Well Wishes and Short Teeter Update

We're sending our very best get-well wishes to Lilly from Champion of My Heart as well as the handsome mister Corbin (from the blog named for him).  Both are dealing with acute medical issues right now and we urge you to go over there and lend your support.

Don't forget to visit K, either, whose journey living with osteosarcoma is an ongoing, up-and-down theme in her life. We're happy to report she's doing really well and received some good news yesterday.

Marge says, we hate to hear about other dogs being sick.

Today, I finally made the hour-long trek to train on *the* teeter that Marge despises so much, which also happens to be the one that she encounters 9 times out of 10 at shows.  I'm happy to report that she performed it every single time without any fear, and was pretty quick about doing it, too.

She had a great time and was very curious about the horses in the field across the street (if only she wasn't so afraid of them up close, I could bring her with me when I go ride).   I really like the instructor and hope to train with her again soon.  She was really instrumental in helping Marge get over this new teeter issue in the first place, back in October, by offering to have us come to her class and let us use the equipment we need.

I'm planning another trip to another training facility next week to continue to diversify the equipment on which she trains and environments in which she practices in preparation for our next show in two weeks.

Black, White, and Wild

I am SUPER stoked to introduce this girl, who I'm likely going to have the opportunity to run part-time in competition.

I ran Arrow once in at a trial.  It came together pretty suddenly, and the run wasn't so pretty, but it was quite a rush and a lot of fun.  Border Collies really are their own breed of crazy.

Recently, Arrow's owner asked if I would like to start running her part-time at shows.  Basically, she'll enter Arrow in local shows and if I'm entered too with Marge, I'll run both dogs.  At trials I'm not entered in, my instructor will probably run her (she's been running her for years in Jumpers).

She's 10 years old and in Excellent B in both Standard and Jumpers.  I think she already has her MX, but needs a few more legs for her MXJ.

I ran her last night during practice at our field.  Aside from her weave entrance issues, we ran really well together.  It's only the third or fourth time I've practiced with her.

I feel like my handling really needs improvement - my handling errors really stand out when I run Arrow because of how fast she is.  One twitch of my arm, and she's across the ring.  I also need to be able to differentiate running Marge from running Arrow, which is a challenge due to the different strengths that each dog has.  But I'm getting there.

As much as I love running Marge, there is something really cool about running an experienced agility dog who runs agility because she finds agility itself to be the greatest thing in the world. I think she's going to make me a better handler.. which will make Marge a happier agility dog!

And, for the Marge fans, here she is with me playing on the same course.  We ran it clean earlier in the night, then I accidentally pulled her out of the pinwheel on this run. Our next trial is just a week and a half away!

Inhale, Exhale

I'm trying my best to calm down about this whole agility trial thing.  I know that I'm overdramatic about it.  I think I'm just so afraid of screwing up Marge's agility career as a new dog owner and new agility handler that I overanalyze every little thing that goes on.

The suggestions I've gotten are all across the board.  I've had one or two people that told me to stop trialing altogether for an extended period of time.  I think that's kind of on the extreme side.  Most responses are within the range of "keep doing what you're doing."  Some cite me and my limited trial schedule as being responsible for Marge's apparent (and yes, slight) discomfort in the ring.

Ultimately, we ARE going to stop trialing for an extended period, just because of the winter, after our last outdoor trial on November 6th and 7th.  I can't bring myself to trial her indoors right now.  The noises are different, they may be louder because the sounds are contained.  It looks different, and it probably smells different, too. I think that trialing through the winter in places that neither Marge nor I are comfortable at would be more injurious than stopping for a while and picking up where we left off in the Spring.

I do think that part of the problem is that we haven't had a lot of class time this fall.  Between the heat, the rain, and whatever else, class has literally been cancelled every other week.  This past week, we barely had any running time in class at all - the class was full with 7 or 8 dogs, which meant we all got very limited time to work. Maybe I should set up some ring time again at the club to work on agility with Marge.  I'm planning on having a private lesson before the next trial, but not this week - this week is reserved for a massage for Marge.

I'm trying very hard to get to a run-through this coming Saturday at another training facility.  So far, I've sent 2 e-mails, but haven't heard anything back.  It'll be a smallish group - 25 dogs or less - and it will be outdoors.  I feel horrible for asking Louie to go with me, even though he's more than happy to.  I'll have two minutes in the ring to do what ever I want.  Someone gave me the good idea of breaking it in half - doing one minute, then having the next dog run, then doing another minute.  I'm not sure if that'll be allowed, but I definitely want to keep things short, fun, and motivational, and I want to surprise Marge with rewards at problem areas (the table and the teeter, mostly).  We'll see if I'm able to go.

One thing I did do recently is cut back on Marge's L-Theanine.  I dropped her from 50 mg to 25 mg, because she has been doing SO well.   I'm going to bump it back up for the next two weeks, and perhaps give her 75 mg the day of a trial.

And that's about all that I can do.  I know that my stress might be adding to things, so I have to really work to change that.  I'm trying.

The Disappearing Act

This is going to be one of those non-stop weeks.  I, the girl who saves money compulsively, splurged big time and am going to a concert tomorrow night with Louie, and Wednesday, I start full-time at my internship, which I have yet to talk about on the blog.  Somewhere in there, I also have to finish writing an essay about an opera, which was started at 3 A.M. this morning, but has yet to be completed.

