Yesterday I had the opportunity to take Zorro to a NADAC-style fun run. Two rounds of Tunnelers and two rounds of Jumpers! What fun it would be!
The fun run was at the same training facility with the blue matting where Molly has gone lame twice, so I did not want to risk her hurting her bad foot again. I was feeling a little emotional about leaving Molly at home though.
This isn't a hike, this isn't an agility trial, this isn't just any old thing...this is TUNNELERS. A special Molly-thing. I was thisclose to bringing her and letting her run because I know she would have so loved it, and if it had not been winter I might have done so.
But. I did not.
Zorro is still rather lukewarm about tunnels so I wasn't sure how our time would go. In puppy class we have been working on short sequences that involve "a lot of handling" and not so much courses that are flowing or straight lines. With the NADAC style courses yesterday, Zorro's extreme handler focus was highlighted. He does not lock onto obstacles or look ahead for them, he looks for me. Also, he forgot how to do tandem turns at a new trial site. Needs generalizing. It was a really great experience for both of us and a chance to adjust our training moving forward. It's just information!
I was happy with his start line stays, I was happy with his toy play (two different toys in a ring he has never done agility in before.) and I was happy with myself for staying connected with him the majority of the time when we were sequencing.
Perri did one run, Open Jumpers. For the simple fact that Zorro's runs cost $15 and I only had a $20, and she was along anyway. She was very flat and uninspired, but she kept moving and didn't stare at all. She did have a mild stress sneeze about halfway through the run, but wasn't paralyzed by it.
We also went on a mini hike afterwards with our friend, to help her find one of my favorite geocaches in the area. It turned into a double hike since we needed a tool from her car to retrieve the geocache and it was muddddddddy!! Oh, the MUD. Both dogs got foot baths when we got home, especially Perri. And most especially me. I climbed a tree, I climbed a bridge, and I fell in the mud. I am sore all over. But any day with agility, geocaches and hiking is a perfect day as far as I am concerned! I did try for a bonus gamelands hike after that but I could not find the parking area and it was nearly dark so...another day!
The "agility gods" must have seen that I needed a pick me up, because Molly and I had a really nice little day at our club's fun run today! We did two runs and I chose to do the Masters level course (you could choose Novice, Open, Masters.) We ran it two times, and the second time I was able to smooth over some minor handling issues that I was having!
The first run Molly was pumped, she was really fast and flying high and was apparently very fun to watch! And somehow I managed to handle her on the course albeit with two bobbles (though not outright wrong courses or refusals, just bobbles.) She got her weave entry and did fast weaves, and of course did all of her contacts.
The second run is on the video. The two areas we had our bobbles in the first run was a lack of decel on my part after the teeter (we nearly had a wrong course.) and after the first tunnel I wasn't signally the next jump properly. I was making it much harder than it had to be and a simple little push worked well enough to get the job done. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone with front crosses on both runs and I feel really great about her ability to read them - she's watching me, and I am trying my best to be "early" enough.
I wish I had our first run on video, we were on fire!
My favorite part of today was our car ride to and from the training center. No stress panting and shaking!! We are clear of prednisone and Molly is back to feeling relaxed in the car. I put her Thundershirt on for the ride to DTCCC, but the ride back she went "naked" and was happy and calm. Day made!
The only negative thing of the day was that when I expressed Molly's anal glands this evening, the left one was empty but the right one had fluid in and it was dark red. So, still infection and blood in there. She is on a stronger antibiotic since Monday night...hopefully it needs a little more time. It is good to be off of agility trials while we are getting this infection straightened out. I also need to be more faithful with warm compresses to the hind end for Molly, maybe that will help the drugs with healing this infection once and for all!
On Saturday morning from 8-1 my agility instructor opened her training center for run thru's. This was on top of our training club running rally-o run throughs starting at 1:30! (Which Ein was signed up for, both Level 1 and 2.)
I wanted to take Perri and Molly for the agility courses, to practice weave poles as well as the chute (for Perri.)
Perri was a disaster. She was exhausted from her day at the lake on Friday. As soon as I released her from the start line I knew I had no dog. She was working with me but she was flat and nervous. To her credit she did her weaves. Twice. But slow. She played with her toy with some pouncing but it was that mechanical play that makes me sad. She refused the chute twice. When she did it I rewarded her with her toy , played with her and asked for it again. She refused it and our time ran out.
I was devastated for making another bad decision for her. (At agility class last night, Perri did do the chute. Twice. I felt a lot better. But from that moment Saturday until Monday evening I was feeling SAD.)
