2012 Year in Review

Ahh yes, New Years. Looking back at the last year and making plans and resolutions for the next.

It was a good year, dog wise.

Spencer was diagnosed with a luxating patella, but only a grade 1, so no where near as sever as it could have been. Otherwise health issues haven't been an issue as everyone is still pretty young (under 5.) I'm exceedingly thankful for this.

Lots of trialing this year and lots of progress with Baxter. So many firsts! It's very exciting with your first dog in your first sport!

We got 5 titles this year, moved from Starters up to Masters in everything and have gotten Qualifying runs in all his Masters classes (Snooker, Gamblers, Jumpers and Standard.)

We were inches from getting his MADC on Dec 28 at Training Troop's final Whee Wed (on a Friday) of the year, but missed it. Not over his weaves, or his dog walk contact, but on silly handling on my part. I think we might have gotten his first Steeplechase Q as well, but the SCT numbers look a little funny so we may not have.

We traveled for our first agility trial and stayed in a hotel over the weekend.

Sometimes you've gotta work for it.

Baxter also got his PEN as a Tibetan Spaniel so we can play in CKC agility now too. Now to hopefully get Spencer one so I can play with both boys. Opens up the door to more sports as well, like CKC Rally and Scent Hurdle.

Spencer had a amazing year as well, as I didn't really start his agility training until this spring. He's got many baby dog moments yet, but lots of potential and he tries very hard. He got his first Steeplechase Q on the 28th of Dec, and started/finished his Starters Games Dog title in 3 weekend trials only running partial days.

Spencer is doing very well learning to play Flyball as well, and it's been a lot of fun practicing with the Go All Out Dog Sports crew. I love that they aren't exclusively a Flyball club, it makes for a much better fit for the dogs and I, I think.

Life is a balancing act.

Goals for 2013? In no particular order:

Keep training random tricks and body awareness skills. Not only is it good for them, it's fun and it helps build the relationship that I have with each dog.

Distance skills for agility!

AAC Regional and National Championships are around Edmonton area this year. I'd like to try to go if we're ready. I think we are! Hopefully life cooperates and I can swing it with Baxter at least if not with both boys.

Baxter's ATChC.




Actually attend a seminar/workshop/camp this year. In person, instead of the distance/internet ones I've done so far.

Have fun with my dogs and love the time I spend with them, they're not going to be around forever. Cherish the moments with them. I'd like a better handle on Spencer's reactivity and snarky-ness but at the end of the day I love my naughty dogs. They make me laugh, rotten behavior and all.

Run a dog in a new sport, or 2. Like Flyball and Rally-O. Don't just think about it. Prep for it and do it!

Continue to grow as a dog trainer and a handler.

Sometimes to win, you've gotta pull with all you've got.

The best things in life are worth the effort.

Christmas Wishes

A rather late Merry Christmas to all! Hopefully everyone ended up on Santa's Nice List this year!

Happy Birthday Monkey

I can't believe I actually missed it! My baby dog turned 2 years old yesterday. Christmas is such a bad time for birthdays.

Who would have ever thought that he'd turn out like this from what he looked like as a puppy?!

        He's so tall and lanky. AND Bald!

He's been so much fun so far to train and to work with. I just adore this little dog. He's definitely got more than his share of issues, but he's naughty and adorable with so much toy drive! He's taught me so much about applying positive training and working through fears. Happy Birthday Monkey <3

Just think, only 2 more times and you'll never have to get measured for agility again!

It's a dogs life

 It's a hard life being a dog!

Busy weekend and LONG day. We're all tired out.

First flyball practice for Spencer and strange teeter practice as well at our last practice at Dignified Dogs. Both of which went well. He's finally mastered the box turn picking up the ball. It's been a lot of baby steps and its nice to see it come together. He was also able to run with the heater blowing on him, which is a huge deal for him.

Then agility practice out at Wet Creek. 

Baxter was nailing his hard, fast, nasty weave entries and not popping, so I'm just not sure what the melt down was at the trial last weekend. We were doing 2 sets of 6 today instead of 1 set of 12, but he was consistently popping on the 3rd pole at the trial, so who knows.

Somehow the "barn" dog walk has broken, so no running contact practice today. Hopefully it'll be replaced and just not left that way. The dog walk is kind of important to my training plans!

More teeters and chutes for Spencer. Performance is a little hit and miss. Teeter isn't bad, but he is a little concerned about the drop and rocks back once it starts to pivot. Chutes is the same thing. He'll do fine and then refuse it again for no apparent reason.

Winter is hard, especially when training agility so we're going back to the basics and going to focus on little obstacle drills and enthusiasm instead of sequencing. Easy stuff. One jump drills, flat work for crosses and handling. Not too much to give them a bit of a break for the winter, but with walks being difficult with the snow and the naked dogs I need to do something physical with them to keep them in shape for the winter!

OMG I found this toy for you, play with me!

Me too! Don't worry about Penny, she doesn't want any!

Good Boys - Good Weekend

I love trialing with Baxter.

