The Nationals report :-)

Hi All!

We are back from a very exciting, really fun AKC Nationals and I am very happy to report the boys and I did great! Unfortunately, neither Wally or Maze made the finals but both were in the Challenger Round and Wally was a mere .60 seconds from winning the class! Maze was also clean in the Challenger Round and took 3rd by about the same margin, I could not have asked either of them to do any better.

Agility has grown so much in the last decade and it is amazing to see just how small a margin there is between winner and the next gazillion places!

Wally was fantastic and smokin' fast all weekend, at the end of day Sat. he was in third place overall in the 20" class which had close to 300 dogs entered. Sunday saw Wally post the only time in the hybrid class under 27 seconds! He had the misfortune of being called on his A-frame when his exuberance caused a one hit backside performance resulting in his toesies not being clearly in that wacky yellow area :-) I was thrilled non the less.

Maze had a fabulous Standard run and and unfortunate refusal in JWW, his clean run and placement in the hybrid round won him the opportunity to play in the Challenger Round on Sunday afternoon.

The courses at the Nationals were awesome, I truly enjoyed running each and every one of them. They presented very fair challenges with a lot of speed and flow. I was especially happy with myself and the fact that I stayed focused and confident in all of my handling decisions throughout the weekend and kept the boys on course and fluidly moving through their courses.

There was really only one downer of the weekend and I feel the need to say something simply because I know that AKC prides itself on maintaining a very high standard within its rules, regulations and guidelines and I respect that, which is why I was so disappointed to have been on the receiving end of a complete dismissal of the rules by the people that are there to uphold them.

In a nutshell, there was a supposed timer issue that occurred during my JWW run with Wally on Sat. that went completely undetected by any ring personnel, judge, or any one of any power as it were. I was completely in the dark and as a matter of fact if there was a timer malfunction it was quick and over as Wallys time was very reasonable for the course and the speed at which Wally runs.

Anyway, I was the 14th 20" dog to run on Sat. so I was done before noon, I stayed the rest of the day to watch my friends and just hang out. At approx., 5:15 I was called to the score keepers room where I was told that an unsigned email was sent to the office requesting that they look at Stacy Peardot-Goudys Jumpers run as there was a potential timer issue, before I go any further let me point out that is has been explained to me that any unsigned correspondence sent to the AKC is by the rules immediately discarded, well not in this case.

They chose to look into the matter but not until the end of the day, and used a video to time the run. They did offer me a rerun almost 5.5 hours after the fact and after laying all of this wonderful news on me, I declined. They kept asking if I was OK with their decision in determining the outcome and I continually told them I was not but what choice did I have, they offered no alternative choices. The end result was a very respectable 5th place overall in JWW with a less than perfect attempt at timing off of a video.

Don't get me wrong, I am not interested in getting anything I have not earned but I am seriously questioning why anyone would go to these lengths to have it looked into and even more floored that the AKC would entertain such a ridiculous wild goose chase! Ultimately we ended up exactly where we would have anyway and I was able to put it out of my head and run some pretty amazing runs on Sunday, I just hope the AKC does not make a habit of this type of investigation it sets a very bad precedent and encourages anyone who feels like it to send cowardly unsigned emails potentially causing harm to people.

Well, enough of that, my overall experience at the Nationals was AWESOME and I really learned a lot! I think it is very important to learn something at every competition and what I learned at Nationals was that a true running contact is a thing of beauty that sends shivers up your spine and is also quite necessary if you plan on winning.

I know that is not what people want to hear but the 16", 20", and 26" classes were all won quite handily by individuals that had true running contacts, that means no management, no short striding, just full extension, balls to the wall running.

I learned that anytime you have to manage any obstacle you are potentially giving up the most efficient path on a course, OK I already knew that, but, I was kind of smacked in the face with it on one occasion at the Nationals :-)

I learned that you never know it all and that a huge part of the fun in agility is learning what you don't know and figuring it out so that you know it in the future.

I was reminded how much fun it is to watch your students and friends do fantastic at such a huge event and that a great run is not measured by placement or Q!

I had a fabulous time and now that I am home I am totally excited to work on the areas that need improvement, train some new things and continue to push myself to be the best partner and teammate I can for my dog!

I am spending the week, tuning up for World team tryouts, training my puppy, hiking the dogs and spending time with my family, well not much of that as Geoff is up to his eyeballs in taxes but soon we may get to see each other!

