Class and Run-Thrus

Jonah and I got to go to DogStar twice this week--once for class and once for run-thrus.  The courses were pretty tough and we had some real challenges.  Rather than write all about it, you can see some video footage that Dave took on Friday.  Curiously the things that we did well on Thursday were troublesome on Friday and vice versa.  You'll see me trying some different handling techniques...some work and some don't!  Also, I was doing a blind cross off the A-frame and it seemed to be unsettling his contacts--they were poor and once he missed entirely.  We'll have to keep working.  The videos are rather discouraging in that we had lots of off-courses/missed weave entries, etc, but I still think they're helpful.

He had no trouble with that weave entry on Thursday, but it needed a lot of support on Friday.  Same with the tire to the A-frame.  I think I take things for granted after I know he can do them correctly.  It's a pretty discouraging video, eh?  :-/

I like seeing this video.  In class on Thursday I just did the rear on the flat between the second and third jump of the serpentine, and it worked well.  I wanted to try some other ways, too, and I met mixed success.  Also here you can see the poor A-frame contacts (and one blown).  I'm still not totally sold on the blind crosses, but it's good to practice them.

We could definitely tighten up our line.  The Ketschker works, but I feel like I have to be so on top of it that I'm not actually sure it's faster for us right now.  Oh well.  Oh yeah, and that discrimination at the end (he's supposed to take the frame) is another thing we nailed last night with no problem, but Friday I forgot to decelerate hard, so I take credit for buying the tunnel :).

So you probably can't tell from watching this video, but it was our attempt to practice handling more at a distance.  As you can see, the pinwheel was a bit of a challenge, and I'm really not ever very far away!

Bloopers!  As in, a lesson in why you should pay attention to your dog while you're listening to your trainer.  I love the yawn.  Jonah says, "Mom, you are SO boring.  Can we please play agility now?!"  And then the last clip of the little bear who turns his baitbag inside out.

We've got lots of room for improvement, but it's nice to see video footage every now and then!

Day at the Beach

Dave, Jonah and I went to the beach today and we had a super time.  There's an off-leash area where Jonah got to meet lots of other dogs.  He didn't run as much as I would have hoped, but he was well behaved.  His only issue was when other dogs had toys he would bark at them.  Jealous.

Aside from spending some time in the leash-free area, we went for a nice, leashed walk and Jonah was fantastic walking past other dogs, children, people, etc.  He didn't even bark once!

Here are some shots:

USDAA-More Results

The full results from our USDAA trial last weekend are now posted.  It's helpful, somewhat encouraging and somewhat discouraging.  I'll start low and get better :).

Steeplechase:
   Of 27 entered dogs, 7 qualified.  15 were eliminated.  If Jonah had not been called for his A-frame, he would have been 1.13 seconds too slow to qualify.  His time would have qualified in any of the other height categories of championship or performance.  With the A-frame faults, he would have qualified in the 12" or 16" Championships, and in the 8" or 12" performance.  At first glance I thought that was discouraging, but now that I've written it I still feel like we'll be able to do it some day.  It will take a good run and some luck, but I'm confident that we could have shaved 1.13 seconds off our time, and we'll have some fast run some other day to get our Steeplechase Q.  After all, we only need one to get our ADCH (plus a whole lot of other Q's)!

Grand Prix:
     Out of 25 dogs, 5 qualified.  8 were eliminated.  As I updated the other day, Jonah did not actually get called for a refusal, so his only penalty was being 0.13 seconds over course time!  That was by far the least faults for a non-qualifying dog, and that's something that I'm really very confident we could fix in another run some other day.  I don't think we'll have too much trouble qualifying in GP in the future, so long as we have nice clean runs.  I know we don't always have nice clean runs, but it's not that rare!

Stats Update

I was looking at our CPE tracking sheet and remembered that we'd left our last trial early.  I'd assumed that we'd Q'd, but I figured it was a good idea to check the online record.

Well, even though it was not our smoothest run it was a Q and 1st place.  Yay!

While I was at his record, I was looking through our stats, and they aren't bad :).

