The roof is no longer retractable!

Look, it has a roof!! :-) And a beautiful floor! The restoration company actually used a truck mounted vaccuum and along with the vac job they also shampooed the carpet. Truthfully it has not looked this good in a long while. Now I can be even more anal about my floor :-).

There is one pretty deep gash in one section but for the most part the flooring came away unscathed I am very happy to report.

Geoff and I got all of the equipment back in and I was actually training inside my building last night and this morning, I sure have missed it.

Riesen update, she came through the surgery just fine but is pretty sore at this point. Julie is of course taking beyond expert care of her, my reccomendation is that anyone dog or animal that needs TLC plan an extended stay at Auntie Julies place there is no better care anywhere!

They did have to take 3 full mammary glands and the incision is pretty major but she is her tail wagging, happy smiling self from all reports.

Now we wait for the pathology report, which I continue to believe will be good news.

So, let's talk about contacts, again! I took the youngsters down to the new and improved building last night and worked on contacts. Interestingly enough if you were to ask me right now, let's pretend you have, would you teach running contacts to SoBe or 2on/2off, I would answer 2 on/2 off :-) If you were to ask me the same question about Merger the answer would be running! 

This is exactly opposite of what I would have said a month or 2 ago. Why the switcheroo you ask?

Well, it does seem odd that I would even consider a running contact on a dog that is almost 23" tall, and equally silly to think about stopping a barely 18" dog who has to jump 22". 

The rationale is attitude and that whole thinker/doer thing.

SoBe is so completely all about speed that she has virtually no self preservation instinct and honestly not a lot of team spirit. SoBe knows that there is no "I" in team but has made a point of noticing that there is a "me" in team :-). BTW, I find this incredibly fun and training little miss SoBe is always a blast so if she can just refrain from injuring herself it is going to be a thrill ride from start to finish training her!

In training she has a spectacular 2 on/2 off dog walk and teeter, however, these same behaviors have been quite elusive in the trial environment. SoBe has a lovely running A-Frame that seems to morph a bit at the trials as well, this of course got me thinking. If she is allowed to run her A-Frame and has a balls to the wall overall attitude does this not potentially bleed into the dog walk and teeter performance values?

I believe it does, and, I also believe that there is going to have to be very clear and specific criteria that leaves no room for alternate interpretation for me to get the level of consistency I am looking for in competition. It is for these reasons that I am going to shape a 2 on/2 off A-frame as well. The little speed demon is plenty fast enough to control herself during the process of negotiating her contacts and still kick butt. What I am not so sure she is capable of is the impulse control that is necessary on the dog walk and teeter if she is allowed to run the A-frame. Time will tell, of course, but at present it makes sense to me.

Merger is a thinker and he most certainly is a team player, not so much a team captain but a great player! The good news is that we are not looking for a new captain 'cause that job is filled by me.

It is his great attitude and desire to please, along with how he is performing the contacts right now that leads me to believe that we may have running contacts in our future. I am still practicing his 2 on/2 off position and he is still fantastic at it, but, we just may not need it. Even though he has an immense stride he has been naturally 2 hitting his A-frame and adding strides on the dog walk to take him all the way through the yellow, YEA!!!

I am trying to be realistic about this and he may also end up stopping on the end of his contacts, there is still time to decide, however, the decision for SoBe has been made, she will be stopping!

Time to get serious!

 I have been spending a crazy amount of time teaching and trialing over the past few weeks and it has been a great reminder of how much I am not doing with my own dogs! I admit, I have not had the greatest motivation to do a lot of training since the building has been out of commission but it is time to get back at it.

Speaking of the building the "crew" is down vaccuuming and shampooing my carpet as I write this so I am actually going to be able to get back in the building to play by tomorrow so that is awesome! 

I am really just exhausted at the moment, it has been a crazy couple of weeks with a lot of stress, good and bad.

Besides the FRAC trial, the Jen, Dana and Stacy mini camp, the ACAT trial, building repairs ,and getting Veruca off to Becky for breeding I had the additional stress of Vandals mother Riesen's mammary cancer returning after just short of 3 months post op from the first tumor removal. Needless to say I am scared silly about what this means from a longevity standpoint for this most incredible and sweet 2 and a half year old Border Collie. 

She is having surgery today to remove the 2 affected glands and I guess we go from there.

My wonderful, awesome, dear friend Julie is dealing with all of this so that Riesen can have undivided individual attention throughout the recovery as well as constant spoiling, cuddling and treats I am sure. Prayers for Riesen would be greatly appreciated.