I am also having the pleasure of several private and semi private lessons and most importantly, SLEEPING IN MY OWN BED!

Good night all :-)

What a day!

Well, this is going to be a short post as I have been up since 4:30 a.m. and have driven back and forth from Castle Rock where I was at an AKC trial today :-) Castle Rock is a little under 100 miles from my house, I pretty much always choose to drive back and forth as any nights that I can actually sleep in my own bed, I will certainly choose to do exactly that!

Anyway, today was day 1 of project SoBe contact criteria boot camp! She had a brilliant jumpers run and hit her weave poles on the first attempt smoothly finishing them all and jumping like a pro, I was totally psyched for the standard run! Well, she had a beautiful start which was also almost the end :-) She ran the dogwalk like her butt was on fire and of course completely forgot how to stop, it was at this point that I thanked the judge, scooped up Miss SoBe and left the ring. This is a battle I WILL win! I have no idea how long it will take but I WILL win. To see just how fabulously she can negotiate a dog walk with a full 2on/2off behavior check out the video on my youtube account.

We of course came home tonight and promptly went down to the building where we practiced a few perfect dogwalks. I am already anxious to see what we get tomorrow!

Maze and Wally had spectacular Jumpers runs today but unfortunately I had left my brain outside of the ring for Wallys standard run and caused a refusal at the chute... Maze decided that looking for a jump slightly offset from the chute was highly overrated when there were weave poles just on the other side of said jump :-) Truthfully the boys were brilliant today and I am still totally ready for and excited about Nationals coming up very soon.

Merger had a lovely Open Jumpers run with an unfortunate bar at the very end and did get his second Novice standard Q with a perfect running dogwalk!

Overall, it was a very good day, I am very happy and very lucky to have such awesome dogs to run and 2 more days this weekend to run them. More updates tomorrow, cross your fingers that SoBe is a good little girl!

P.S. Able is doing fantastic!!!!

La Vida Loca!!

Well, that about sums up my Spanish language quotient, it is also the very best way to describe my life, CRAZY!!!

I am home for my one day in between seminars break :-) For some reason that 1 day always includes copious amounts of vaccuuming, laundry, poop pick up and general Donna domestic duties that are completely neglected while I am away. The trouble is I never get the benefit of all of the work because after all of the cleaning projects I accomplished today I will leave again tomorrow for 3 days and will come home to the hairballs, dirty clothes and yard full of poop. It is a vicious cycle for sure :-) At least I feel as though I have accomplished something in my brief time at home!!

I did get to work Miss SoBe tonight and took Danger to the building to do a bit of plank work, and, playtime! Danger is teething like crazy but I am happy to report that he is still tugging like a maniac!

The boys get the week off after a 3 day trial and as soon as I get back from this trip to Salt Lake City it is another 3 day AKC trial, the last before we head off to Nationals. I am really excited about Nationals this year, I have not been to the AKC Nationals since Secret was still competing and I do really enjoy National competitions!

This past weekend was our first trial since Jan. and it was great to get back in the ring! It was even more special because I had spent the week prior to the competition doing seminars for the Wichita Dog Training Club and many of the people that I had the pleasure of working with at the seminar were at the trial and they did so incredibly well! It was fantastic to be able to see how these great trainers and handlers were able to implement so many of the new skills they learned along with what they already knew to do such a great job at the trial! Plus, it was fun to hang out with friends :-)

I had a fabulous weekend! Although I was pretty tired after 6 days of teaching I was so excited to finally be trialing again that the adrenaline kept me going. Maze was 6 for 6, 3 double Q's out of 3 days and lots of MACH points I could not have been happier.

Maze was really running well, I feel like we are absolutely ready for Nationals and the great thing is we have another trial next weekend to just tweak a few more things.

Wally was brilliant as well, going 4 for 6 with 4 first placements. His Iliopsoas strain seems to be all better and he was flying around the courses!

Merger finished his NA-J and got his very first Novice standard Q :-) He also ran FAST one day and Q'd in that class as well. He is definitely getting much more confident and is really starting to turn on the speed and use his mammoth stride. I definitely see a huge learning curve for Merger and I in the very near future, I look forward to it!

SoBe had to stay home and spend the week in pants!!! She was not happy and I missed her a lot!