You likely won't hear from Marge and I until Thursday - please forgive us, we'll catch up, I swear!  For now, enjoy these two shots from Marge's final practice before her trial this Saturday and Sunday.

We worked on wraps, pull-throughs, outs, and some front and rear crosses.  She's really solid.  And she was this happy even after listening to the sounds of the angriest thunderstorm we've seen this summer.  Does she love this sport, or what?

Getting Ready for the Ring Again

I'm not going to be able to make it to agility class next week, so this Tuesday was our last chance to practice with instruction before our trial on September 18 and 19.

I ran two courses - one during class, one during a short lesson that I had with Marisa after class.

Course 1 (White Circle Numbers)
I led out past 2, called her and pushed her through the last two jumps of the serpentine.  Straightforward from there, 'til a rear cross over 7 to get her up the A-Frame.  Then a front cross in front of the A-Frame, dog on right through the weaves, rear cross over 12 to the table.

Led out halfway from the table and did a moving front cross between 14 and 15.  Dog on left to start the serpentine, then a front cross on the landing side of 19 and dog on right 'til the end.

Fun course.  I didn't run in to much trouble at all. Marge goofed off a bit on the hard rear cross to the table, and had a little bit of weave issues (but it's really a horrible set of poles - I almost want to stop training weave poles until my club gets a better set - preferably, a 24" set).

Course 2 (Black Circle Numbers)
 Led out past 2 and pushed out over 3.  Front cross between 4 and 5.  Rear cross over 7.  We ran in to some trouble on the teeter/A-Frame thing .. I was pushing her too far out and she took the tunnel.  She was starting to stress about doing the teeter a million times, so Marisa told me to move on from there.

Back cross to the table, dog on left in to weaves.  She took the 15 tunnel without a problem, to my surprise.  Had to push push push to get her over 16, and I'm pretty sure she stayed on my right through the end.

This was definitely a tougher course.  But, with the exception of my miscommunication with Marge at the tunnel, we did well.

Marisa says she looked great and that we really had nothing else to work on after running these two courses.  I tried to hang out with Marge while she ran her own dog, but Marge heard some noise in the distance that freaked her out, so I put her in the car and smooched on some adorable GSD puppies instead.

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I'm excited and nervous for this upcoming trial.  I'm excited that we're finally getting back in the ring, excited that there's a very good chance that Marge will finish her OA title.  I'm nervous because it's a new trial site, that, as far as I know, has never been used for a dog show before.  It's a park near the water, so I guess my biggest concern is boats making noise or something like that.  Oh well - I guess I'll go in to it with the same mindset that I have for my last trials.  Hope for the best, pull Marge out if something doesn't seem right.  Usually, the sounds and sights and smells of the trial block out everything else, so this likely won't be any different.. at least I hope it won't.

We'll have several of our friends and former classmates either tenting with us or next to us, which is a comfort to me, and I think to Marge, too.

We're at a really good place in terms of agility, and we'll spend the next three months trialing in the cool weather.  If not for school, this would definitely be my favorite time of year.

Taken May 2010; never posted it!

Tuesday Training 29

This post is going to be mostly bits 'n pieces of things. As many of you know, because of my school schedule and workload in conjunction with my newfound procrastination (I blame a certain someone's recent and numerous TV appearances for this -- and I NEVER watch TV), I am having some trouble getting stuff done.

Agility

Well, I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday, but my instructor forgot to put it on her calendar. So, I was by myself during my practice time. It was a bummer, but hey, what can you do? Marge and I didn't do much, since I really don't trust myself to set up good courses alone - I either make them too easy or too hard. We mostly worked individual obstacles..

• Teeter - all of a sudden, Marge's teeter has gotten so much more iffy. It was at full height yesterday, and, in the middle of the plank, she decided to bail several times. So, I put the table under the end of it to make it lower, and she seemed better with that. Then, I removed the table and she was doing it full heigh once again. I can't really put my finger on why she's suddenly more unsure of it than ever before - she will literally run across the room to get to it (and then I have to keep my mouth shut and not correct her, even if she isn't listening to me), but then freezes up in the middle. Like I said, though, she seemed better at the end of the session, so I'll count that as progress.
• Table - did some table sends. She's sticking to the table a whole lot more than before, waiting for me to give her the release word before she gets up.
• A-Frame - we haven't worked it in a while. I dragged it out today, but it wasn't set up right and I was counting on Marisa to help me.. so, we didn't get to do it. Hopefully next week.

Once again, I find that I communicate so much better with Marge when we train in our backyard. I only have room for two (makeshift) jumps, but she pays so much more attention and my handling is so much more consistent. I still haven't figured out why this is.

On a positive note, I've basically quit worrying about our trial that's coming up in about a month and have decided to just take things as they come.

Walks

I touched on walks in the last post. It's gotten significantly busier outside since this weekend. Marge is doing okay. She hasn't shut down, but she's been doing a whole lot more lip licking and looking around at various things. Sometimes, she's better than others - for example, she was fine being out in the field among a group of people playing soccer Sunday evening, but was uneasy when she saw people walking around this morning. As usual, I'm trying to encourage her and find a balance between behavior modification on walks and let-Marge-do-whatever-the-hell-she-wants on walks. It's an ongoing process.