The ultra competitive people way out of our proverbial agility weight class don't say a lot, but the other people have such nice things to say about my steady little dog, which makes me so happy. We will never be that team on the course with the amazingly fast and crazy dog, but that's okay. We're working on ending up one of those teams that flow around the course and make it look easy. Of course, I hope by then to be able to get our gambles ... and have permanently patched up those holes in our training that have once again become apparent.

This weekend was the Dec 2x4 Agility trial. 

Baxter got another Master Snooker Q, that I am very happy for. We were having a great snooker run, and had "practiced" the #6 obstacle jump, jump, tunnel combo in the opening - so why I lost my mind and almost send him over the wrong side of the second jump, then pushed him way off the jump into empty, time wasting space in the closing is beyond me. I wish had video of the run. As soon as I flubbed up the handling and he stopped, turned and looked at me like WTF lady I think my heart stopped. OMG we needed to finish 7 before the buzzer for enough points!!! I spun around and I don't think I've ever been that frantic on a course before. He pulled it off though, with a couple seconds to spare. Managing to salvage that one merited us some applause, though really, I'd rather get it for a good run without the drama!

We had little issues with his other runs, and a steeplechase that he did very well and still ended up 2 seconds over time but had 2 very nice jumpers runs to finish up the weekend with our Expert Jumpers Bronze title.

Spencer was very good, but ever the sensitive baby dog. Something about the weaves threw him and he kept popping or avoiding. Maybe the wide base without much dirt on it, maybe the different poles, who knows? I thought I had chute issues fixed in the last few days of practice before the trial, but apparently not. However, he continued to do it after the first refusal.

After great days of teeter and chute practice I was hoping he would rock on the only standard run he was entered in (otherwise he just plays the games right now.) Now I'm glad that I went with my initial feeling and just put him in 1.

After the refusal on the chute, which at least wasn't a complete deke around it - we hit the teeter. He had a great teeter, but it dropped fast and the surface was packed, so it slammed into the ground hard and fast, despite that - he held and waited for his release, but the noise and the motion worried him.

Teeter drama (likely over the noise more than anything) carried on through the weaves where I got half-hearted performance at best and then to the dog walk where he bailed half way up. By that time I was worried about my little guy. I spent a lot of time and effort working on the dog walk and having vastly different (run it vs teeter) cues to avoid this very issue. He did take the dog walk the second time, but very hesitant on the way up and I had to stand and encourage it, not just cue it and run. He did it on his own though, which I think speaks volumes to his trust in me and our training.

In hindsight, what I should have done after that teeter hit the ground and he looked worried was to play for a few seconds in the ring, do a couple of decent nose touches if I could get them and play push back and run over a couple obstacles on the way out to stuff him full of cookies and play ball. Scary thing = party!

Standard was our last run of the day on Sat, while Gamblers was our first for Sunday. I went back to my game plan of spending 40 seconds playing with the dog on course and not even worrying about points or the gamble. I just wanted my happy running dog walk performance back.

I needn't have worried. He blasted off of his start line and blew past me standing mostly still at the bottom of the dog walk (to support the performance and prevent another bail off) Did 2 of those and I went for broke to see if we could do the weaves that were plaguing us all trial. After missing them on the first entry he hit it and I had my good weaves back too. We missed on the final gamble, but the run was a success in spite of it! Sometimes I think with sensitive dogs that we as the humans worry a little too much where the dog really doesn't care, as Spencer proved!

Snooker and Jumpers were our last 2 runs of the day, and like Baxter, he nailed em. Little bit of a bobble in Snooker with a tunnel refusal on a bi-directional tunnel, but those aren't faulted in Starter Snooker, so I didn't send to the other tunnel mouth.

Snooker and Jumpers finished off his Starter Games Dog of Canada title! He's not quite sure what that pretty ribbon is for nor why I wanted him to sit with it, but hey, it got him lots of cookies so that's cool! Such a good baby.

Oh baby dog

Spencer is so very much the baby dog. I find it cute. He'll get there eventually, but right now I have no expectations of him.

It's odd, I'd think I would? I did with Baxter. Maybe it's that Baxter had been training for a lot longer and I after hearing/deciding that we were ready I expected for us to do really good? Maybe it's just the difference in the boys and the fact I would have never thought that Spencer could do this? Or the fact I did it with Baxter and I'm not worried about it anymore. Who knows. It's a neat place to be though.

Spencer did well for how long we've been practicing. Most of our difficulties are a combination of him being a baby dog and not having the obstacle commitment that I think he should have. I just need to support Spencer a little bit more than I do. He's also learning to "read" what my hands are doing vs what my body is doing, so I need to be aware that lateral distance will likely pull him off of a obstacle regardless of what I am indicating with my hand. This is what makes jumpers challenging for us.

The rest is coming along.

The interesting part though, is the people at the CAA trial. Spencer was so scared I had people give him treats when he first started coming to trials with Baxter and I. What I neglected was to first tell him to go visit to get those treats, so he was the one initiating the visiting. I have said on a few occasions I would rather a dog that wants to go visit people rather than one who is scared of them, and apparently Spencer heard that!