Tomorrow I get to head to Salt Lake City to work with my "groups" and I am as always very excited to go work with everyone but it is bittersweet as I will have to leave Danger home and I have not left him since I have gotten him. SoBe and Danger get to go spend time with Auntie Deb they will be very happy!

Able is doing awesome and is healing nicely :-)

SoBe was wonderful in training today, she is blasting over her dog walk and turning herself inside out to stop on the contact, let's hope she is able to compete this weekend so I can see if it is going to carry over immediately or if we have to work at it, I will be happy either way and just be thrilled to be able to play with my dog! Weave poles also looking great and stunning teeter is looking wonderful, remember all of this for when I right about the trial :-)

Danger is being very cute and is shaping up to be perfect in every way. :-)

Well, I have to go pack, have a great week everyone!

Aren't they beautiful! Merger was less than thrilled yesterday when we went for a walk and I made him disengage from his dog herding duties to pose for a picture!! He was a good sport though and let me capture him against the beautiful back drop of the foothills of the Rockies where I live :-) Danger seems to live for posing for photographs!!

It was a gorgeous day and after a very long drive home from the equally beautiful Vancouver Island, BC it felt so good to stretch my legs and just hang out with the dogs.

It has been a crazy couple of months and it is simply going to get crazier, just the way I like it!!

After returning from Phoenix the middle of Jan. I had a bit of a break and then it was off to the East coast where I had the pleasure of teaching for 3 different groups. Danger got to come with me as an only dog on that trip so he was a very happy camper! He handled all of the travels incredibly well and has made an incredible number of new friends!

I was home from the East for 2 days and it was time to hit the road to the Pacific Northwest! I drove this time as I really wanted to have dogs with me. It is quite a drive but the weather was perfect both coming and going and it was wonderful to have my puppies with me. I can't say we got a whole lot of training in as my breaks, lunch hours etc... were pretty much filled with exercising dogs, pottying dogs, playing with dogs, you get the picture. I tried to squeeze in a few minutes of quality training for each dog everyday if I could but all in all it was just awesome having them with me.

The groups in Seattle were so fabulous! They took in every bit of information and were always willing to try new things. I have had the pleasure of working with many of the people that I worked with several times over the years and it is always like old home week when I get to see the fabulous friends that I have made over the years.

We spent a lot of time working on collection and decelleration cues, front cross timing and execution and even got to play a bit with rear crosses on the flat. Timing is and continues to be the issue Du Jour, this is primarily because timing cannot be learned, the timing of cues changes with every run.

In order to be able to properly time cues there are a few things that must happen, you must be able to monitor your dogs position throughout the run as they are truly what defines proper timing. You must also be able to trust the dog to take responsibility for obstacle performance and each behavior that you cue.

The only way to do this is to train the dog properly from the beginning, our inability to trust the dog is actually a reflection of how well we trust what we have trained, do you trust what you have trained and have you trained the right things?

Does your dog have independent obstacle negotiation skills? Is your dog capable of paying attention to you through any number of distractions, any level of distractions, any type of distraction?

Have you taught your dog what the various hand signals mean? Do they understand that it is their job to seek out and maintain a path parallel to you unless instructed to do otherwise?

Have you taught your dog how to use itself properly from a physical standpoint? Think of what it takes for your dog to accommodate any angle and any spacing between jumps and still be able to clear the bar, turn, etc... There is so much to teach it is a really great idea to take inventory and define what skill sets your dog possesses and where there may be holes or gaps.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to train your dog to 200% to get acceptable performance in competition environments!

OK, back to my trip :-) After a great lunch at a Mongolian BBQ on Thursday, 5.5 days of teaching later it was my time to just relax! How does a dog trainer relax? She goes to another dog training facility to audit another trainers classes! Thank you Daisy for letting me be a fly on the wall during your classes and for the pizza and beer afterward!

I headed out after dinner to get at least a part way to the Canadian border so the trip was not so very long. I was booked on the 9:00 a.m. ferry over to Vancouver Island so I got up really early finished my trip to the border had a super fast border crossing and got to the ferry about 1.5 hours early!

I have never taken this ferry or been to VI, it was gorgeous!!! The weather was wonderful, I swear on Sunday afternoon it was in the 60's!!!

