A fun course to play with :-)

Great news! I trained Maze for the first time since I pulled him from the last run of the Mile Hi trial, he ran great!!! He seems to be feeling great and I am seeing no signs of any pain in his back or hips! YEA!!!
In a couple of weeks Maze and I head to the World Team Tryouts in Hopkins, MN so I set up a course that would once again test our "International" skills :-)
SoBe and Maze both got to play on this course and they did great! I have to say though, I am starting to get concerned that my dogs may not be able to actually take the front of a jump anymore since all we seem to practice is back side sends! LOL!!
the dogs had a week off while I was in SLC and Kamloops teaching and will get another 10 days off while Geoff and I are in Hawaii on a working vacation :-) I think it is a perfect schedule given the events coming up.
Maze will have a couple of days of training this week, a couple of days of training right before the Tryouts, and, a lot of rest in between. Maze has had a couple of months of pretty consistent trialing and now some much needed rest before we start up again.
I definitely find that my dogs do better with breaks in between trials, especially when they are high pressure trials.
I can say in all honesty that I am ready for a vacation myself! I am working while in HI, but Geoff and I have a week of vacation between my seminars, I am going to force myself to RELAX!! I will miss my dogs as quarantine issues in HI mean everyone has to stay home, but the rest will be welcome after a super busy winter, spring and soon summer.
So, back to the course... give it a try, let me know how it goes :-) I played with the pieces first before running the whole thing. I started with 8-9, followed by 7-9, then 6-9 :-) Next we played with 9-15. The obvious issues with these sections were the pull throughs to the back side sends. Think carefully about the cues that you will use to ask your dog to negotiate these sections, remember to maintain consistency regarding what each cue or combination of cues means to the dog to ensure that you are asking for the right thing!
I also segregated 1-5 and worked it as a seperate sequence as well :-) I always like to break down any course or sequence to just 1 or 2 major challenges allowing me to really concentrate on each one. This also maintains a high reinforcement ratio making the learning process go so much faster! Keeps the fun factor high as well :-)
I do not always put the pieces together it depends on how each piece works out. it is crucial that we end on a high note and that I do not overwork the dogs :-)
As an aside, Danger is looking FANTASTIC!!! He gave me the best Teeter performance ever today and is getting the whole channel weave poles concept beautifully!
Dog Walks, well... fabulous is the word..

What comes first, the attitude or the training?

I have been doing agility for over 20 years now and am very fortunate to have had so many wonderful life experiences because of it. I have competed in hundreds of trials, numerous "special" events put on by various sponsors, many National Championship events, and, competed in 3 World Championship events.
I have traveled the world competing and teaching, I have taught countless seminars, classes and workshops, was selected as the coach of the United States Agility team 2 times and known great success from this end of the spectrum as well.
I have worked very hard to be successful in the sport of agility and would like to think that I will continue to be successful, however, although I have always thought of the mental game as a very important part of that success it never held as important a role as it does at this point in my career.
I attribute this in large part to the fact that the sport is continuing to get more competitive, more demanding, and, overall requires a much larger skill set to to do well in the upper levels of competition both domestically and internationally.
You can have the best trained dog on the planet handled by the most skilled handler ever conceived and, without an equally well honed mental game it will be quite unlikely that they will reach their potential.
I have a couple of friends who were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend the Lanny Basham coaching workshop this past weekend in Texas, this along with the fact that I had the pleasure of working with a group of the Worlds greatest people this weekend who truly want to succeed in the sport of agility and have fantastic attitudes towards this goal, really got me thinking again how important the mental game is and how very important it is for people to be made aware of the resources out their available to them relative to this topic.
Lanny Bassham, and, Jane Savoie immediately come to mind as absolutely required reading and listening.
What makes this mental game so very important? An example would be one of my favorite mantras these days as I walk the course, focus on the process and the outcome will be there... We are so invested inn the Q that we have a tendency to walk the course with our focus on the outcome, the Q. It is very difficult to achieve the Q without focusing on the process necessary to achieve the brass ring.
We want to win, however, if you do not plan the appropriate strategy to put all of the pieces of the course together it is unlikely that you will win. Do your best on the pieces of the course and there is a very good chance that you will not only Q, but very possibly win!
The conscious and subconscious mind are very powerful, it is really important that you use them in a way that has the power to enhance your runs!
You are only able to consciously think of one thing at a time, make it something positive. Subconsciously, there are many things going through your mind at one time, train yourself to focus on positive thoughts, successful outcomes, and, each piece of the puzzle that makes up the whole picture.
Verbalize what your strengths are, do not dwell on the mistakes! How you think about your previous run greatly affects the outcome of the next.
Keep training, smile, remember the good stuff, and, most of all enjoy the ride!

