Oh Yeah, You Blend

Horsefeathers – Wendi Pencille’s great photography of Nina and Tish from this past weekend at Ebb Tide CPE agility. You can get some sense of just how muddy it really was – it was boot-suckin’, pudding-like mud. It was FILTHY. But we had fun – Tish ran fast, which was a huge improvement, plus she mostly stayed with me – she made up her own course, but I was happy that she was moving forward well and working with me – now she won’t compete again until she’s closer to being ready (she was actually better outside than inside, it seemed to me). I think I had a touch of heat exhaustion yesterday and left after Standard, since I was feeling yucky. Lisa came and ran Hobbes, her “girasset” (Basset hound who looks like he’s part giraffe), and she also ran Austin once – there is allegedly video of Austin’s competition debut, I can’t wait to see it.

Demi is making her AKC agility debut “just for fun” this weekend. Good luck Demi and Ron! Run fast and have fun!

Emil finished his Canadian Kennel Club championship today in Aurora in style, winning a group 4 and a comment from the judge that he has a phenomenal temperament and a fantastic attitude.  He said that Emil reminded him of John Bon Jovi (maybe it’s the singing?). YAY EMIL and THANK YOU to Ulla for showing him to his championship today while I snuck off to an agility trial!

Nina’s first AKC titles arrived in the mail yesterday (even though she earned them in April, and I obsessively checked and rechecked her qualifying ribbons, and reloaded the AKC’s points/title progression page so many times it told me to stop…even though I KNEW she’d earned them, actually HAVING them in my hands is important somehow). She is now known as Nina NAJ NF (pronounced “nee-nah nadge neuf”)…nah, I keed.  Still, these feel like A Big Deal, like her Canadian championship did. SHE doesn’t care, she just wants to wrestle with Tish and Rakki, and play agility, but I sure care!

Thanks again to Jen K, who very took video of four of our runs on Saturday (it was ridiculously hot and humid, then cold and drizzly by Sunday) – and then figured out how to send them to me so I can download them and save them, since Flip videos are now getting deleted after 30 days.

Nina Fullhouse May 14 2011

This video shows NINA HOLDING HER START LINE STAY LIKE A CHAMPION (at the first run of the trial, no less)! A good Fullhouse run, lots of points, but all I cared about was that we FINALLY had a start line stay at a trial again – and the next day she stayed EVERY SINGLE TIME! I expect I will probably have to pull her again, but this is just HUGE for us!  I set her up way back and at an angle, but she sat and stayed!

Nina Jumpers May 14 2011

This is Nina’s Jumpers run. I had pulled her from one class already for not sitting at the start. I should have pulled her here also, although she did at least pause (SUNDAY SHE HELD HER STAY EVERY TIME! FOUR SIT STAYS WITH LEADOUTS NO LESS!). Especially enjoy the bit right near the beginning when she scuttles on her back legs like one of those lizards. This was a fairly nice run aside from the start, we were really communicating well for most of it, although you can hear her bark at me a few times when I’m not clear about where she’s going next, I am happy with my timing on most of my crosses as well. This was a pretty complicated course for CPE, even taking into account that it was level 4/5/C.

Tish_Fullhouse May 14 2011

This is Tish’s first-ever run at a trial – it was Fullhouse and we got a whopping 5 points or something, but she did work with me a little bit and it wasn’t too bad for a VERY green dog in a new place with a whole new environment. She’s coming to one more trial for fun (outdoors this time) and then she probably won’t trial again until she’s actually mostly ready.  Her tail was up and wagging the whole time.

Tish_Snooker May 14 2011

This is Tish’s first-ever qualifying run in her first-ever trial! This was a Snooker run and we got a triple seven plus the first obstacle in the course, for 26 points. Running a dog who isn’t trial ready by ANY stretch of the imagination is a bit excruciating (I entered her because I am bad about getting to matches and I’ve been trialing so much I haven’t really made the time, and level 1 CPE is great for very green dogs since the courses are very simple and there’s no teeter and no weaves), but she stayed with me better than she did in our very first run, which is the previous video – Fullhouse. Tish loves everyone and had to go and visit everyone, so the runs were sort of “do an obstacle, visit a ring steward, do an obstacle, visit the judge…). I need to remember to make my cues much bigger and slower for her, and I should be asking her to down stay at the start like I do in class, but this looks much better than I was worried it actually was.

So Tish came along with Nina and me to All Dawgs CPE agility trial today. I entered Tish since we haven’t been able to get to many fun matches and I wanted her to play some agility somewhere other than where we train.

