OK, I am excited about SoBe's ADCH!! The SoBe DoBe Doodle Bug is a very special girl and is also quite the handful! I knew the ADCH would eventually come but who knew it would be at age 3 and a half!!
I am pretty stoked about the fact that SoBe is ADCH number 10 as well! I do not believe that any one else has put ADCH's on so many dogs, it is only fitting that my little trouble maker would be number 10. :-)
I also need to fess up about something, I have gone back to a 2on/2off dog walk with SoBe, not because I am a quitter, but, because I am a realist and I realized about a month ago that trying to retrain SoBe to a running Dog Walk was just not going to work. Her history and foundation was a 2on/2off unless of course she launched!
What she did not have, was any understanding of how to "run" through the contact. Although I started her back on a flat board and transitioned to a low dog walk before the full height, etc.. And, even though she was probably at least 80% accurate in her success hitting the contact, even when she hit it, she launched.
The main problem with this is the fact that in a training environment if she missed I had no way of explaining what she did wrong and all of the negative reward markers were confusing her, frustrating both of us and ultimately making me ask myself if it was even remotely fair to ask her to do this with no true understanding of what I was asking. Obviously, the answer was NO!
I have to give the credit for going back to the 2on/2off behavior to SoBe herself, it was during one of these quite frustrating training sessions that she finally just looked at me, trotted over to the bottom of the dog walk and put herself in a 2on/2off position! That sealed the deal, no more running dog walks for the Doodle Bug.
Of course, I never mentioned this before because it had not yet been tested in the ring and I must admit I was a bit nervous about what she would do, and, ultimately what I would do if she blew it!
Great news!!! Not only did she did not blow it, but, she offered a 2on/2off dog walk on each and every dog walk at the FRAT trial and all but one at the Dog Gone Fun trial last weekend in Texas. The only "bad" walk was in a pairs run where she ran second, was over the top high, and, pretty much oblivious to all things going on! I did mark the poor performance, asked to assume heel position and continued on, never another problem! I am so proud of her, and ME!
I have not even remotely given up on the whole running dog walk concept, I am still absolutely going to continue teaching both Danger and Vintage a running dog walk, which is a whole lot easier when they are clean slates learning this behavior from the beginning!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Thank You AMY!!!
This post is not really about thank you Amy, but, without Amy there would be no post!! I managed to find a way to completely screw up my passwords, usernames, you name it and was unable to even get into my own Blog! Thank you Amy for at least getting me back into my Blog!!!
On to the other topic, I am on a serious high from 2 days of amazing runs at our local USDAA trial!!!!
There was one downside that I need to talk about first however, although Wally was only entered in literally 1 class yesterday, (Steeplechase, in which he Q'd and won round 1 :-), and 3 classes today, he came up lame again! His iliopsoas refuses to just heal and not be an issue, so although he is still running at winning times, (took second in Masters standard today and was but a mere 2/10ths behind daughter SoBe in Steeplechase finals), it appears that he is going o be back on rest for a while, and after that pretty much a tournament only dog. This makes me very sad as Wally is, well, Wally... Mama's boy extrordinaire, the Golden Child, my main man, you get the picture... I will do whatever is best for Wally!
On to better stuff, SoBe and Maze were off the charts this weekend! OK, all 3 were but as I already pointed out Mr. Wallys awesomeness was cut short by his ouchiness!
SoBe and I seriously ran together as a TEAM! We had a bit of a rocky start yesterday in our first class of the day, team jumpers, she and I maneuvered our way through what I thought to be the hardest parts of the course only to be foiled by a tunnel off course that I did not really forsee as an issue! I did determine that it was my issue as I was definitely showing too many forward cues when I should have been peeling off laterally.
Next up was team gamblers, let's just say my superior weekend with the Sobester started after that :-) SoBe and I made our way through a VERY difficult team standard class that was eating people alive, definitely made my day. This run was directly after a smoking round 1 Steeplechase Q!
Today started out fabulous as SoBe won team Snooker, placed second in Master standard, was clean in team Relay, tied for second in GP for her second qualifier needed for Nationals, and won Steeplechase round 2 even beating her daddy and coming in 2.5 seconds ahead of the next clean dog, I could not be more proud or more excited about the future for my little SoBe DoBe Doodle Bug!
Maze was equally awesome ending the 2 days with a 100% Qualifying rate, several wins and one of the 3 dogs on the winning DAM team! Thank you Jen, Kris, Morganne, and, Liz for all of the filming! When I get videos I will throw a few of them on my YouTube page.
We have a very small 26" population in Colorado and I am so happy to say that with the addition of Mary and Trek, a highly competitive 26" team I have been forced to really run Maze the way he should be run instead of just playing it safe around the course and he is responding beautifully! Thank you Mary for being such a great competitor, trainer, handler, and new found friend!