I plan on blogging about Marge's L-Theanine supplement and my thoughts on medications in the near future. I know several of you have asked about that.

I truly think that Marge's motivation walk - and therefore, to face her fears - goes out the window when the sun is out and the temperature is high. If two stressful situations are exactly identical except for the temperature, there is no doubt that Marge will do better behaviorally in the colder situation than in the hotter one. It's kind of an interesting problem to combat, because it's only in the 60s right now!

People

I feel as though Marge has gotten more aloof around people lately. We had a family friend over the house on Saturday for dinner. Marge hung out in her crate, since seven people in a tiny kitchen, in my opinion, would have been a lot for her (yet, she'd try to beg anyway). However, when she was actually around this family friend, she was neither scared nor particularly friendly - she just "was."

That's not to say she didn't wag her tail and sniff to say hello, but this is interesting, because Marge is usually more friendly than this to non-threatening people that are in her house. It might just be my imagination, though. She was in her crate a large part of the time this person was over - upwards of three hours, with breaks in between - so she simply might not have been around the person enough for me to draw reasonable conclusions on her behavior. The fact that she was able to settle in her crate with so many people in the house was definitely a positive.

One of her favorite people ever - my sister's math tutor - is coming over tonight, so we will see what the result of that is.

Other activities

• Now that it's warm outside and the ground has dried, I plan on starting to work with the dumbbell again. I tossed it around for her a couple of times over the weekend, and, despite the fact that she hasn't used it in weeks, she remembered exactly what to do with it. Strangely, she seemed to mouth and chew on it less than before. That's a good thing - but I wonder what caused the change!
• I'm still debating whether to enter two days of the April APDT Rally trial, or just one. We're supposed to be training with our Westie friend this weekend, but haven't really worked on Rally lately. Planning on renting the training hall to set up an APDT course one of these days.

And, that's about it for now. After these disorganized couple of weeks, I'm planning on getting back on track with just about everything - blogging, school work, training Marge, you name it!

Tuesday Training 28

We had an great and productive lesson with Marisa yesterday.


This was the bulk of our work. In the black sequence, Marge had to "go out," and in the white sequence, she had to come in to my hand. We handled the go outs much, much better than the come ins, but the handling did start to click towards the end.

We also did some work on front crosses. I am very, very late with my fronts, and that problem is exacerbated by the fact that Marge's stride over the jump is pretty big and she isn't reading the fronts that well yet. To counter this, Marisa put a gate alongside one of the jumps so that Marge had to adjust herself as I front crossed.

We're going to have another lesson next week. I think we're going to put out more standard course equipment and less jumps. It's been a couple of weeks since Marge has seen contact equipment.

We're roughly a month away from the trial now. The plan is to keep training with Marisa privately, and drop into class one or two times. I might have the opportunity to go back out to train in New Jersey, but I'm not holding my breath.

Our first APDT Rally trial of the year will be on April 24 and/or 25, indoors at my club's training building. It will be a small trial, probably less than 100 entries per day, and Level 1 (Marge's class) will most likely run first. I'm unsure if I want to do both days with her. I probably will send in my entry for both, and then play it by ear the weekend of the trial. To prepare for that, I'm going to keep training with my friend and her Westie on AKC courses, and also train privately a couple of times to run APDT style courses, too. After that, we'll possibly have another Rally trial in July. By then, I'd like to be ready to run her in Level 2 - we're starting to work on the exercises now for that class.

I'm sorry I've neglected the blog this week. My absence will probably continue for another couple of days, or maybe until the weekend. For a couple of reasons, I am physically and emotionally tired.

Tuesday Training 27

Do you know the saying, "It's not you, it's me?"

Well, I think that applies to the recent rockiness (if you can even call it that -- it's not THAT bad) of my agility with Marge.

I got to thinking the other day about how well Marge did when we ran Rally on Sunday with our friend and her Westie. Marge was totally attentive, and every time we ran it, it would have been a Q if it was really a trial. Monday, on the other hand, when I opted to run agility during my ring time at the club, Marge wasn't terrible, but she certainly wasn't as good. And, of course, as I already wrote about, Saturday could have gone a lot better than it did.

The reason for this? I'm stressing out too much about this stupid trial and forgetting to have fun.

Marge has spoiled me in the sense that training her to perform basic behaviors has been a piece of cake. Really. Things that totally haunt other dogs and their owners like stays, basic recalls, and attention have come really, really easy to me. So, when I encounter a difficulty in training, I sometimes forget that there is, indeed, a training period. Marge isn't necessarily going to just "get" tunnel/contact discriminations or 2o2o contact behaviors. Sometimes, I forget that it's okay to break it down. It's okay if she doesn't get it the first time around, because there's nothing out there that says a dog has to learn a given behavior at a certain rate.

Louie also pointed out that Marge actually does BETTER when she's being observed by others. Surely, I don't think this is her trying to show off. Rather, it is ME who is different when others are around - lots of praise, encouragement, and treats. Since she has had her issues with some people and some dogs, it would be silly to not reward her for doing well around them. And, what do you know -- she blossoms! When I'm training alone, I think I'm sometimes harder on myself and on Marge. There are no distractions to worry about, so everything else is supposed to just come easily. That is not the case.