She did very well (earned her first Q in Snooker by the skin of her teeth thanks to Sue B’s quick wits – they hadn’t changed the times for the small dogs and we were one point short of a qualifying score, but Sue pointed out that Tish had been in a tunnel when the buzzer sounded, so they offered us the two points from the tunnel or a rerun, so we took the two points and squeaked in a Q!), but she is definitely nowhere near trial-ready (on the plus side, she is definitely a very friendly dog, and had to go and visit everyone in the ring during our runs, ring stewards, the judge, the scribe, the timer….). I think she had fun, she sure got lots of cookies and the tail stayed a-wagging the whole time. I found it interesting having to switch myself between Nina (experienced, high-voltage maniac dog) and Tish (babydog, prettyplease could you come back from visiting that bar setter and jump this for me?). I’m glad we went! More for Nina tomorrow (we are working on those nasty old start line stays, so she’s not running if she doesn’t stay, we ran two out of four runs today, and one of those probably shouldn’t have been allowed).  I feel like a meanie for taking her off for not staying, but I think it will benefit us both in the long run (especially since I hope that if we can start off under control, we can actually STAY under control, which might help with things like, oh I dunno…CONTACTS?!?).

This weekend at Western Lakes Training Club AKC at the Amherst Rec Center, Nina finished her first two AKC titles, with her Novice Jumpers With Weaves (NAJ) yesterday and Novice FAST (NF) today! She did wonderfully (although we have some work to do in Standard…), I am just thrilled, what a girl!

Three Nina videos courtesy of Jen here from last weekend’s CPE agility at Boom Towne outside Rochester. Jen is one of those people who is just so plain-old down-to-the-bone nice. Thanks again Jen!

Anyway…there is embarrassment contained herein:

The first video is our Saturday Standard run (we are in Level 4 Standard, Level 5 everything else), in which I break my own newly-established rule (and for which I am still kicking myself). Right or wrong, I have decided that I will not even ask for a stay at the start if I do not think I can get one (I will do a “drop and run” where I carry her in and put her down and we start), and if I ask for one, I have to take her off if she doesn’t stay. Well…she obviously doesn’t stay, I obviously asked her to (although I got a very nice sit!), and I obviously let her run anyway. I am teaching her NOT to stay by being 100% unclear about what “stay” means.  Bad Amanda, not fair to Nina, not fair to me either since I’m making it that much harder to actually get the behavior at a trial. Also, it clearly shows that we get all out of whack when we have a crazy start like that, it got her all caffeinated and she goes careening off shrieking like a banshee and misses the next obstacle, flies off the teeter, and we obviously did not qualify. Next trial I will drop and run (since it is AKC, and therefore expensive), but next CPE we’re back to taking her off if she doesn’t stay, even if we don’t do a single run all weekend.

The second video was Sunday’s Jackpot. The tapes marked an area you had to stay out of while the dog did the obstacle within the tape. This was a “nontraditional gamble”, and judge Pat called this a “Magic Easter Basket” Jackpot, the taped off obstacles acted as doublers for the obstacle your dog performed after the Magic one. We qualified in this run although I didn’t handle it the way I might have liked.

The third run was our Sunday Full House run (you need three “singles” (one-bar jumps), two “circles” (tunnels and tire) and one “Joker” (contacts, weaves and double jump in this case)). We scored 42 points in this run, it was a pretty nice run, we were working well together.

We also had a great Snooker run, where we were in pretty close contention for the “51 trophy” (judge Pat gives trophies to teams who get a score of 51 in Snooker, which is the highest score you can get). We had a bar down or we very well could have had it. We did qualify anyway, but with a lower score. We love Snooker, it’s a great strategy game and really tests your handling and planning skills, as well as your ability to think on your feet.

Tish will make her CPE debut at All Dawgs in May. Level 1 CPE is an awesome place to get a new dog some low-stress away-from-home experience – Level 1 has no weaves and no teeter, the courses are simple and straightforward, and the rules are very forgiving. Plus, CPE folks are super-nice!

Video of Nina’s Hoopers run today. Our last run of this weekend’s Four Seasons NADAC trial and our first Hoopers Q! In Novice Hoopers you do at least three “non-test” hoops (in this case, the white ones down the middle), then a “test” set of hoops (a mini course the judge has set, there are usually three or more you can choose from), then at least two “non-test” hoops again (the “tests” we did were the four red hoops on the right first, then three blue hoops on the left in a pinwheel shape).  I think we did both sets of test hoops pretty nicely, but you can see that I mis-timed my rear cross (where you change sides by crossing behind the dog) when we did our second set of white hoops (before we went to the blue hoops), which pushed her off the hoop (and she sure let me know) – just goes to show you how sensitive dogs can be to your body language, she did exactly what my body language told her to do, even though it wasn’t what I intended to tell her to do!  Thank you Jen for the video!

Here’s a great page about socialization.