Hello!

It's been a long time!  That's because we've been so busy.  Both dogs are doing great and we're gearing up for an exciting late summer and fall.

Last weekend we went to a training session where we did a few sequences from Masters Challenge courses.  Both dogs got through them nicely.  For Jonah, he's such a steady guy and I can always do things multiple ways, with him covering for my mistakes.  What a guy.  With Nika, sometimes we screw up--she's not as experienced and we're still working out our partnership.  When we get things right, though, it's awesome.  She's really fast.  What fun!  Plus, she's only 15 months and the fact that she can fly through International level courses is pretty awesome.

So...one week from today Nika will make her trial debut!

We're going to a CPE trial and she's entered in Fullhouse, Standard and Jackpot.  If the Standard course doesn't look friendly, I may scratch her.  I figured I'd enter, though, since it was between the two classes I really wanted to do (since I can make my own, Nika-friendly course).

I've entered her in Level 3 because she doesn't have trouble with weaves or the teeter.  Her A-frame is her weakest obstacle right now.  She's great with the box in place, but when I take it off she starts having her second hit be high.  We'll get there.

I decided to start her at 16".  I'm hoping she'll measure into 16" regular, but if not I'll just show her in Enthusiast.  For now, there's enough for her to focus on that I don't want jump height to be an issue.  I know different people have different ideas about this, but it's what I feel most comfortable with.  She doesn't need extra pounding while she's young and learning.  She may jump 20/22" later on--she's certainly capable.

Anyway, I'm really excited.  I think she'll do great, but I'm also not in any rush to get Qs and titles.  That will come if we get used to going to a trial environment and working together and having fun.

Meanwhile, Jonah's entered in Jackpot and Standard, and hopefully he'll do well, too.  He still needs *9* standard Qs to finish his CATCH.  We may start picking them up faster now that the puppy's trialing, though.  We've only done a couple this year, so no surprise we're slow getting Qs!  

Glen Highland Farm

Jonah, Nika, Dave and I just got back from a wonderful trip to Glen Highland Farm (GHF) in upstate NY.

GHF is a gorgeous, 175 acre farm in the quaint country town of Morris, NY.  It is home to a fantastic border collie recue operation that places over 200 BCs each year.  We got a tour of the facility and met some of the dogs.  They're beautiful, lovely dogs and GHF gives them plenty of space to run and care to blossom until they find their forever homes.

 

 Vacationing at the farm helps offset the (obviously huge) costs of the rescue program, and it's a great place to relax with your dog.  The leash-free property includes 5 miles of trails through beautiful rolling country fields, lush mossy forests, along a meandering river, and through a shady hemlock grove.  There's a pond for swimming (great for dogs, but Dave and I passed despite bringing our wetsuits) and plenty of space for ball/frisbee chasing.

There were several lodging options: tents (which we chose), cabins and luxury RVs.  Our tent was huge, including a full size futon, a bookshelf and a small table.  There was plenty of space for all our gear, 2 crates, and 2 bikes.  There were bathrooms and a nice shower about 100 yards down the trail.

Another highlight was the dining pavilion, with gas grills, a wood-burning grill, and then a microwave, toaster and all the dishes and supplies you could possibly need.  There was a pantry with refrigerators.  We went pretty basic with our cooking, but we didn't have to!  Other people made flambeed steaks, sizzling bacon, mouth watering salmon and fresh grilled corn.  Yum!

I pulled into the farm with very high expectations, and for the most part it lived up to them.  They'd gotten a lot of rain, so a bunch of the trails were closed when we arrived, although for the most part they reopened before we left.  The trails themselves are fantastic, although you get through them pretty fast if you're running like we were.  Anyway, they were nice enough that we weren't at all complaining to retrace our tracks.

Dave and I each went out road biking and it was awesome.  There are some sizable hills, and the scenery is beautiful if you like farm country even 1/4 as much as I do.  There was hardly any traffic on the country roads.