So, it's a problem with me. It's a problem of my own stress, my own human desires to want to go out there and kick butt, and my own (sometimes extreme or unnecessary) worries that things will go badly.

I'm giving both of us a breather from agility this week or else one of us is going to burn out. I don't know why I get this way -- sometimes I think I just want Marge and I to succeed so badly that I lose sight of the fact that this is just ONE trial, there will be OTHERS if this one doesn't go well, and, overall, the idea is to have FUN. At least I was able to recognize this flaw in myself before things got ugly.

I'm going to have a private lesson with Marisa on Monday, and, in a few weeks, I think I'm going to play hooky from school (just to justify this - it's just one class - and I ALWAYS have awesome attendance) to drop in to agility class. I think I'm going to avoid doing agility alone for a while. After all, we still ARE a novice team, no matter how far we've progressed in our first year of agility.. and I think we both still need guidance.

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I did promise video. Well, here it is - I did genuinely try to break things down - I set up a novice-type course and mostly worked on things individually. The only thing I need to improve upon for next time is being motivational for Marge and rewarding her more heavily and more often.

One thing I need to watch out for is the teeter. Although her teeter was fantastic on Saturday, she was really slow over it on Monday, and, at some points, basically hovered at the pivot point as the board moved back and forth (ie., not enough of her weight was shifted forward to completely tip the board down). I've had a lot of success motivating Marge when it comes to the teeter, so hopefully next time, she'll be back to normal with it.

Agility Challenges

Before I get into training news (yeah, I've had a lot of that lately, I know -- blame the snow that's still on the ground), here are the pictures I promised from last week's Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Marge's favorite breed was the Border Terrier. She liked the terrier group last year, too. Out of all the hours I spent watching, this was the breed that she watched the closest. I don't think it's a coincidence that she had played with an old Border Terrier friend the day before. It was really cute to see her watching the screen so intently.

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Saturday, as planned, I went for run throughs in northern New Jersey. Since there were several trials in the area this weekend, I knew that I wouldn't have to share the time with many people. Turns out I was right - I was with one other dog, a black Labrador.

Here was the layout, as best as I could remember it. I didn't even get CLOSE to running this whole course. It was one of the hardest courses I've ever seen. All of the contact approaches were extremely difficult.

I walked the course as if I was going to run the whole thing and then set Marge up at the start. She was NOT getting that tunnel under the dog walk. I mean, she was at the point where she was jumping over the tunnel to get on the dog walk. I worked it a while, but I wasn't convinced that she was getting better at it as I was having to practically stick my hand in the tunnel for her. For some reason, tunnel discriminations really bother her, especially when the tunnels are under the contact equipment. Guess I should work on this on our home turf, maybe gating off the contact obstacle so she can't make the wrong choice.

Louie suspected that the repetition of the opening sequence stressed her out. He was probably right. I felt like Marge was disconnected from me for a good chunk of the session. She did a lot of sniffing of the obstacles that were along the walls, not in use, and a lot of eyeballing, even though there really was not a whole lot going on.

She also ran up to another handler who was walking the course while we were breaking stuff down. This is something I'm really worried about, because I have this sinking feeling that she's going to do the same at the agility trial when she sees the judge.

For the rest of the time, I tried to just break stuff down and make it easy for Marge. We skipped some sections of the course entirely, and worked on the table which they were nice enough to bring out for me. On the bright side, Marge didn't have too much trouble when the man in charge counted down for me ("5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1 and go"), and that's something she's never done before at all.

Something else that I really liked was that Marge was able to do the teeter this time. Last time we went to this facility, she was absolutely terrified of the teeter, as it's both loud and squeaky. This time, I made it a lot of fun, and she seemed to be a lot more into it.

Her contacts were pretty good. I brought my post-it to use on the A-Frame, and she did it without a problem. I tried it a couple of times without, and she was about 50/50. So, I'm going to just gradually reduce the size of the post-it until she's solid without it. Her dog walk was fine, pretty speedy, but she did take a tumble off of it - the approach was REALLY hard and I probably shouldn't have even done it. She didn't seem fazed, as I ran her over it a couple more times to make sure she wasn't spooked by it.

I left the practice feeling sort of disappointed by Marge's inattentiveness. I didn't really think there was a lot of distractions, yet her nose was running her into every corner to sniff every scent. In reality, it was probably the tunnel/dog walk that set the stage for things to go badly, but I really hate it when she's stressy and all over the place - it makes me wonder if we truly are ready for what we're doing.

I don't think the sniffing is going to be a big problem, as she's loads better outdoors, but I do have a genuine concern about her running up to the judge and standing there sniffing for an obnoxious amount of time. (At the NADAC trial, the judge stood in one spot and did not move - in AKC trials, it doesn't look like this will be the case.) It's hard to practice with a "judge" in our training hall, since there really isn't all that much room. I guess I'll try, though.

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Today, we had Rally practice with our friend and her Westie, S. It went pretty well. Marge seems to be doing a bit better about having someone "judge" her in Rally, so I'm hoping that will transfer over to agility. Tomorrow, I have time at the training hall again, but I'm unsure what I'm going to do with it. I feel like we both need a break from agility, yet I don't want to set up a Rally course. Maybe I'll do some work on tunnels with her, to make her feel super motivated about them. Or, I may bring her obedience dumbbell along and do some of that, in addition to working on the wicket. Either way, there will most likely be video - I know that's an area I've been lacking in lately!