Molly had two runs. The first one I got "lucky" and she broke her start line stay. Molly is no dummy, she never breaks that stay in training. I think she thought we were at a trial! I took her back to the start line, rewarded her for staying...released her. Then she blew her dog walk contact. Excellent! I made her repeat it and this time she stopped. We were a bit scattered but I got some nice weave work out of her. I focused hard on: not staring, trusting, and moving ahead of her. When I just ran ahead of her, her weaves really improved!
Our second run was much nicer. She held her stay, she held her dog walk, and she did some incredible weaving. Very happy-making!
We hit the road and stopped by our regular training club for Ein's rally-o run throughs. I told the "judge" to remind me if I was not looking where I was going and was staring at Ein. I am so tired of my staring hindering me as a handler! Next Sunday Ein will return to regular titling classes in Cynosport Rally: Level 2 and Level 3. He has been in Veterans class for 19 months, ever since our December 2013 trial when he earned his ARCHX. He has absolutely blossomed in the ring during our year of Vets-only competition, and while at the end of 2014 I thought we would stay there forever, I have changed my mind. Ein has been coming to Perri's rally-o class and his absolute joy at being in the ring with me is no secret. He is pure unbridled happiness to work with. He loves it. And if he does not love working in Level 2 and 3 classes, we can go back to Level 1 or Veterans. We will see. But I think my boy will be happy with longer working times at trials.
I did very good on Level 1 at the run-thru (Ein was perfect, of course!) I even remembered to feed Ein at stationary signs. And at ten years old, why not feed as much as we are permitted, even in a trial setting?! Our only error was the Bonus sign. Halt-Leave Dog-Call Dog. Ein was off like a shot and forged around nearly to front position before he sat. Needs some work!
Level 2 Ein was perfect once again but my own confidence was flagging. It's no lie, I worry when I take the leash off! It was a literal physical effort for me to heel with confidence and keep my eyes ahead. I am trying so hard. The judge kept reminding me to look where I was going and at one point she said, "Trust him."
Trust him.
We had a blast. He was most adorable in the Bonus exercise. Leave Dog-Down Dog-Return to Heel. I love how Ein drops!. He used to be so afraid to lie down. So nervous to be so vulnerable. He is all happiness and pride at being by my side now. I love rally-o with my boy so much.
Molly and I went to our club's Agility Fun Run yesterday. I did not feel on fire about it, like I did after last weekend's trial, but making myself look back at last year's Agility Fun Run on this same weekend (first of January) helped out a lot with perspective.
Molly did not really want to get off the couch yesterday morning. I had to bribe her with treats and even then she took some extra begging. I think that she was probably still tired from Thursday's hike - Molly does not have a whole lot of stamina and is my true couch potato. I often have to beg her off the couch for a second day of agility trialing. And once at the fun run, Molly was a lot more flat than I would have liked her to be. Her weaves were so-so and a continuation of the demotivation that I had seen at last weekend's trial regarding the weaves. No doubt about it, her enthusiasm is slipping. Molly and the weave poles are going to need regular maintenance and I have definitely failed where that is concerned (the weather is not helping.) Her poles weren't 100 percent terrible but this is not the performance that I was getting a few months ago.
Otherwise, I could see a definite improvement in my handling. Molly's distance send is world's better than last year's fun run (though last year I was attempting a jump send from the opposite side of the dog walk with a very new and shaky Out! command, so.) I did forget some of Master's course because I got a little flustered about Molly's weave poles. In fact, it is not on the video but Molly was sneezing in the poles and that just made me all clouded and upset because it is something I was a little bit crushed to see at our own training facility. And I did not even think of doing the Novice course, we did only Open and Masters. After all, and this is a weird thing to say and think: we are not Novice anymore. I am not a Novice handler. I have worlds and worlds to go, but I definitely desired a tricky course and was pretty pleased at being able to work out how to handle it on my own. (At the end of the Masters course I got on the wrong side of the teeter because I forgot where I was going.)
Friday and Saturday were a haze of working overnight and then loading my dogs into the car and heading out to our planned daytime agility events (rather than...oh, sleeping. Like I should have been.)
Friday was an outdoor AKC agility trial that we just squeaked into - our entry was received on the closing date. Going to this trial meant leaving straight from work, it meant barely making it there on time and driving in morning rush hour traffic. Have I lost my mind? As we got closer to the date, the nail in the coffin of my dog-insanity was hammered in. 100 percent chance of rain. Staying home from the trial was not even a consideration!