I had been very excited to go on an agility vacation.  Their website says, "Our agility equipment is available for use anytime during your stay. With 2 complete courses of obstacles, you can practice any aspect of the sport you like and use each day to build greater skills or just have fun challenging both you and your dog." Well, they did have a huge field big enough for two courses (albeit not entirely flat), but all that was there was an A-frame (a nice max 200), an AKC tire (also max 200), 2 aluminum jumps, a tunnel, a 16" table, 6 weave poles that appeared to be 22", and a teacup dogwalk.  I'd planned on setting up some international courses and working through sections each day, but needless to say we had to change our plans.  I did get some great sessions in with each dog, but it was nothing I wouldn't have been able to do at home.

Overall, the dogs had a fabulous time.  They met new dogs and people, ran a LOT, swam, chased swallows in the field, chased deer, chased each other, caught a woodchuck, got snapped at by a snapping turtle, and slept well at night.

For us, when we think camping we think wilderness backpacking miles away from other people.  This wasn't that.  If you're used to campgrounds, though, this would have been awesome:  the bathrooms were great, the dining pavilion unmatched, and 175 acres of off-leash adventures to share with only about 20 people.  All the dogs and people were great, too.  It was spread out enough that it wasn't loud, but if you were moving around the property you'd bump into people regularly.  We kept reminding ourselves that the more people there were, the more support for the rescue program, which we definitely want to support!

So, it was a great trip.  I would definitely recommend it!

Nika's Videos

Here are some videos of Nika's progress.  Her dogwalk is coming along as well, but I don't have footage of that.

What a Weekend

I know I haven't posted in a long time, but I wanted to post this video I made.  Nika had her first birthday yesterday.  She's doing great (see video).  As far as agility, she's not picking up the running dogwalk as fast as Jonah did, but otherwise there's not much I can complain about.  I ordered a set of channel weave poles, so hopefully they will arrive soon and we will start training those.  We're taking Silvia Trkman's Foundations class, too.  We just got our first assignment, but I'm excited about the course.

Jonah's doing well, too.  We went to a trial last weekend and he had the fastest Standard run in the whole trial!  What a good boy.

Here's that video:

Today we took Nika to watch the Boston Marathon.  She was great.  We were at the halfway point, and then the bombings were another 13 miles down the course.  Nonetheless, it was scary.  We had lots of friends watching in the city, and it was a few hours before we'd heard from people that everyone was alright.

Here's to being thankful for all we have and enjoying every moment we have with our friends, families and dogs!

Winter Fun

I woke up early this morning and actually have time to write a quick post!

We've got snow now, which I love but which makes traditional agility a little harder.  We're still spending lots of time outside, but I'm doing most of our training indoors.

I have two main projects at the moment:  pedestal work and cik & cap turns.

For pedestal work, I have a box about 6" x 9" and about 4" off the ground.  Both dogs are doing well.  They can pivot around the box with their front two feet on the box and their back two feet on the ground.  Then they can do the opposite:  back feet on the box and front on the floor.  They also can rotate with all four feet on the box, and then they do a variety of tricks while on the box.  The training process went well.  Nika had a little more trouble 'getting' the 2o2o position since I haven't done too much of that with her, but she has more speed in pivoting around.  I do think it's helping her body awareness.  Next I'm curious to see if I could do one paw on the box or two left paws/two right paws.

Our other project has been cik and cap turns, Silvia Trkman style.  I watched the video and now we're in the training process.  In the first shaping session, they both quickly understood to go around the far side of the cone, but they didn't want to make a complete circle:  they always wanted to have the cone between me and them.  So, it took a few sessions before they would happily do 'multi wraps' where they just keep turning in the circle.  Jonah's harder direction was clockwise (not surprising--this is his harder lead).  Nika's harder direction was counter clockwise.  She doesn't seem to be a particularly one-sided dog now that she's figured it out, though.  Now we've graduated to working on wrapping trees out in the yard.  They generalized to the trees very quickly and can get some distance.  I work on rear crossing, front crossing, lead outs and sends.  All that is going well.  Jonah still needs work to keep his wraps tight.  When he gets excited, he just runs wider.  Nika shows a lot of promise.  We'll keep working this and hopefully I'll get some video soon.