Tuesday Training 25

Ever have one of those days where everything just seems to be working well? That was our training session Monday.

I had a half hour private lesson scheduled with Marisa, but I had time before hand, so I put out some equipment and practiced. We needed to work on front crosses, so what better than one big front-cross figure-eight:

I think we worked this really well. Marisa walked in and was like, wow, those are some tight front crosses. I didn't really think the course was all that tight, but I guess it must have been.

During the lesson, I worked this same set-up using back crosses. When I tried it by myself earlier, I was trying to flip her over the jump, but since I was turning her abruptly, she'd come back in to me rather than drive to the next jump. So, the solution to that was to back cross on the flat rather than over the jump. It worked well, and it seems like it'd be a good tool to have in the agility toolbox.

Then, Marisa shuffled things around a bit, we added weaves, a broad jump, a tunnel and a chute, and did some handling exercises.

The black circle sequence was interesting. I started out with Marge on my right, ran along with her up to jump 2, let her pass me and told her to weave. So, the back cross happened in between the jump and the weaves. Location was SO important.. if I got too far out in front, she missed the entry or screwed up on the second or third pole. It goes back to one of my biggest handling flaws - that I try to outrun Marge. Rather than beating her, this exercise helped me realize I need to a) stay right with her in some scenarios and b) trust her!

The broad jump was out because Marge hasn't seen it in an eternity. Marisa said she seemed a little weirded out by it the first time, but then she was fine each additional time she went over it. The "wrong side of the tunnel" is apparently getting more popular in AKC, which is why she stuck that in there as well. Marge had no issue with it whatsoever -- I was even able to send her around the tunnel to find the entrance on her own.

The white sequence was all about slight differences in handling - positioning, where to cross, and those kinds of things. We actually did a couple of variations, but this sequence was the one we worked the longest on. We worked a lot on the jump wrap over 6.. I basically had to stop my forward motion, tell Marge to jump, pick her up with my other hand and bust down the line for the tunnel. A couple of tries and we seemed to get it.

In keeping with my desire to improve my front crosses, I front crossed from the #7 tunnel to the #8 jump. Marge didn't wrap around the jump as well as I would have liked, but she found her weave entry anyway. We didn't press it too much - I think she was getting tired.

I have all sorts of trial news to blog about, but I'm way too tired to organize it into a cohesive blog post, so it will have to wait for another day.

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Before I go, though, let me share the newest addition of "I can't believe someone could be this stupid"...

Monday night, when I was walking Marge, a woman was lingering on the sidewalk, in front of what I believe to be her house. In order to pass her, I moved a few feet away into the street. (Marge doesn't like when people just stand in place -- she thinks they're going to grab her or something.) She starts making kissy sounds and baby talk to Marge. I didn't want to look rude for not stopping, so I told the woman that Marge is not friendly -- to which she replies, "Oh, I can see that. I see it in her eyes".. and then begins baby talking to Marge again!

I cannot fathom why anyone would continue talking to a dog who they just admitted looks uninviting!

I then told her that Marge is afraid of people, which prompted her to call my dog a "scaredy cat." I don't think that's very nice to tell a complete stranger, but whatever. I mumbled under my breath and walked away. Marge got a chunk of cookie for handling that admittedly very bizarre incident with perfect poise. Good girl.

Shame About the Handler

I haven't actually watched Greg Derrett's DVD of this name, but the quote came to mind when I watched my videos from practice this weekend.

In terms of finding her way around the course (with a few exceptions), my dog is leap years ahead of me. Marisa says I am outright spoiled with Marge and am going to be in for a wake-up call when I get my next agility dog. She has saved me countless times on course. And I mean countless.

Here's what I set up for yesterday's practice. I've been itching to do box work for a while, knew I needed to work on the A-Frame contact, and threw in the discrimination because we haven't done much of that, either.

The box part of the sequence was actually inspired by a sequence I did way back in Beginner Agility.. a sequence I previously aced. When I ran it back then, I front crossed between 5 and 6, and, since my front crosses currently leave much to be desired, I wanted to try my hand at in again.

Not so lucky, this time. Looking at the video, I think a rear cross would have worked ten times better. But, I was so bent on the front cross that I kept doing it anyway. It most likely made it harder for my dog and I.



The double pinwheel at the beginning was also trickier than I previously imagined. Because I needed to race Marge to get into front cross position, I pulled away before she committed to the fourth jump and she, as a result, didn't take it. It was fixed with a "go" (and/or lots of encouragement once she started to tire -- as you'll hear in the video) but I kind of feel like using a go-out in that scenario is like lying to her since she has to come in to me immediately after.

Marge was flying around this course. She came out of the tunnel, took the double and was suddenly a million light years ahead of me. I fell prey to my usual error and tried to beat her, rather than decelerating to cue her to slow down. Then, I made matters worse by getting in her path over and over again -- which led to either a bar down or a really tight turn by Marge. I could just smack myself! I also probably put the double too close to the wall, making the angle really hard for her to get over the next jump.

These video clips are from the end of the session, which explains all of the praising and rewarding - I finally realized at this point that we weren't really feeling this course, so I broke it down and made it more fun. After this, I went as far as to stop every 2-3 obstacles and just feed, feed, feed. Marge wasn't really stressed, but I felt like maybe I'd confused her or made things more difficult for her; since my first priority with agility is having fun, that's exactly what I did.