For Standard it was really just drizzling. A lot of people had scratched and I arrived when the Open Standard course was being built. Molly was really over the top with her arousal and reactivity. She was screaming pulling in, she was chattering and/or barking at other dogs. The sounds of other dogs barking was sending her to another world. I had to keep her ringside for a good five minutes before our run because of our distance from the ring. This is something I do not like to do. I didn't have a dog at the ring gate, I didn't have a dog on the start line. She was over the top and I knew it. Standard was a game of broken start line stay, ping pong off the contacts, zoomies and totally out of control behavior. I have drawn a trajectory of Molly's course on the actual course map below. Once she pounced on the teeter I thanked the judge, picked her up by her chest and carried her off the course. Tongue lolling, shark jaws wide open in a pant and I could hear the judge clapping for us as we walked off. More than anything, the chances of Molly leaving the ring if we continued to run were very high - and I felt it would be irresponsible to even try to keep her in there. She was obviously far too stressed out to run - the best thing for Molly and our fellow competitors was to end the situation!
Blowin off steam.
This trial was held at Shady Brook Farm, in a field out on their property. I put Molly in the car with her fan to relax and cool off and walked over to the little market store. I bought some fantastic coffee and, with much difficulty, chose a lemon poppyseed muffin for breakfast. The market store was full of locally grown produce, and home made everything. Ice cream, wine, cheese, salad dressings, marinades, and baked goods galore. I planned on a return visit to buy some stuff, especially ice cream, after our JWW run was over. (I actually ended up just leaving after JWW. At Perri's agility class that evening, our instructor told me she was "very disappointed" that I did not have any of the ice cream! But I was literally soaked to the bone wet, cold and tired. I could not enjoy a fun little shopping trip very much - though I do plan to return!)
Before the JWW run and YES I still refused to wear shoes!
Anyway, JWW. The judge told us that there was a foul up with the Open JWW course, something about it being a Masters Course put onto an Open map, or something. Honestly it was pouring rain by this point and I don't understand the course map softwares enough to understand what had happened. The end result is that we got three jumps taken out of play so that the Open course would be a legal Open course. Molly and I NQd this for two refusals, but it was actually a very nice run for us. I released her over one and two, deceled and told her tunnel, then tried my best to get back around the second jump to handle her next line. From there she was flying so fast, and I was stuck behind her and could not catch up - and did not want to anyway. Forward motion on my part is the number one reason for our off courses. When she landed after 11 I called out "here!" to her because I was afraid she would jump out of the ring. But I failed to keep my arm out to signal the next jump. She ran straight to me and past the jump: Refusal 1. I was again behind her for the next line and so of course when she got to the weave poles, she missed the entry. Weaves are our weak area, so Refusal 2 and NQ. But really - Molly doesn't even like to pee in the rain, and she ran a full agility course in, no exaggeration, constant driving rain. In the wet and slippery mud. I couldn't help but feel like a huge jerk, asking my dog to be out in that terrible weather with me when she could just as soon be at home on a warm couch - but Molly just said "Well, all right!" and ran with me. We were both totally mud brown after running the course, we were soaking wet, but honestly? It was really freaking fun! And hey, we can do outdoors! Hopefully, on a nice day next time though!
Also, 1 was straightened out a bit.
So, we are the last two agility trials with all NQs. The number one thing I learned from this is that the only good run that we had out of all of those NQs, was the run where Molly came straight from her crate and into the ring. There was no standing around ringside, no chance to think. I need to try my best to make this happen every time. Maybe one day I can help Molly have the tools to stand around with other dogs bumping into her, barking, running around and doing other very exciting and distracting things - but we are not there yet.
Switching gears, on Saturday I took the girl dogs to a fun run at Flexible Flyers. You could buy three runs for 20 bucks, so I entered Perri in two and Molly in one.
Perri was first. She had never ran at Flexible Flyers, though I have had her there for more than a few of Molly's trials. I thought that I would have to be encouraging, supportive and patient with her. I thought that she would be nervous and possibly shut down. I thought WRONG. Something happened that has never happened before in the history of Perri: she stressed UP. And up and up and up! As soon as I took her leash off, before I could even get ready to jazz her up for the first jump she bolted away from me and into a tunnel (isn't she afraid of tunnels?!) and then she went on a zoomie bender to put Molly to shame. She was taking jumps, she was flying at top speed everywhere complete with springs and long stretches of air time. She was prancing and pouncing, she was spinning in circles. A dust cloud was around her constantly. And when she finally remembered my existence she came running at me barking and grabbed my arm IPO-style and tried to pull me with her! When I tried to handle her on the actual course she just took off over the jump line so fast I had no hope of keeping up with her, and started the entire process again! I have never, ever seen Perri behave this way! I know it was stress, I know she was blowing off steam, but...wow. She came back down to earth with enough time to get her on the contacts - and she was afraid of the dog walk and afraid of the teeter. Both obstacles I was able to work her over one time and I was happy with that. (Yes I wish the whole thing was on video, I still feel like I saw a ghost!)
