USDAA Trial

We survived!  Actually, it went quite well.  I only entered her in four events all weekend, Starters Snooker, Starters Gamblers, Starters Standard and Starters Jumpers.  I didn't enter the pairs relay because I assumed we would crash and burn and didn't want to inflict that on anyone else.  I didn't enter the Grand Prix, or whatever it's called, because I wanted to be low pressure for her and I.

Saturday, the first event was Gamblers, which seems a lot like FAST.   I sent her over the first jump, through the weaves and through the tunnel under the dog walk.  Coming out of the tunnel, Weasel zoomed off to check out the lady shouting numbers.  I called her off and attempted to send her up the dog walk, but she had tunnel stuck on the brain and went into panic mode, doing the tunnel, zooming over to the judge, back to the tunnel, again and again.  The buzzer must have sounded, but I didn't realize what it was, eventually I broke the tunnel-judge loop, got her over the dogwalk, then over the a-frame, realized why the judge wasn't doing the scary number shouting anymore, and did the gamble, but the final buzzer sounded before we completed the gamble.

As odd as it sounds, I was actually quite happy with her after this run.  She did call off.  She did try to keep doing obstacles.  She did complete the gamble.  She re-engaged with me, which was a milestone.  That dog has been carried off the course for being a complete spazz more than once. 

The second run Saturday was Standard.  She qualified, with no faults, but was slow - 40 some seconds.  I was thrilled with her.  She placed first in her height division, but it's 26"  There was one other dog. 

Sunday,  I consciously chose to let her rev a bit, rather than focusing on calm.  T he first run was Snooker.  I had no clue what it was, but somebody helped me figure it out.   Alas, it involved a judge shouting numbers.  The judge was sort of hiding on the far side of the course, so Weasel checked out the leash runner for awhile.  But, eventually, I got her back and we almost made it.  Ran out of time, though. 

Jumpers involved nobody shouting anything and Weasel did it just fine, with a few extra twirls.  No faults.  Qualified, @ 29 seconds.  Not great, but not slug-bug, either.    

I am very happy that I am beginning to be able to play with her and warm her up before runs.  I am also happy to see that she had no knocked bars the entire weekend.  It looks like I was just being over-protective about the jump heights.  I missed having Demon Puppy there, but hopefully she will be there next time. 

Good things to work on would be tighter turns, collection, and having somebody in the ring shouting things.  

Agility Trial in a Week - Eeeek

Weasel and I are going to try USDAA.  I've been wanting to, but dithering because she is 21 *and a half* inches tall.  That half inch bumps the jump bars up to several inches above her eye level.  But, USDAA has fun stuff, more classes, pairs, team, all sorts of stuff.  When Demon Puppy topped out at under 19" I realized that I really wanted to try the venue.

I have been asking if I should start inching the jumps up with Weasel to get her used to a half a foot higher, but people have told me she jumps so high it's not really an issue.  Both her and Geezer dog jump high.  Every flyball match, someone comes up to me and comments on Spoiled One's boinging antelope jump style.  My bunny-bear Geezer Dog.

Alas, though Demon Puppy was trained the same way, she's a daisy cutter.  While this is good for flyball (except I hate hearing her feet hit the jumps) it isn't so good for agility.  She's a bar-knocker.  I am working on it, with conditional rewards for when she actually clears the jump.  She's making progress, but it's not something I have ever dealt with.  I hope she gets over it.  Someone I know has a really enthusiastic border collie.  The dog is wicked fast and loves agility.  But he wipes out the bars every time.  I want Demon Puppy to do well.  If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to mention them.  Right now, I am rewarding only cleared jumps, and doing ladder drills to make her learn to pick up her back feet, and some strengthening exercises.  At the 20" I am getting about 70 -80% clear.  She doesn't seem to have difficulty physically jumping that high, and much higher when she wants, she just doesn't respect the bars.  

Weasel's  doesn't even see the bar, it's so high over her head.   However, once she saw it, she seemed to have no problem getting over it.  Her biggest problem is, and probably always will be, that she checks out under stress.  I think a lot of it is that I suck as an agility handler, (vague direction, wrong direction, poorly timed direction) but we try, she and I.  Part of me wishes I could video my training sessions to see what I screw up.  The other part is afraid to know.

They are both doing some nice weaves, finding the entry with only one oopsy with Demon Puppy.  Well, two.  One time, she was going through the weaves and nearly tipped the whole set over.  That dog has no respect for equipment.  No fear, but no respect, either. 

Poor, neglected Geezer Dog.  I did play tug with him. 