She tired out really quickly, probably since she was going so fast in the beginning. I wouldn't say it was a wasted day, but I feel like we spent ourselves early on and didn't really get to work on much. I think I tried so hard to incorporate front crosses that I used them when something else would have worked better. Way to be counterproductive!

The A-Frame contact -- it's coming along. The nose touch with the post-it as a target has helped tremendously. She's still slamming into it more than I like and creeps down it when she starts to get tired, but I'm still trying to find the perfect distance to put the target from the frame so that she gets into 2o2o position on preferably the last board. She's doing great with hopping up on the side and getting into position.

For the next rental, I think I'm going to take a break from the A-Frame and just do some simple stuff.. teeter work, table work, and maybe some novice-type front crosses. For my next lesson with my instructor, I'd like to work on tunnel sends (hers were god-awful yesterday) and some general handling things - AKA, training me.

Once again, I have to thank my boyfriend for coming along - I can't even move the A-Frame an inch without him. And, I would have never had the time to set all of that stuff up and run the course without his help.

In other news, we are now the proud owners of an obedience dumbbell - though Marge won't be competing in obedience any time soon (very possibly never), I'm having fun learning the exercises and training something that's a little less impact during our down time. Stay tuned for video later in the week.

Tuesday Training 23

Holy cow.

Talk about a LOT of training!

We were at the training hall Monday for three straight hours. First was totally private practice, then was semi-private practice (a lesson with my instructor and another handler), and third was regular class.

Hour 1

Because I knew we'd be there a long time, I didn't want to overdo it in the beginning. So, I set up an APDT Rally Level 1 course from my club's last trial and ran it two or three times with Marge.

I don't think she was as enthused as she was at our Rally practice a couple of weeks ago, and certainly not as enthused as when she does agility (but that's a given). She lagged a bit and wasn't as tight as she normally is on her turns. It was pretty warm in the building, though - I was absolutely dying in that sweatshirt I was wearing - so that may have been a factor. Looking back at the video, she did better than I first thought she did.

What you can't see in the far right corner are three "married" signs - Halt/90 Degree Pivot Left - Sit/Walkaround - Down/Walkaround.

After that, I cleaned up the Rally equipment while Marge practiced sit and down stays. No problem with either other than the fact that she loves to slide into a down after sitting for a little bit. I have no aspirations for obedience competition any time in the future, but it's not a bad skill for her to have.

I then dragged out the teeter, and we did a little bit of work on it with the table underneath. It was the fastest I've ever seen her do the teeter; she slowed at the pivot point (which I actually want so that she doesn't spook herself flying off of it or anything), but had so much less hesitation. A few reps with the table, and then I removed it and she did it full height. Still looked very nice. I put the treats right on the teeter rather than feed them from my hand, so maybe she makes the connection that it's not a scary thing.

Hour 2

Next was my semi-private lesson. Marge did not take very kindly to the other dog who was with us, a young, adorable Golden. I tried introducing him to her before we started and she gave him nasty growls and a couple of snaps. Probably my mistake. We kept our distance the rest of the time and she was eventually more comfortable with his presence. If we have a lesson together a few more times, I think she'll feel better about him.

We worked the A-Frame mostly (sorry, no video). We've incorporated a nose touch to our 2o2o criteria and it seems to be helping tremendously. She hit her contact almost every single time with the help of our temporary target, a simple piece of paper. She's still not doing it as smoothly as I like, but she wasn't thudding into it like she did so many times in the last video.

She did do one silly thing.. I forgot to put the target on the descending side of the A-Frame (we were obviously switching which way we ran it) and she ran half way up, turned around, and performed her contact on the target. Marisa was hysterical.

She said to leave the target for a while, at least a month or two, and gradually make it smaller. Sounds like a plan to me. I'm not using a target on the dog walk.

Only other things we did were some bounce jumping, the dog walk and table to solidify criteria for those two obstacles, and a small sequence to practice using either a front or a back cross between two jumps.

Hour 3

Then, finally, we had class. Marge had to hang out in a crate while I helped set up and walked the course. I gave her a Kong and covered her crate with a sheet so no one would disturb her, but she whined for a good portion of the time. Almost every other dog in the crate room was whining, though, and I think it may have added to the stress.

(Later on, when I walked the second half of the course, I put her in a down stay and she didn't move. GOOD GIRL!)

Here was the course:

• Opening was simple enough; lead out to jump two (on the non-wall side of the jumps), and ran completely straight to get her in the right tunnel entrance.
• Back crossed over 5 and 6. Marisa told me to try to front the second time around, but I was already in back cross position and I got screwed up. Marge, I believe, spun in a circle, but then when I sent her on to 6 and told her to weave (I was way behind her), she did it beautifully. Way to make up for my mistake!
• Jump to dog walk to table was simple. Her dog walk looked great today. Didn't miss any contacts and had lots of speed.
• Still having some table sticky issues.. I don't think I'm clear enough to her that she is to DOWN and stay DOWN until I release her.. she gets her cookie and then gets up. I suppose I could try delaying the reward to really proof it first.
• Used my inside arm to get her over jump 11, front crossed, front crossed again after 12. No problem.
• The tunnel to A-Frame was pretty disastrous.. the tunnel was too short, which made it really hard for all of the dogs to find it. Both Marge and I were exhausted at this point and we kind of bombed it, but Marisa said to leave it alone, so I just told Marge to tunnel and sent her over the A-Frame without doing the obstacles before it.
• Closing wasn't bad.. just, again, had to basically run into the triple to make sure she took the right tunnel entrance.