Perri's second run is here in the video, and this is typical Perri. She was pushing the "shut down" mark here, I can see that. She was mentally exhausted from the stress of the day. In the beginning was a really cool moment. I never do a start line stay for Perri and really only did that because of how she behaved earlier. She got a little "stuck", but then got up, considered some stress release of visiting our "judge", but then redirected and ran with me. I was really happy that she kept on trying and she was on an upward trend of confidence with the DW and the teeter (She absolutely froze her first time on both of them.) I chose to not demotivate her by forcing her to do the weave poles entirely.
Molly did really good - totally nerdy but if you look at the video above we had to do the curved red tunnel (right entrance), the jump closest to the ringside area, the tire to the jump to the right of the straight tunnel and then pull back through to the closer entrance of the straight tunnel and then a 180 from out of the tunnel. Might be nothing for some people to pull that off, but for Molly and I - I am really proud of that! From there I just worked on her weaves and Aframe stopped contact until our time was up. All very necessary!
They also had a nice little practice corral, with a chute, 6 weaves and a practice jump. Molly was really committed to her weaves in there , I was happy to see it!
It must be Agility Sensitivity Month for me. I took Molly and Perri to our club's December fun run and was feeling pretty raw on the way home with the following thoughts on the repeat cycle in my brain.
"Why do I suck so much at agility?" "Why can't I EVER remember to decelerate?" "Why is my dog afraid of freaking everything?" "Why don't I just give up?" "Maybe Molly is sick." "Why do I confuse Molly, I am a horrible partner!" "Why can't I ever ever get a clean run without doing something stupid?" "It looks like i never ever even trained Perri to do anything." "I am not a natural dog handler and I will never ever be able to do this properly."
This is all just stupid. STUPID! I am my worst critic, so hard on myself. But I feel like I deserve it almost all of the time. Agility is so difficult for me and yet I love it so much. I feel like if I ever fix anything on Molly or in my own brain, forty other things go wrong. So, enough of my whining and here is the course map.
I did the Novice course (blue numbers) first with Molly.
We started this off great with a jump run out. Probably my fault in some way but I don't know how.
I set her back up and gave myself more distance and (I think) got running sooner.
Pretty sure she blew her contact.
No weave pole entry. (Infuriatingly, I am leaning back to look at her and that pushes her back further. I cannot get myself to stop doing this.)
Then she didn't get the discrimination and took the dog walk instead of the tunnel - I pushed her out that way though, I should have cued this better. It was really hard for me to then get around the dog walk and out by the tunnel - you can see I was late.
The rest was okay... Jump, teeter. I like the tire and serpentine jump action and rear cross on the dog walk. She went into the tunnel okay but again, I was late getting to her. By now she was getting frustrated with me and gave me a little nip to tell me so.
We had extra time left so I wanted to go over to the Aframe. We did some (very fast!) weaves on the way there. She skipped some the first time in so I restarted her and she did them really well and FAST. Then I did some treat ball rolls down the Aframe before our buzzer went off. I am SO angry at myself for throwing her treat ball to her AFTER she freaking blew the contact. This is what I am talking about. WHY does my brain do things like this?! That was the exact opposite of what I was trying to teach her.
Molly (Novice)
I wanted to give the Open course a try, so we did.
This starts off just fantastic again with Molly running behind me and taking the dog walk. Our instructor says it was "in her path" and again I just don't understand that. Something about Molly's line and where she landed out of the tire but I don't know how I could have done this differently. Or, maybe she was joking. I am not sure.
So, we set back up and got it right this first time and she did a send to the tunnel with our "Out" command! I was very nervous to use it because I didn't want to look stupid (this is idiotic and I know it.), but it really is time for me to get started working this into courses.
Did not get the weave entry again. I did better with my feet and shoulders this time. And I tried to slow down and show her the tunnel entrance better but it caused her to pop out of the weaves. This is simply because Molly is not trained on her weave poles well enough. She cannot do them independent of me, so if I pull off she will pull off with me. Nothing to do with this but continue training them.
This time I tried something different. Running on the opposite side of the dog walk and sending. Worth a try, right?
The "out" didn't work the first time out of the tunnel. But after I put her back into the tunnel and told her Out Jump SHE DID IT. I should have sent her back to the teeter but I just kept running and she went up it.
So, she takes the tire then. I am not sure if I pushed her into that, it looks to me like I turned enough but who knows. And to be fair, she took it last time RIGHT? That is a typical "Molly Move" so I am really not sure whose oops that was.