The site only records Qs, so we have a handful of NQ runs that aren't accounted for, but for the runs where we've gotten the Q we've had:

32 first places
15 second places
4 third places
2 fourth places

That's pretty darn good, eh?  That means that we win about 58% of the classes we qualify in.  Of course, the NQs would change things but I don't feel like figuring all that out right now.  I'm pretty sure, though, that even when we haven't Q'd we've always placed at CPE, and a few times we've even won...but USDAA is a very different story!

Warm Weather Gambles

It's ridiculously warm outside, so Jonah and I had to take advantage with a little agility.

When I got home right after school, we went out back and I didn't have any food but Jonah was getting really excited about his stick, so we would do some obstacle performance in return for a tug/chase of the stick.  That was fun and motivating for him.  Maybe someday we won't have to be entirely food motivation.  At the moment, though, whenever there is food he chooses that over a toy.

After my lunch we headed out there with a rake, the tunnel and some string cheese.  I don't really want to rake too much yet because there are still so many leaves on the trees, but it was getting a little deep in a few spots so I cleared it off a little.  Then we practiced some discriminations which Jonah did beautifully with.  The only one he missed was a tunnel on the outside and I really didn't push at all and I had significant lateral distance, so he correctly read all of my cues except the verbal 'tunnel.'  I'll take the blame on that one.

Next we decided to play with some distance work.  Here is the little 'course' I set up:

I was impressed that Jonah did very well with this.  He did come back to me after the weaves but when I sent him back out to the table he went happily and downed quickly.  His weave entry was excellent every time.  We also ran the whole course (minus the teeter) backwards and he handled that well, too.  (As a note, for number 2 on the map I would choose either tunnel or DW...it wasn't dog's choice ;-)).  

One other gamble I set up was harder for Jonah.  I had the weaves where jump 4 was so it was a jump out to the weaves, and Jonah kept going in at the second pole.  He needed more support than I would ideally like, and I had to cross the vertical line (he has no problem with the horizontal other than that's the one time I made him miss the tunnel with the discrimination):

When I added another jump before the weaves, even with the weaves farther away, he found the entry much easier:

All in all, it was good practice.  There are lots of little variations I can do to keep giving him new looks and challenging ourselves to work at distance, which isn't our favorite thing.

Little Wonders

Two little things happened today that were impressive, and of at least some interest to this blog.

1)  Our neighbor's dog, Tino, came over this afternoon while Jonah and I were outside.  They love to play together and were having a generally gleeful time.  The highlight (for me, at least) was when Jonah ran so fast into the bushes that Tino (an overweight, adult lab) lost him.  Jonah then stopped in a play bow about 25 yards away around a little corner, and Tino was just walking around looking everywhere for Jonah.  Hysterical.  Anyway, at first they were in the backyard, but then Tino's mom realized he was missing and came over to retrieve him.  While we were talking and watching them play, now in the front yard, a dog and its person walked by.  Tino started barking and charged at them.  Jonah started to follow suit.  I called Jonah...and he stopped dead and looked back at me.  Then he looked over at Tino (still barreling towards the walkers).  I called him again.  He came trotting happily over to me.  What a good boy.  Recall with motivating distractors!

2)  When I got home from school tonight all of the brush in the driveway was gone and there were beautiful piles of mulch!  Apparently mom managed to grab a group of landscapers who were working across the street and get them to come over at the end of their day.  Not only did they get what I'd dragged to the driveway, but they went out to our agility area and finished those piles off, too!  Amazing.  I'll try to take another 'after' picture tomorrow so you can see the turnaround since the storm last weekend.

Score Update

Apparently we didn't actually get charged with a refusal for our Grand Prix.  We still didn't qualify because his being startled and stopping meant we were 0.13 seconds over the SCT.  Dang!  Now of course I just wish I had run a little faster--I had him hold his DW contact a bit to say good boy, and if I'd pushed him on we would have got the Q, but oh well.  I'm impressed we were that close!  It also makes me feel even more confident that we'll be able to Q in the future.  Any of a few spots--a more confident teeter, a lack of being startled and coming to a complete stop, a shorter DW contact, a tighter line...it's not too hard to shave off 0.13 seconds!  Good boy, Jonah.