This will be our last agility class until probably the middle of February, maybe longer. In the meantime, I'm going to practice during my ring time and take some more lessons. We're pretty much going full steam ahead for an early April AKC trial. I don't plan to trial heavily this year, but I want to make the most out of the trials that we DO do. I was told today that we'll breeze through Novice.. I really hope it's true!

Tuesday Training 22

Switching Contacts.. Again

After the rough run-through (in terms of A-Frame performance) in New Jersey and an equally bad attempt to try to teach the four-on-the-floor behavior (or even the beginnings of it) during my ring time, I decided that I'm going to give 2o2o one more push.

Aside from my lack of ambition, I had serious concerns about Marge not being able to to two different kinds of contacts on the Dog Walk and A-Frame, and also did not think she'd do well with going into a down on grass (she can get iffy about it - doesn't like getting wet). I really hadn't given the 2o2o a fair chance, I had maybe 2 private lessons to train it and the rest was in class. So, I'm going to focus on it these next few weeks and see where it goes.

Here is a compilation of some A-Frames from my ring time.. be as critical as you can, and take into consideration her body mechanics.. does it look like a huge stress on her body? I'm just baffled as to why it would be so bad for HER to do a 2o2o, yet I see dogs twice her size doing it without a problem. I don't know if I'm being too cautious or not cautious enough. I don't want her to hurt her front joints, but I also don't want to do a large amount of repetitions in teaching the modified running contact.

Louie seems to think that Marge's successes and failures in getting into 2o2o position have a lot to do with when I cue her. If I cue her once all four feet are on the down ramp, she misses it. If I cue her earlier, she usually hits it. I'm going to continue working on it and see what happens. I'm also going to do dog walk work in hopes that proofing the contact on the dog walk might help out the A-Frame situation.

Crates and Snarky Town

Marge hung out in a plain old wire crate for almost an hour between our private practice and our agility class. She did great - I sat right there with her and fed her little bits of treat often. Just as I was about to take her out, one of our newer classmates - a very happy, goofy - very large breed dog - came in and went right up to the crate she was in.. which Marge did NOT take well. I can't really blame her for it - she felt trapped and acted accordingly to try to remove the perceived thread. The door was closed, and I blocked as best I could, but the snark ensued. Nasty barks, growls, hackles up.. the whole shebang. I'm hoping it doesn't set us back - I had her wait in the crate for a few more minutes to calm down before I let her out.

She got all nutso when she saw him come in to the room to run his course during class, so I put her in the connected bathroom with the door half closed and stood by, ready to slam it shut in the event that he came over to say hello. I did wind up having to do it. I tried to play Look at That with her but she wasn't really interested.. don't know whether that means she really wasn't that uncomfortable with him or what. Those were her only snarks of the day, so on the whole, her behavior was quite good.

Another Indoor Class

The day's unseasonably warm temperatures did make me long for the big open agility field, but class inside was fun too.

The (silent) video.. there was lots of talking and it's more fun for me to recount the play- by-play here!:

• The opening was more offset jumps. Seems to be becoming a theme in this class! This week's jumps were much harder than lasts. Took me once or twice to get the first two down pat, but the two back crosses before jump 3 and before the A-Frame were not problematic at all. According to my awesome teacher, we have smokin' back crosses. You can practically see those lead changes in midair!
• I think I've spoken enough about the A-Frame, but Marge hit the contact more times than not while running this sequence. I think she missed it once out of four times.
• Her weaves continue to look beautiful.
• The jump after the weaves was interesting.. we started learning the new "backy-uppy", popular for threadle handling, and I'm so happy I finally got it because it worked out awesome in this situation.
• The next cross was the really hard front cross down the opening line of jumps.. I could get there, but Marge wasn't really turning into me. I think that's the one thing we left unfixed from the class.
• Teeter didn't look bad! I put treats on the end of the board and she ate them, didn't try to jump off or anything. Thinking about doing some teeter work next week during my ring time.
• Tunnel to the final line of jumps was interesting. Marge totally saved my butt on this one, because I got way too far out ahead of her but she still came into my side and took the three jumps. Other dogs opted to go up the A-Frame, take the weaves, etc. Thanks, Marge, for not letting your less-than-stellar handler get in the way!

Next week is our final week in agility class, maybe except for one possible drop-in in February. This doesn't mean we won't be doing agility anymore - even with college classes, I'll still be able to squeeze in a trip to the club every Monday from 2 to 3. Unfortunately, since class is later than that, I can't stick around. I'll also hopefully be able to have some private lessons and get back out to Jersey for another one of those run-throughs. We are NOT hibernating this winter!