There is another day of trial tomorrow but I did not enter, so I will be enjoying a day at home hanging pictures on my newly painted walls, going for a long hike and training Danger and Vintage. The "old" dogs get the day off, it is Sunday after all, a day of rest :-)
I will get back to training talk but just needed to "share" my fun weekend, it really was great!
I did have really good intentions of coming home tonight and training the puppies, but, after 2 days of trialing that started each morning getting up at 4:00 to make the 2 hour drive to the show site, (I am more willing to drive than spend anymore nights in hotels), I was exhausted and decided that a tired trainer is not a good trainer and will pick up where we left off tomorrow!
What does tomorrow bring, simple jump sequences for Danger, dog walk practice of course, and, probably a tire or 2 thrown in for good measure.
Vintage gets to continue to learn impulse control, tons of toy work, a few trips through the jump uprights, and some "mat work" just to name a few things.
As an aside, I have to throw in a note about the power of positive thinking and how incredibly important it is to focus on your Mental Game as part of your training and trialing regimen, the Mental game is a huge part of everyone's ultimate success in any endeavor, one of the many things Lanny Bassham speaks of is to remember that you shouldn't focus on the outcome of the run, you should focus on the run itself, doing so will take care of the outcome!
Happy daylight savings, looks like Spring has Sprung!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Priorities...
I am sitting in the Best Western in Park City Kansas reflecting on an awesome 5 days of teaching a group of students who really make me smile. They make me smile for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that they are simply great students, thoughtful, interested, willing, and, just downright fun! I have been very fortunate to have worked with almost everyone who attended this weeks seminars before, and, because of this, I already have a heads up on essentially where everyone is at from a training perspective, and, I also know from where they came, I am so incredibly proud of the work they have done and the progress they have made!
I am also sitting here trying to make the right decision about whether I should stay here for the 3 day trial I am entered in this weekend or get up in the morning and head home. I am faced with this dilemma because I have unfortunately come down with a pretty nasty cold while I have been here and am not only feeling pretty awful but am essentially exhausted because of it.
For all intents and purposes this should be an easy decision, except that as much as I love my job as a teacher, I also love to train and trial my own dogs which of course always takes a backseat to the teaching part. The only thing that seems to take an even "backer" seat is me. There are only so many hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a month, months in a year... I try to pack so much into all of these that sometimes I think I just get plain and simply run down. It is times like these that I am forced to look at my priorities and get them in order. Of course my family, my dogs, my work, my students, and, my fun are important, but, none of these things can be experienced to the fullest if I am not physically or mentally at peak performance level.
Trialing, for instance, is of course a passion of mine and my primary source of fun and relaxation as it were, however, on order to be my best at the trials, and, be the best handler I can be for my dogs I have to be able to focus, concentrate, and, think clearly, or else I am not being fair to either my dogs or myself.
For this reason as hard as it is, I am going to pack up ithe morning and head home, reminding myself that there is always another trial, but,
there is only one me! Most people are probably quite thankful for this! :-)
Being the incredible type A personality that I am also means that part of the rest, relaxation and recuperation process will include a detailed plan for training the pups on the new found free days that I have acquired, with a few naps thrown in to make sure that this crud that I seem to have leaves me sooner rather than later.
So about that little thing called training, this week while teaching I tried to get a few sessions in with the dogs but other than a couple of quite productive sessions with Danger on the low dog walk I did not really accomplish much. I was reminded again how very important planning and preparation is. I found myself attempting to cut corners in my preparation, not planning as well as I could have, and, hurrying through the training sessions which left both the dogs and me feeling like something was lacking, the important thing is that I realized this and reminded myself that I need to be able to give full attention to my dogs and the task at hand in order to get the outcome I am looking for. Another fabulous reminder of quality over quantity, if you are not at your best, you cannot give your best and you are best to take some time off from training until a clear mind is available.
So, home we go to get better and clear our heads so that we are ready to rock ASAP!
On a much more upbeat note, Dangers dog walks are looking amazing! I am to the point that I am starting to offset the toy and run more putting more pressure on Danger, soon we will be raising the walk a few inches, yea!
Thank you Wichita Agility Group for a wonderful week of seminars, good luck this weekend and I hope to see you all again soon!
I am also sitting here trying to make the right decision about whether I should stay here for the 3 day trial I am entered in this weekend or get up in the morning and head home. I am faced with this dilemma because I have unfortunately come down with a pretty nasty cold while I have been here and am not only feeling pretty awful but am essentially exhausted because of it.