So we went back to the teeter and got it right. She did her Aframe contact without being babied. She runs off of it straight (I should have used my "outside" hand to cue her into the tunnel. I really need to teach her "Back Tunnel". It is common on agility courses to have to turn to the right or left into a tunnel right off of the Aframe or dogwalk.)
Back in and I forget to decelerate approaching the second jump which pushes her out wide (and if there had been an obstacle available for the taking she would have taken it.) but she does come back to the dog walk with me.
I tried to send her to the jump and it didn't work. "Out" command just needs more training.
Molly (Open)
I tried the Open course one more time.
This time we got the opening three obstacles (she did NOT go for the dog walk) but she didn't send to the tunnel. Our instructor said my feet were in the wrong direction and I should have pushed more at the tunnel. But...she sent last time. Sad.
I set her up again and tried to send her but ended up just running right to the tunnel, then doing the weaves. She did get her weave entry that time.
She got the tunnel but didn't send and I kind of forget what I ended up doing.
She again didn't get the "back tunnel" after the Aframe.
I decelerated better and got a tighter turn towards the dog walk. I came over onto the opposite side of the dog walk instead of attempting a send and then we were out of time.
Felt very sad about the entire run and wished I hadn't even done another run with her. She was slow and acting like she does when she feels like she isn't Right and she Wants To Be Right. And that just made me feel ever worse because I felt like I let her down.
SO! Then let's talk about Perri. What a mess. Perri was stressed out. She takes classes here sometimes twice a week but not agility classes. She has not had an agility class since November (?). I wasn't sure how things would go with Perri but I was willing to give it a try. If anything...confidence builder?
We started off with some tire issues. You would not think that in every agility class while waiting our turn, I would go into the corner and practice the tire with Perri.
Then you can see Perri doing something that I feel happens to us often. She drifts around in her anxiety, and I feel so disconnected with her. She comes out of that tire and is just following me instead of working with me. But, YAY she takes both 24" jumps without running out and that really is something. (not being sarcastic. Stopping up at and refusing jumps is/was a major issue for Perri.)
Aframe good!
Weaves...refused! I was crushed by this and embarrassed. Oh well, it is what it is. (Perri acts this way when we do weaves in my yard, but does them perfectly every single time in my garage.) Nothing to do but keep working on it.
Blue tunnel problems. I feel so defeated by this. You see she picks it up after a few toy throws but we always go back to square one. Always.
Well she comes out, takes the jump and then starts to rock it. A glimpse of the dog that I will have. Teeter, tire, serpentine jumps and the dog walk. And she even does a good back tunnel into the scary blue tunnel!
My instructor said "you can see she has it in her." I don't know if she was just being nice or if that was the truth, but I hope for the latter.
Perri (Novice)
I tried one more run with Perri. She refused the tire , did the jumps, did the Aframe. She refused the weaves. She went back to square one with the blue tunnel. She did the teeter. I think that she did the tire and we did the serpentine tighter this time. She did the dog walk and then we just fooled around there and refused the blue tunnel some more until our time was up. Our instructor (she was just there watching/running the fun run but was kind enough to throw pointers our way at times.) said to do something fun with Perri so I did a quick serpentine and jackpotted her with treats and out.
It just all felt like a mess.
So, I think I am making this all worse in my head than it really is.
I came home and ran Perri through some small handling sequences. She took our play tunnel in the yard at least ten times, never refused it. Not once.
She did the weave poles with no hesitation and with passion. It's really just all a matter of confidence. I want to work hard on getting her to do the weave poles outside, and hopefully that will translate to doing them at the training club. I think that regular classes at this place will help her continue to come out of her shell.
Another thing I did today was heeling practice in a not busy area of the parking lot. There were leaves blowing all around, so that was an intense distraction for Perri (she loves to chase leaves.) She turned out some gorgeous heeling. I could see our shadows on the Figure 8 (I am trying not to look at her) and I could see her needle nose pointed straight up at me and it made my heart want to burst.
My friend said gently today that maybe Obedience will be Perri's place to shine. Not to push me one way or the other, just stating a question that I turn over in my head very often.
My solution to Perri's low confidence is to move full steam ahead in both of these sports. Obedience and Agility. I am not ready to make a decision to choose one over the other for Perri just yet, and maybe I never will want to or have to choose. Agility trialing can wait. I have my great Molly Dog to enjoy trialing with, and even Einey as well. We are looking into a brand new year and have already come far from where Perri was at the end of 2012. I can only imagine where we will be when 2014 ends.