It's all about the cake!!!

OK, I was planning to title this blog and then just leave the title hanging for those who "understand" what it means to be able to have a bit of a laugh at an inside joke, but, I just cannot do it.
So, what's with the title?? At the trial this weekend there were no less than 7 MACH cakes and a box of MACH brownies! I never saw so many cakes! I think even more impressive was the fact that all of these cakes and brownies were consumed before the trial was complete! I am pretty sure if you completed a MACH or PAX title and did not bring a cake you would quite possibly be kicked out of the trial :-) Thinking we have some sort of addiction going on here!
Anyway, it was a great trial and I had a FANTASTIC weekend!
SoBe was the superstar again finishing her AX-J title on Friday with a 1st place run, getting her first 2 MX-J legs over Sat. and Sun. and starting and finishing her AX with 3 first place standard runs! I could not be more proud of my girl :-)
SoBe is 3rd generation Hijacker/Dream Weaver breeding, my breeding! I bred her grandmother, her father and now SoBe and all 3 are agility Champions! This along with Champions of my heart!! How cheesy is that!!! LOL!
SoBe's daddy Wally did continue with his tradition of insuring a non-double Q weekend, if he Q's in either run he carefully plans at least 1 fault in the other run to guarantee no double Q, it appears to be a very well honed skill. I will be forever thrilled with his one and only appearance in the AKC Nationals in 2010 :-)
Maze maintained his brilliance going 5 out of 5! There was no 6th run as he somehow managed to pop his SI joint and needed a chiropractic adjustment at the trial that left him too sore to run his last run! I have already iced him this evening and am a bit concerned as he has always been so sound and this is quite nerve wracking!
On to another topic... the courses this weekend were really interesting, quite challenging, and, presented some different challenges in a few cases a bit different than what is generally presented on an Excellent course.
This presented some interesting conversations that I found quite thought provoking.
First, a friend and I were talking about courses, etc.. and she asked me what was so different about USDAA courses, she does primarily AKC and several people have told her that AKC and USDAA courses are soooo different, I disagree, and told her so :-)
Both USDAA and AKC utilize the same obstacles, and, although there are some variations in what is "allowed" as far as challenges are concerned, a judge is still just taking those same obstacles and arranging them in different configurations that make up each and every course.
The challenge is in how each handler interprets the course layout and analyzes what the most efficient path from point A to point B might be for them and their dog, at which point they must figure out what cues and/or combinations of cues are necessary to get said dog from point A to point B.
After this particular discussion I found it very interesting how many people do have a habit of blaming the course for the issues that occur on the various courses.
People seem truly stymied by unusual obstacle configurations and get bogged down by the perceived level of difficulty instead of viewing it for what it is, a configuration of obstacles, that need to be handled.
Every handler has a toolbox at their disposal that includes whatever skills they have taught their dog, along with the cues necessary to get their dog to offer the various behaviors that make up these skill sets. Whether it is a giant industrial size toolbox or a home handy man toolbox, either way there is a finite number of individual tools that any person utilizes on any given course.
Regardless of how the obstacles are arranged there should never be a configuration that cannot be handled, the key is to dig deep in that toolbox and figure out which tools, combination of tools, and, where and when to use said tools is the answer to the challenges brought forth on each course.
Common sense suggests that we are at some point going to come across something that really gives us pause for thought, these scenarios should make us think about where we may be lacking in a skill set that still needs to be taught, in which case it should be taught :-)
I know for myself, one of the reasons I keep coming back to the trials is for the personal challenge of figuring out the "formula" as it were for success on each of the different courses. Each one is a puzzle and whether or not I always come up with the right answer it is always a learning experience and each course helps prepare me for the next one in some form or fashion.
I do know that you need to trust your gut, and, after evaluating your options, if one feels right, it probably is :-) You should plan your run and run your plan, pay attention to the process and the outcome will be there! I think that is a nice combination of cliche's that pretty much sum up what our mindset needs to be when deciding on the course of action we are going to employ to run the course, (pun intended:-)!
Have a good time, analyze, don't over-analyze, hug your dog, say something nice to lots of someones, and then... let them eat cake!

SoBe JWW 4/10/11

SoBe AX title run 4/10/11