I had the extreme pleasure of working with a "new" group that had a ton of familiar faces as well as some new ones. What a pleasure it was to work with each and every one of them! Again, we had a lot of philosophical discussion and some major course challenges. The group was all about being pushed, in actuality that was the common thread between the Seattle and the BC groups, what a blast to work with so many people who are so eager and so talented! They made my job tough trying to come up with new scenarios to test their abilities.

In Canada we spent a fair bit of time on back side sends over jumps and pull throughs a good time was had by all I believe! I know that I personally cannot wait to go back to both places!

Today I finally had enough energy to get out and train my own dogs, after teaching a couple of lessons of course!

Danger is learning to run his plank and drive to a target, he is also becoming quite the master of the sit and down! I have made some serious progress in his parallel path work, (stationary heel/side), and, his outside turns.

I think what I am most happy about is that he is a toy/play freak, and, a food freak, but... he will tug and play immediately after a food reward and even continue to play if I am holding food in my hand!

Danger got to play on the wobble board today and as with all other things had absolutely no idea what the big deal was and acted as if he walks every day of his life on a wobbly surface! He was immediately willing and able to offer both sits and downs on the board without stress!

He is a very smart boy indeed!

Quickly switching gears, Able is doing fantastic and gets his stitches out tomorrow!!! He is still not using the leg much but according to the tech I talked with on the phone today he is on par with where he should be 2 weeks into recovery.

Back to todays training, Daisy gave me a very valuable piece of advice for Mergers running dog walk that I was finally able to try out today for the first time, she suggested a stride regulator on the third plank to get him to extend a bit more, it was brilliant! He stretched over the regulator, jumped right into the contact and, strode right through! I only tried it 3 times as he was already bit tired from some other things we were doing but I am very optimistic indeed. Merger is also rocking the weave poles!!! He is getting to be very fast and incredibly accurate, we have a bit of entry work to do but overall I am very happy with where he is at. Jumping is looking great, he is handling odd spacing and angles as if he knows where his caboose is! He gets to show off his abilities weekend after this in an AKC trial in Kansas, I will keep you posted...

How are SoBe's running dogs walks coming along you ask?? Well, at the risk of sounding like the boy who cried wolf I am back to proofing her 2on/2off behavior. This is new as off my trip to Seattle. I did a bit of soul searching and decided that I was driving myself crazy trying to retrain her dog walk behavior when she already has an amazing dog walk behavior, so... no more Mrs. nice guy and she will be held accountable, her performance is fantastic in training and I would love to be able to report on how it goes in the trial but alas, she has decided to come into season, gotta love those intact girls! I suppose it is time to decide if I want to spay her, I know that I always want to spay her when her seasons interfere with trials!

Wally seems to be recovering very well from his Iliopsoas strain and will get to play at the trial next week. Maze is doing fabulous and we are just starting to think about wrapping our minds around AKC Nationals that are coming up very soon!

So, on Friday I head out to Kansas to teach for a week, this is another of my "yearly" teaching engagements and we have grown very close, one could say we are even drinking buddies :-)

So, that's what's happening now in my life hope all is well in yours!

On the road again...

HI All!

Well, I am not exactly on the road yet... I returned home yesterday from a great trip to the east coast that involved teaching for 3 different groups in 3 different parts of the Northeast :-) Danger got to go with me and I learned how to stuff a rather tall and long puppy in a Sherpa bag with great success!

I leave again on Thursday before dawn for an extended trip to the Pacific Northwest to teach, I am really looking forward to this trip too as I am driving and get to take dogs with me so we can actually train!!

Danger is definitely accumulating miles and is becoming the well traveled, super socialized young man.

I have not had time to get any training done as I have been out east and my dogs wee in Colorado so I am ready!!!! Danger got to play puppy games on his road trip but that was it.

I did take SoBe to the building today and worked on her dog walk, she was brilliant after 11 days off! I am definitely feeling optimistic about these running dog walks!

There was another reason that I did not get any training in today, I had to take Able to see Dr. Fitch who is our awesome Orthopedic surgeon here in Fort Collins as it appears that what started as a partial tear morphed into a ruptured cruciate.

Tomorrow my big beautiful red boy will undergo TPLO surgery that will not make him younger, but, it will make him pain free! The Dr. says he may even run agility again :-) If he ever does agility again that will be gravy and I am not even thinking about that, I just want him to be the happy, carefree, playful, pain free man again!