Anyone looking for a BC Puppy?

She is Animal ID : 14294214 at the Socorro Animal Shelter.  Just 2 months old. 

First Tournament

Demon Puppy did this

and this

and this

And this. 

I think she had a lot of fun!  Melissa Sheehan, of True Colors Photography, took the pictures.














Of course, my Goofy Spoiled one was exhibiting his version of a box turn:

 And my beautiful, good little Weasel:

What good dogs I have. 

Except for the fact that Demon Puppy ate every shoe I had.  There are still bits of them all over the living room.  I can't vacuum them, because it kills the vacuum.  I have to pick each little bit up. 

Demon Puppy Uprising

Demon Puppy is coming into her own.  It's such a fun time.  She has started her first real agility class.  She and Nacho (one of her flyball teammates) rock that class.  They joyfully run through and over whatever the designated obstacle is.  At home, when I practice with her, she barks continually at me in frustration because I am never fast enough.  Lord help me when we start sequencing.  When I go out in the backyard without her, she leaps several feet in the air to rip down what's left of my blinds.   I'm putting off replacing them until I get a house crate I like to stuff her in during these times.  She's a wire-biter, though, so that limits the range of crates I want to cram her in.

At flyball, she did her first complete run last week at practice, with a dog in the other lane, and I didn't even have a motivator.  She hits the box awfully hard, and without respect for her own welfare, so I will have to work that.  Hard to believe she's only been doing boxwork for a month.   At this rate, she'll be ready for singles at our next trial.  I have to keep reminding myself that she has really just started and so many things need to be proofed.

Herding is the hardest to work on, because it requires sheep, and I don't have sheep.  However, I have been able to go out occasionally to practice at someone's house who does have sheep.  We have moved from the round pen to the big corral. which is so much easier.  Everything isn't on top of you and you can move in a direction for a little while.  Plus, there are corners to play with.  I am hoping to do it more regularly.  Someone who was there this last weekend was helping me, giving me some ideas of what to work on.  That seems to be the sport that she uses her brain on the most.  I love seeing her slink around and she is so responsive,  I am enjoying letting her work and figure things out, like how to get them unstuck from the fence or out of the corner by the gate.   She's always checking in, paying attention to every gesture with the stick.  I wish I knew more.  She brings them to me and calls off when I tell her to, so I think next I will work on getting her to drop into a down instead of coming to me to down.  That dog is going to have so much fun when we start push the sheep around into places they don't want to go and shedding.  She loves bullying them.

Sekhmet Turns One Year Old

April Fool's Day is my Demon Puppy's birthday.  She turned one year old on Friday, and today we celebrated a bit at practice.  Balls were tossed.

There were doggie cupcakes.

More balls were tossed.

And dogs ran around like crazy dogs.

Then they waited for us to toss the ball.

Pushy, demanding dogs. 

My Demon Puppy did very well at practice.  She got the ball out of the box on the first try!  I am really looking forward to this year with her as her body catches up to her ambitions.

Posters, Luck and Jinxes

Flyball dogs in the Sky!

This week, I worked on a poster for the team.  It was fun.  I drove myself crazy constantly rearranging the dogs, though.  Hopefully, it will be eyecatching, silly, and fun enough to provoke some interest.  We still need new people.  Our teammates keep moving away, unfortunately.

Demon Puppy is at that stage where she wants to do so much more than she should.  (Actually, she's always been at that stage, it's just more so now)  It's very frustrating, for her and me.  I think I lucked out, again, on my puppy.  I have been consistently amazed at how wonderfully each of my dogs do.   I honestly don't know why.  Yes, I have some frustrations with Weasel in her agility, but, they are fine tuning, training type frustrations.  She in sound, fast, and has a blast.  Spoiled One, at nearly eleven years is also healthy and happy in mind and body.  He is a rodeo to run at flyball, but he does sub 5 seconds at tournaments.  For my starter dog, my geezer dog, that I completely screwed up teaching the boxturn to, he does pretty darn good.

Then there is Demon Puppy.  Honestly, what do you know at 8 weeks?  They're cute and fuzzy.  But, I love how she is turning out, how she is built, her size, her temperament, everything. She seems to have gotten her angles and proportions from her mother, her heart and biddability from her father, and her size from I don't know where.  To have an 18 - inch dog was an unexpected bonus.  I was just hoping for under 21 inches.

The puppy is young, and things happen, sometimes.  I really hope I don't break her, somehow.  But, I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge the happy that is now.  Hopefully, I don't jinx myself, or something.