Baxter was just brilliant with her though. He walked very nice with her when we went on walks. Calm, quiet. He walked beside her and didn't try to pull her around - and in turn she didn't yank him all over trying to make him listen. He played fetch with her at the beach. It was adorable, and appropriate!

At agility trials, one of the highlights for me is watching junior handlers with their dogs. It's just adorable. Everyone cheers the kids on and it is just heart warming. Like Timmy and Lassie, but better - because it's real!

I got into agility because I fell in love with the Superdogs when I was a kid. I wish my parents would have gotten me into agility when I was a kid. Watching Baxter with my niece was like watching the dogs play agility with their kids. It made me wonder if maybe one day one of the kids might want to play agility with one of my dogs.

For other excellent reads on dogs & kids try:

http://www.robinkbennett.com/2013/08/19/why-supervising-dogs-and-kids-doesnt-work/

http://www.dogsandbabieslearning.com/

Agility Photos - From Nationals

Since I've gotten a Nikon DSLR for Christmas I'm slowly figuring out how to work it and get decent shots with it. Nationals with all the down time after the runs was a decent time to try it out - the downside is that I want a new lens more than ever before! Well that and an editing program.

Dash

Reo

Coolhand Luke

Kaluah

Valor

'Mess

Swagger

I wish this had been in focus, because this would have been a really nice photo!

2013 AAC National Championships - Part 2 The Trial and Results

Since this year was my first Regionals, it only follows that this was my first Nationals as well!

I was supposed to share hotel and benching with our friend and trainer Kim, but that plan changed when Spryte went into heat a couple of months earlier than anticipated. So now I was on my own - but agility is about you and your dog right? So I hoped it would be okay. Besides, there would be other people up there I would know and could hang out with - just no other people I had really trained with before.

Baxter making sure we're organized with the catalog

I also a little concerned about the layout, being able to find everything and about conflicts running Spencer in Regulars and then Baxter in Specials. This was a bit of an issue at Regionals, but since I sort of knew how to deal with it from Regionals I wasn't too worried about it for Nationals.

The trial venue was awesome. Really nice grass to run and exercise/play ball on. There was also a lake to swim in less than a 10 min walk away and some lovely pathways to walk the dogs on. Swimming at the lake was a hit until I accidentally threw Spencer's bumper into the cattails on Saturday and then wouldn't let him try to get it back (I couldn't see it and I didn't want him to drown if he got stuck in the plants.)

Nationals was an absolutely amazing experience.

Ribbons, ribbons everywhere!
L - Individual round placements 1-10th     R- Aggregate placement ribbons for each class 1-10th

We made some new agility friends with local and out of town people. From people going out to grab takeout supper to eat at the trial site, to joining buddies at the banquet, to random helpful strangers (who turned out to be running in 6" specials with Baxter) helping set up the shade tent.

The energy and tension during some events was just crazy. During the last day running the final 26" regular dogs there must have been over 100 spectators surrounding that ring - and when the top 10 dogs were running it got progressively quieter, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop for the final 2 dogs (who were 1st and 2nd place for that height.) The crowd cheering on the dogs with silent tension was crazy, like we were worried about distracting from a clean run.

Steeplechase Finals were just the opposite, same energy but now that energy was given sound. The fighter jet flyover (convenient timing!) doing The Wave around the ring waiting for the event to begin, watching some truly amazing dogs with fabulous handling and training.

Baxter - 2nd Overall in 6" Specials

I am so proud with how well my boys did at Nationals! We struggled through some things, realized others and grew as a team. Both dogs really tried for me and ran well in some pretty warm conditions. Both had moments of brilliance that will only get better! I figured out some more of the mental management side of things that I have taken for granted before, and like the dogs, will only get better!

After Regionals with Baxter and having no expectations, I did have some going into Nationals I won't lie. I wanted to hit the podium with him (like in the Olympics -  you get Gold, Silver or Bronze so I wanted 1-3 place.)

We did succeed.  Baxter placed 2nd overall in 6" Specials with 439.44 points. He was a good little Fluffy, but if bad luck had not befallen a fellow competitor in one of their rounds we would have been third. Still a very good placement in my mind, especially for our first Nationals with only 2 clean runs. We had a couple of little bobbles here and there, due to some handler nerves and some stress when Baxter wouldn't work away AT ALL in Gamble 1. Then towards the end of the weekend, more moments of brilliance, his Standards were lovely, weaves were great and he almost managed to get Gamble #2 just ran out of time (and then flew off the teeter ...)

Baxter with all his ribbons.
We were trying to do it like Pokemon and collect one of each placement.
We did get a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th! but then a 7th and 8th to ruined our chance to get a flush!

He also took 2nd in the Steeplechase #2 qualifier round, earning his first legit steeplechase Q on a course with 2x 12 weaves 3 seconds under SCT!

Spencer did amazing. He missed ending up in the aggregate placement ribbons by less than 6 points, placing 12th overall in 10" Regulars with 419.25 points, which is more than he earned at Regionals!  He did however earn a couple placements in individual runs, placing 7th in both his Jumpers runs and 4th in Standard 1!

For the dog that I thought was not going to weave at all at Nationals (a story for another time) to actually run and run well was enough of a achievement in and of itself. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I am so happy with my baby dog.

Spencer ran 3 clean rounds, and did better in Gamblers than he has before. I knew he was in 10th place going into the final Standard on Sunday and I am sure that I inadvertently screwed up his run with handler nerves too. So things to learn and work on for sure, but some great successes as well.

2013 AAC National Agility Championships - Part 1 The Trip

You know the feeling. The on you get when you're in the car

on the top of the rollercoaster, tettering on the brink after that big climb, about to drop. The fluttering butterflies in your stomach, no turning back now, OMG here we go - what was I thinking!?!!? That feeling?

That's AAC Nationals. Here we go!!!

At William F. Lede Park

You jam pack everything but the kitchen sink into your little car, and answer the incredulous "You're taking that?" with a confident "Yes!" Once there is no more space, you know you're done! Or at least you'd better be done. Hopefully there is still room left for the dogs.

Then you're ready to road trip up to Casa-de-Luxury where you'll be living for the next 5 days! (or at least sleeping) On a side note, I went with a motel this time to see if the dogs are quieter. We were actually able to sleep at night, without waking up barking at noises and doors slamming - so luxury or not, staying at this place was a good plan.

Then you hit the trial site to set up home sweet home thanks to some awesome agility friends who were kind enough to lend it to you (as well as their wagon and more shade tarps!)

One evening before we left the site.
It got cooler so the dogs went together in the fabric x-pen with blankets and the shade tarps went into kennels so they couldn't fly away if there was a issue at night!

It was the AAC's 25th Anniversary, so there was a cool agility cake at the banquet on Friday night.

Agility Cake for AAC's 25th Anniversary