He went visiting ring crew and judges in pretty much every run, or thought about it. In fact, in one of his gamblers once I got his attention over the second jump in the gamble, you can see him notice the timer/scribe right on the other side of the jump and go see them, not even looking at me for any further handling commands.

Oops!

The other thing I need to keep in mind is that this is Spencer, not Baxter and I need to work on tugging in/around the arenas as a reward. He loves it, but since I dropped the ball a little on his early training I get a lot of don't wanna, don't hafta moments. If I want the toy to be rewarding in agility, I need to keep using the toy in agility and not just go with food because it's easier.

In the Nov Whee Wed trial yesterday Spencer ran in his first advanced Gamble and then in Steeplechase for fun.

We've made some headway with running off to visit. He had a really good line to go visit a couple of times but was a good little dog and stuck with me.

I do very much need to work on his distance skills and my distance handling skills. Advanced gambles are a whole lot less easy than the starter ones! Round obstacles are also a focus for the next little bit. He keeps dekeing off of the chute at the last second, but will go through once I send him again, which not quite the chute performance I want to be rehersing. Rear crosses into tunnels and tunnels in general are also going to be a big thing. Most small dogs love tunnels, so we'll work on tunnel love and speed through them.

So many things to do! But he's a fun little dog, it'll be a blast when he really gets it and it's the journey that's fun!

Getting there

Baxter and I are starting to get there as a team. I've got a fairly good idea of what he understands well and what I have done a less than stellar job of teaching/proofing - like his running dog walk or independent contact obstacle performance. Since Baxter is a small dog, as a handler I am forgiven a multitude of sins - but we have a different set of struggles that large or drivey dogs don't see.(I suppose the word is actually driven, but I like my word better!) 

Yep - this is another gamble post!

Gamblers is likely my least favorite game. Ranks right up there with Steeplechase. Mostly because my dog and I struggle with it.

It took 6 months for Baxter to get his first Starters Gamblers Q. I try not to think about that often, but as we're moving up getting closer to that big title it's on my mind a little. There is always that one last thing you're stuck on to get your ATChC - usually a game since you play fewer of those and it's just a numbers thing. With Baxter I'm fairly sure it's going to be Gamblers and not just because it's a numbers thing.

Since I know distance is a weakness it is something I'm working on. I've done several distance work classes and it's something I try to practice each time I'm out with the dogs. Happily, there are a lot of failed gambles in my little collection of course maps that I can draw from!

The other thing I find a struggle with gamblers is planning a path and getting enough points. It's bad enough that the gamble itself is hard, but getting enough points for the run to qualify IF you manage to get the gamble is a stress in and of itself. I find my biggest quandary is the mini gambles. They're the quickest way to get the points, but if your dog struggles with the mini's they're a huge time suck and a motivation suck for your dog as well if they become frustrated or confused about your handling and then disconnect just in time for that buzzer to go. But, not enough points and it doesn't matter if you get the final gamble. It's catch 22 type situation.

However, I had a great time with both Gambles runs at CAA's Remembrance Weekend Trial (my name for the trial, not theirs!)  Come to think of it now, I've had good luck with CAA's trials and gamblers runs. Baxter actually got his first 2 Starters Gambles to get his SGDC title at their trial in Feb!

Our first gamblers run was good. I found a good path, tried a mini that I didn't need to get as a actual mini for enough points and was even able to "practice" the weaves for the Standard run following Gamblers. As if that wasn't enough, I not only got to have my cake I got to eat it too, when he actually got the final gamble. Walking the course and looking at the map I thought the final would be harder for the small dogs than the large ones, but the off course teeter/jump discrimination on the gamble actually favored the little guys.

The gamble on the second day was much more challenging for us. The mini gambles were both tough independent contact obstacles (Aframe and dogwalk) and I was beginning to panic about a plan. So I talked to a friend, actually, the same friend I talked to this time, in the summer when I was struggling. She didn't point out a plan, just talked about hers, but she wasn't worried that her dog couldn't do the mini's either. I stopped freaking out in my mind and built a nice little path for my dog to get his points once I wasn't blinded by panic/worry.

No, really no one else would be walking "my" path, but the whole point in agility is to know and run YOUR dog. So I did. I even had a sneaky "cheater" part to my plan to show him the hard pieces of the gamble in a legal manner.

Long story short, we did a good opening path. He had enough points. We were in a good position when the buzzer went. We didn't get the gamble, but that was okay. On our way off the course the judge told us it was a good opening. I was happy with that. Heck, I was more than happy, I was ecstatic with that! I'm moving in the right direction. I honestly was thought I'd need to put him into veterans for more time/fewer points needed because we just weren't making enough points in the time. Now, it's a maybe, not a for sure thing.

And I'm slowly learning the mental management side of the game. I didn't screw up either of our jumpers runs, which are usually the hardest to memorize because of how twisty they are! There is still much more work to be done as I messed up the easy part on Team and totally gave him the wrong handling directions in Challenge, but it doesn't feel like a insurmountable challenge anymore!