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, I will keep you posted!

The power of foundation

More new videos are up!!! It was a very interesting training session today, with SoBe in particular :-) As I was changing my location on the dog walk, SoBe's 2on/2off foundation kicked in and if I was stationary at the middle or bottom of the last ramp she wanted to stop in a 2on/2off position. I also experimented with running past the dog walk and this too caused the stop. The dog's amazing ability to recognize training and the power of good foundation is a most powerful thing! What I really find ironic is that although I have not asked for a stop in several weeks and we have been diligently training the run for that amount of time she still defaults to that behavior although would never even consider offering it in a trial environment!!!

SO, I had to think about what to do to change this behavior. The good news is that the very first thing I tried seemed to work! I released her with her verbal release cue to the go and ran with her. I have put this video up as well.

I was impressed with the fact that although when I stand at the base of the dog walk in a stationary position she has a tendency to launch because of the forward pressure I am putting on her, but, when I ran with her she was close to 100% running through the yellow!

I have said it before and I say it again, this is a truly fun, amazing, thought provoking process that will ultimately be a great learning experience for both dog and handler!

Having tons of fun!

First, the last entry should have had a video with it, but alas it would not upload to the blog... in any event I have created a YouTube account and all videos are there for your pleasure and perusal :-) Search under Merger Plank work and there should be a few of both Merger and SoBe.

I have been diligent in my work with the dogs until today, had so much other part of life stuff to do that the dogs did not get worked... It appears I did get Hawk, my giant paint horse, a trial gig, which will hopefully become permanent as a therapy horse at a therapeutic riding program. Cross your fingers, he will be great at this work!

I have been having so much fun with this silly plank work!! I have been toying with this whole running contact thing for so long now it is really nice to have finally made a decision and have a plan.

The dogs are really enjoying it and I am already seeing tremendous improvement and some true understanding of what I want.

It has become a great case study in dog differences already as well. It has never been a secret that SoBe is primarily a "doer" and Merger a "thinker", but, it has been truly interesting to watch those facts come to life when training each of them the same thing on the contacts.

Merger clearly understands that it is about the plank, to the degree that I have already been able to place the toy at a 90 degree angle to the dogs walk plank and he will run straight down the plank then turn to get the toy. There is video of this on the Merger elevated plank work video :-) Whereas SoBe is certain the game at this point is about how do I get the toy, if I do not make sure that the toy is directly straight off the end of the plank she will follow the line of the toy to a "T" and come off high and crooked to whatever direction the toy is placed.

They are both figuring out the job just in their own way. I do not expect this to be a quick process, months and months from what I hear, however, the end will definitely justify the means in this case if what i am seeing now holds up.

Danger puppy is doing really well and has learned his name, the eye contact game, hand touches, sit and down. This feels like a lot since I am primarily focusing on play at this point. It is definitely my plan to take my time with Danger and really instill the play/prey drive as well as focus and attention before we worry about any structured training.

Danger at this point will switch from food to toys and back again with no problem, as a matter of fact I can play with him with a toy and have food in my hand. He is a tugging fool and it is my goal to get him to maintain focus on his toy regardless of what distractions are occurring.

I had Danger and Merger together in the building the other night and Danger was tugging a toy I was holding in my left hand while I tugged and threw toys for Merger out of my right without letting go or getting distracted by what Merger was doing! Good boy!!!

We are currently working on retrieving, Danger happily chases the toy but is still not completely convinced he should bring it to me, when he does bring the toy I praise enthusiastically play a bit of tug and release the toy, Danger gets to win pretty much every game right now so that he wants to continue to "share" his toys with me.

We are playing the trade game and racing to toys as well, this game he does not always win I am encouraging competition and drive to the toy. I have also started a bit of opposition reflex training holding loosely onto Dangers collar while teasing him forward with the toy. When he offers even the slightest pull forward I release my hold and tell him to get it! He loves these games!

I am fortunate to be home one more day then if the weather cooperates Merger, Danger and myself are off to Connecticut, Mass., and, New York. Keep your fingers crossed that Danger continues to fit in the Sherpa for 12 more days and that the weather cooperates and allows Merger to fly!

Then I have driving trips for a while so that I can take dogs and continue to work those planks!

Merger's Plank Work





Merger Low Aframe



SoBe's Plank Work