Non-Agility Updates

I know these Tuesday posts are always really long, but I haven't brought up our other training endeavors in a while:

• Walks are continuing in some capacity. Night walks happen when I think it's quiet enough and/or cold enough out. She's been doing well.. had no problem with an ambulance being across the street from her on Monday night's walk. I thought for sure that she'd at least keep an eye on it.
• We had another visitor to our house, a 15 year old girl friend of my sister's. She was in her crate in the basement with me when the doorbell rang and didn't try to get up or anything. Very chilled out, very good. I went upstairs with her a short while later and she took to the girl immediately. I mean, 100% comfortable with her. Welcoming pets, trying to jump up and kiss her face. Awesomeness.
• She's been pretty good with my dad, too.. going up to him with full expectation of being petted (there is only so much I can tell him - he insists on petting her), jumps on him sometimes, bops him with her nose.. MUCH better than before. Don't want to jinx it, but the door situation has been managed pretty good as well. She's beginning to learn the default behavior of coming to find me and get her cookies (ie. move away from the door), especially when she knows its him coming home (his car makes a distinct beeping noise when he locks it - convenient for me, convenient for Marge).
• Planning on some Rally practice too, maybe even with other people around. We've got a trial to prepare for!

As you can see, we're keeping busy. I know the Tuesday Training posts are pretty technical in nature, but it's so important for me to log my progress. I recently went back and read some of my old blog posts, and the difference from month to month, sometimes even week to week, can be profound.

Stay tuned for a fun post in the coming days - MargeBlog is about to turn 1 year old!

To Jersey and Back

We had our practice session this morning in New Jersey. Unlike other times when we've gone to new places, Marge was actually quite confident when she got out of the car. (She did growl as a herd of Shelties came her way, but that's not too bad.) We met up with our friend from the club, which made Marge feel even better.

The place was really nice - indoors and spacious. The man running it was really nice and gave Marge some cookies. She took to him immediately. There turned out to be only three other handlers there - a very small group - which meant lots of time for practice.

This was the course (obviously property of whoever created it):

And, as usual, some notes (I'll keep it brief!):

We really had no problems running this course. Though it was an excellent level course, it was wide open and flowy.

• A-Frame, A-Frame, A-Frame. I've been practicing the down on the flat very often. She got it maybe 30% of the time. A couple of times she offered a 2o2o. I guess I'll just keep plugging at it... I'm REALLY hoping, though, that she's not going to get confused stopping on the dog walk and running to the bottom of the A-Frame. I don't want to mess up her contact criteria altogether!
• Hit her weaves perfectly. Pretty good because the entry was tough (required some distance from the handler) and it was the first time on this set of weaves. The set makes a difference.
• Oh.. the teeter. Marge went on it, banged it down, and then got terribly freaked by the squeaky noise it made as it popped back into position. She recovered, though, and was able to finish the course. I skipped the teeter in subsequent runs.. it was NOT worth her getting scared over.
• Table was a bit better. She jumped off once or twice, and all the other times plopped immediately into a down.
• Dog walk contact was pretty good. She kind of sputtered her way down the ramp a couple of times, but I'm really not looking to change it from a 2o2o especially since she's actually starting to get it.

Behaviorally, Marge was superb. Aside from one woof as one dog (our agility classmate) went bonkers on course, she was fine. That's a pretty big deal, considering she watched the runs of three totally strange dogs and was in the building with totally strange people.

My only complaint of the day came at the very end of our session.. the guy running it was demonstrating a contact training device to one of the other handlers, and it made a series of loud beeps. To me, it sounded like my smoke alarm, and I'm sure Marge felt the same way. She seemed to recover 100% though, as I took her through the tire and tunnel a couple more times just to make sure we ended on a good note.

On the way home, my dad (who so nicely drove me there) and I stopped for lunch. Marge waited in the car for a couple of minutes by herself. She was fine.. I gave her a cheese-stuffed Kong and she worked at that while we got our food. Then, she actually was calm enough to get out of the car and potty behind the building. It might sound funny, but all of that combined was probably the best part of the day. Even just a few months ago, that probably would have sent her into a frenzy.

Overall, we had a lot of fun and I wouldn't hesitate to go there again. I actually might go next month.

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I figure I should use this post to bring up some other events that we'll hopefully be at this year.

I'm already thinking ahead to our first trials of the year. We're got two trials potentially set up for April.. one, an AKC (gasp) agility trial, the other, an APDT rally trial at our training building.

I'm still iffy on AKC, just because they're usually pretty big trials, but at the same time I think it's looking like a go.. it's at the same site as our fall NADAC trial, mixes now run in the same classes as purebreds and can get the same titles (statement here), and she's allowed to wear a collar (security blanket for me). Also, since it's very early in April, there's a chance it'll be a small(er) trial since the cold might scare some people away. I do have some concerns about the teeter, but we'll see what happens.. I'd be fine running her in only JWW and possibly FAST, if anything.

I'm REALLY excited for APDT rally. Since it's at our club, I really don't have too much concern about stress or anything like that. She's taken the rally course by storm lately. We're going to do some practice with friends from the club pretty soon. The last trial my club had was run SO smoothly and a lot of qualifying scores were given out. With some luck, I think we can finish our RL1 title this year. How cool would that be?

After that, we've potentially got a stretch of about 4 CPE trials and 3 NADAC trials. Those numbers sound really big considering the fact that we only did one trial last year, but, we'll take it by ear and see what happens.

I probably won't post tomorrow or Monday, so I hope all of you have a lovely weekend, and stay tuned for this Tuesday's training update after our agility class.