So... with all of that it is probably needless to say that I have done virtually nothing productive with my own dogs! And, I must also admit yesterday and today are purely days of rest and recuperation. I can whine a lot about not getting to train my dogs but I am also smart enough to know when I have to just step back and take a day or 2 to decompress. 

Just because I need a bit of a physical break does not, however, mean I have stopped thinking pretty much non stop about agility and what I need to be doing with baby dogs and competition dogs alike, pretty sad huh?

So where am I currently in the grand scheme of my goals for the year? Well, Wally, Maze and Able are all fully qualified for the 2009 USDAA Nationals, OK the "Cynosport Games", Geoffs dogs are too for that matter so those are big things checked off the list.

I have seriously been on the fence about any AKC goals, i.e. Nationals and I think I have finally decided that it is not a goal for this year. 

I have a few more AKC trials entered and if Wally and Maze happen to qualify I will most likely go but it is no longer a priority. I love the sport of agility and simply love playing the game whenever possible but I have also realized that I have made my primary goals around USDAA competition and IFCS Worlds and I really want to focus on that. 

I am also very busy teaching and traveling and traveling and teaching and I LOVE it! But... to keep loving it I have to find some "me" time and even some Geoff and Me time would be great so I am going to try to dedicate a few weekends a year to non agility related endeavors, hard to believe I know!

With this in mind I figure the smartest thing to do is put AKC n the back burner and dedicate a few of the AKC weekends to horsing around :-)

Back to the goals, in order to meet my short and long term USDAA goals there are a few things that need to be cleaned up on "the boys." 

First, I am still going to find a way to get Wallys running dog walk more consistent, when I figure out exactly how I will let you know.

Wally also needs a bit of work on staying close when there is pressure, i.e. stay on a line with me through a tight jump box, it is very hard for Wally to resist the urge to move off my side and take the lateral jump when we are running through a box, he is very pressure sensitive and these situations are tough for him.

My mission is to spend some quality time working on this over the next few months. In truth, the rest of this summer and fall will be all about getting Wally ready for Nationals so we will be training up a storm both at home and to a degree at shows.

Maze is just 1 gamblers Q away from his ADCH I am very proud to say! When he came back he was still shy 3 super Q's and 5 gambles so he has done well to close in on the prize. Mazes goals for this year are a bit different from Wallys, I am hoping to get Maze qualified for the IFCS World Championships. Wally is too tall for the 22" division so he gets a reprieve and Maze is "The dog" to try out.

I am going at this with a very positive attitude and want to keep it fun, so , although we will be training towards this goal there are others as well to keep the pressure to a minimum.

Last year I was fortunate enough to win byes on all 3 boys into the finals of the USDAA Nationals with the byes no longer available it is a 2009 goal to get all 3 into the finals from the semis.

Maze is a pretty put together dog, I think the most challenging thing in regards to training Maze is the fact that I am never sure what to train, he has all of the skills sets, consistency, accuracy and knowledge, but, his biggest issue is just checking out mentally on occasion without warning. It is a very interesting issue that hopefully will resolve itself with consistent training and more experience.

Able has been feeling pretty good of late and I think the best thing for his is the fact that I am limiting the number of runs he has in a weekend, he still gets to play but not as hard, boy getting old really sucks!

The real quandry right now is the babies :-) I will most certainly put SoBe into that classification as well as Merger and Vandal. 

SoBe had some moments of brilliance this past weekend and she definitely improved a bit in each run. She is still not quite capable of doing a lot of thinking while running so impulse control is the order of the day at this point. Contacts are still very iffy and we spend a lot of time regrouping and withholding immediacy of the next obstacle/reward on course but her start lines have improved and she is still jumping wonderfully!

She did on her very last run of the weekend nail the starters jumpers course with a blazing time of 15.85 seconds! She was on fire :-)

Lots of start line and contact/weave work awaits miss SoBe when I come out of my sleep deprivation coma!

Oh yea, it will still be a 2on/2off teeter and dog walk and a running A-frame, I think all of those choices work well for her.

Vandal is telling me that it is time to start working, all of his adult teeth have come in and he is back tugging and playing much more enthusiastically which is awesome! He and I are very bonded and he is far more interested in hanging out with me than any of the dogs or other people he may encounter. The recall is going great and his is quite reliable off leash even with a lot of distractions, all of these things point to a puppy that is ready to work with his human on more actual agility related stuff.

Merger is also growing up :-) He is learning about where his feet are and is just becoming a pleasure to work with. Merge is just innately obedient and attentive, has tons of toy drive and just likes to work he is really going to be fun, and, will most likely pass SoBe right by :-)

I am going to compile a to do list of what needs to be done with the "pups" to start moving forward and will share it with you when I do.