For all intents and purposes this should be an easy decision, except that as much as I love my job as a teacher, I also love to train and trial my own dogs which of course always takes a backseat to the teaching part. The only thing that seems to take an even "backer" seat is me. There are only so many hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a month, months in a year... I try to pack so much into all of these that sometimes I think I just get plain and simply run down. It is times like these that I am forced to look at my priorities and get them in order. Of course my family, my dogs, my work, my students, and, my fun are important, but, none of these things can be experienced to the fullest if I am not physically or mentally at peak performance level.
Trialing, for instance, is of course a passion of mine and my primary source of fun and relaxation as it were, however, on order to be my best at the trials, and, be the best handler I can be for my dogs I have to be able to focus, concentrate, and, think clearly, or else I am not being fair to either my dogs or myself.
For this reason as hard as it is, I am going to pack up ithe morning and head home, reminding myself that there is always another trial, but,
there is only one me! Most people are probably quite thankful for this! :-)
Being the incredible type A personality that I am also means that part of the rest, relaxation and recuperation process will include a detailed plan for training the pups on the new found free days that I have acquired, with a few naps thrown in to make sure that this crud that I seem to have leaves me sooner rather than later.
So about that little thing called training, this week while teaching I tried to get a few sessions in with the dogs but other than a couple of quite productive sessions with Danger on the low dog walk I did not really accomplish much. I was reminded again how very important planning and preparation is. I found myself attempting to cut corners in my preparation, not planning as well as I could have, and, hurrying through the training sessions which left both the dogs and me feeling like something was lacking, the important thing is that I realized this and reminded myself that I need to be able to give full attention to my dogs and the task at hand in order to get the outcome I am looking for. Another fabulous reminder of quality over quantity, if you are not at your best, you cannot give your best and you are best to take some time off from training until a clear mind is available.
So, home we go to get better and clear our heads so that we are ready to rock ASAP!
On a much more upbeat note, Dangers dog walks are looking amazing! I am to the point that I am starting to offset the toy and run more putting more pressure on Danger, soon we will be raising the walk a few inches, yea!
Thank you Wichita Agility Group for a wonderful week of seminars, good luck this weekend and I hope to see you all again soon!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Just say Thank You!
So, my good friend Jacqui told me today that I should blog about the fact that when a compliment is given a person should just say Thank You! And, do you know what? She is absolutely right!
Human nature is a very funny thing and we seem to be of the opinion species wide, that self deprecation is an honorable trait. It is our defense mechanism against disappointment and, even worse, we use it at times to simply pump up our own perception of our self worth. I find as a seminar presenter and teacher that all too often I have to literally tell a group of students that if I give a compliment, it is not only OK to just accept it and say thank you, but honestly, rather rude to turn it into an opportunity to talk about why they did not do the good job you just told them they did!
Everyone is capable of doing great things and I think there is a very clear line between accepting praise and admitting a job well done and being arrogant.
Trust me, I think there is a very large population of arrogant people in this world but I also think there is an even larger number of people who are just too self conscious to accept a compliment and move on.
If you are of the arrogant variety, please check yourself and realize that every time you turn a compliment into a negative, when you have clearly done something well, that you are potentially hurting someone around you who felt really good about what they did and are now feeling quite inadequate since Someone who clearly did better has dismissed their accomplishment as subpar.
Those of you who dismiss compliments because you feel that you are not worthy, get over it and appreciate your skills, accomplishments, etc.. And allow the person complimenting you to feel the joy of making someone feel good about something. :-)
I know for myself, if I compliment you, I mean it!
Enjoy the compliment and just say "thank you".
Human nature is a very funny thing and we seem to be of the opinion species wide, that self deprecation is an honorable trait. It is our defense mechanism against disappointment and, even worse, we use it at times to simply pump up our own perception of our self worth. I find as a seminar presenter and teacher that all too often I have to literally tell a group of students that if I give a compliment, it is not only OK to just accept it and say thank you, but honestly, rather rude to turn it into an opportunity to talk about why they did not do the good job you just told them they did!
Everyone is capable of doing great things and I think there is a very clear line between accepting praise and admitting a job well done and being arrogant.
Trust me, I think there is a very large population of arrogant people in this world but I also think there is an even larger number of people who are just too self conscious to accept a compliment and move on.
If you are of the arrogant variety, please check yourself and realize that every time you turn a compliment into a negative, when you have clearly done something well, that you are potentially hurting someone around you who felt really good about what they did and are now feeling quite inadequate since Someone who clearly did better has dismissed their accomplishment as subpar.
Those of you who dismiss compliments because you feel that you are not worthy, get over it and appreciate your skills, accomplishments, etc.. And allow the person complimenting you to feel the joy of making someone feel good about something. :-)
I know for myself, if I compliment you, I mean it!
Enjoy the compliment and just say "thank you".
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
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