Until then, think good thoughts about Riesen!

What have I done???

Yes, I am still alive! Everyone and their brothers, sisters, cousins, and 2nd cousins should know this because in my attempt to "check out" Facebook I managed to send out a mass invite that seems to have spanned the globe and then some!

People that do not know how to use computers should not be allowed to do such things!!! It is beyond embarrassing to see your invite plastered all over every yahoo group that you belong to and it is even more embarrassing to get a really irate reply from one of these groups saying that I am abusing their list! AARRGGHH!!!

I need to stick to dog training, it is definitely a more comfortable area for me, even if it too, can sometimes be rather embarrassing :-)

Wow, I am already ready for this facebook thing to go away but I guess it will be a while!

I also know that I absolutely, positively do NOT have time for anymore computer adventures, it does not go unnoticed that I am constantly way behind in my blog entries. So, if you are one of the lucky ones to have gotten an "invite", and I am not sure how you could have missed it, don't be looking for a lot of posting from me :-)

So, if I can set aside my complete mortification regarding my facebook faux paux for a bit I would like to catch everyone up on my adventures the past 2 weeks.

I was in Salt Lake city for almost 2 weeks teaching and trialing I had a blast! I have started going to Salt Lake to teach a group of students every other month, we started this in Feb. so this was my second workshop with "the group". 

It was so much fun as well as a teachers dream come true, everyone improved so much! They had all obviously been working very hard and the difference was remarkable :-) 

It just goes to show you when you have motivation to train and to get better, you do! It is really great for everyone to know that in a couple of months I will be back and being able to show progress is the very best motivation to do your homework.

I also did 2 half day workshops that went great and did several private lessons over the time I was there.

There was a common theme of the workshops this time and it was how to evaluate where to place the different handling maneuvers that we use throughout a course.

One of the biggest issues was relative to front crosses, it is still interesting to me how many handlers plan their front crosses relative to the jump the dog is taking prior to the side change  without regard to how this thought process affects the dogs position, trajectory and view of the next obstacle in sequence.

Essentially, if a side change is to occur after jump X the handler automatically plans a route that puts them all the way in front of jump X and completely to whichever side (left or right) of the jump that gives the dog the full 4 or 5 feet of bar space. 

This would not be such a big deal if the following obstacle was at least 90 degrees to the left or right of the previous jump, this is rarely the case however. 

The mentality behind this also revolves around the idea that we need to get out of the dogs way over the jump, also unnecessary.

It is because of this people are constantly of the opinion that they cannot get there, being able to negotiate a front cross is less about where you get than it is about timing of the cues!

When you are driving to get to a front cross, you are cuing extension, if you fail to cue the side change before the dog commits to the jump and are still cuing extension as you race to your front cross, your dog will EXTEND over the jump. 

While the dog is accelerating and extending over the jump they are also passing you by giving the impression that you could not get there for the side change. 

Most likely, you were already there you just forgot to tell the dog what they are supposed to do. A dog should never jump straight over a jump that preceeds a side change, they should be curving around the jump towards you in preparation for the cross.

Now, in regards to being in the dogs way of the jump, when I position myself anywhere in the space of the jump this should be an indicator of what "part" of the jump is available for the dog to use and the dog should adjust to accomodate, I am not "in the dog's way". 

This all comes back to foundation training or lack thereof. My dogs are taught to find a path parallel to mine, it is never appropriate to jump in front or behind me, they should always be seeking out a parallel path with goes a million miles towards proper, well executed turns on course. 

I, however, have to cue these turns in a timely manner.

We also spent a great deal of time discussing how to determine where to position yourself on the obstacle to create the most efficient path, trajectory, etc... 

This is very difficult and I think is easier with more course experience, however, it is also helpful to look at the course path from the dogs point of view, move yourself to different positions on the jump and see what the dog sees, this will go a long way in determining where to place your crosses.

You will be unable to do this with any consistency if you are still worried about being in your dogs way over a jump though :-)

So, more training right? Your dog needs to know how to jump into you and use themselves properly to keep the bars up as well as land in the desired position. This is all single jump work.

I am already really looking forward to our sessions in June!!

What else did I do while I was in Salt Lake? Well,, Merger got to go herding with Colleen 3 times, he was in heaven and did very well I hear. The dogs got lots of training and SoBe is feeling great! 

The trials went really well and some of the best news... my building is being fixed as I write this and by the end of the month everything should be back t normal and I can start teaching in Colorado again!!!

I will try to stay more current form now on, realize I said try!!! Until then...