Welcome to 2013

I've been continuing to have lots and lots of fun with the dogs, and less and less interest in blogging about it.  Sorry.

I couldn't miss a beginning-of-the-year post, though.  I do really love keeping up with goals, so it's good to look at what we'd planned and what happened, as well as think about what's to come.

This is what I said last January:

"In 2012, I would like to:

• Have our first pairs run without any calamities.
• Earn our USDAA Starters Title.
• Earn our CPE Level 3 Title.  
• Go to CPE Nationals!
• Earn our CPE Level 4 Title.
• Earn our USDAA Advanced Title.
• Earn our first USDAA tournament Q(s).
• Go to a workshop.
• Have fun.
• Stay healthy.
• Continue to work on socialization with other people, dogs and cars.

That's not a long list but it's some big goals.  I'd like to think it's reasonable, but life can always be unpredictable.  Wish us luck, and we hope you have a wonderful year, too!"

Well, it surely was unpredictable.  Here's our report card:

A+:  First pairs run without calamities.  We're 2/2 in pairs runs, and neither has had any trouble at all.  

A:  Yep, we got our AAD!  It's the prettiest ribbon we've earned together.

A:  Yes, we got our CPE level 3 title.  No problem!

B:  We did go to CPE Nationals.  But it ended up being too electric an environment for Jonah, and his performance suffered.  Our confidence and interest in trialing plummeted.

F:  We did not get our CPE Level 4 Title.  That's just because we didn't enter trials, though--not because we were NQing.  

F:  Nope, we didn't get our AD.  We have all our games legs, but Jonah's trial anxiety means he's not wanting to lie down on the table.  If it weren't for the table, we'd have our AD as it's the only fault we've ever received in Advanced Standard.

F:  We didn't get a tournament Q either, but again largely because we didn't enter many (I think it was only 1 NQ).

A:  Yes, we went to a workshop with Grace and then one with Lo.  Both were excellent, and I can't wait to do more!

A:  Yep, we had lots of fun this year, it just wasn't all about agility.  I feel closer than ever to Jonah, and that's what it's all about.

A-:  We haven't had any major issues around our health.  Just a few tweaks and colds here and there.

B+:  We've done a bunch of socialization.  There's always room for more and he's still not perfect.  He's getting much better about having strange people at our house, but he's still prone to be startled by strangers in public.  I think it would take a whole lot of work to get him 100% comfortable with meeting new dogs and people, and I don't know if we'd ever get there.  He was as happy as I'd ever seen him the last time we took him to the Middlesex Fells, though.  I think he is getting better.

So, it was a good year for me and Jonah although agility trials were not the same priority they'd been in 2011.  Here's a look at what I'd like to do in 2013:

• CPE Level 4 Title
• CATCH
• Get past anxiety about laying down on a table in trials
• Go to at least one seminar
• Improve wrap skills, making tighter turns
• Enhance drive, and work towards using a toy as a reward
• Teach new tricks
• Stay healthy and have fun

I've decided to focus primarily on CPE this year because I don't think I'll do CPE with Nika.  Once they're both trialing, I'll stick with USDAA.  I think having Jonah get his CATCH this year is doable, but we'll have to see.

Last year I recounted some of the events of the year, and I'll do the same this year.  Some were really big happenings!

• We got a puppy!!!  I hadn't accounted for this when I set last year's goals, but it's had a huge impact on what I've done with the dogs.  More on goals for her shortly.
• Jonah learned a running dogwalk contact
• We made a full height dogwalk
• We got real agility jumps
• We bought a house!  That meant a number of weekends went to things like putting in the fence and moving furniture, rather than doing agility.  It's worth it though, and we all love the new place.
• I graduated
• I got a job  
• I trained for a marathon, even though a stomach flu kept me from finishing the actual race
• We swam, ran, hiked, camped, traveled and had lots of fun

Here's what I hope to accomplish with Nika this year:

• Solid obstacle performance on all obstacles, including running contacts
• Handling understanding such that she can do Masters level courses in training
• Do agility in at least 5 places, whether for classes, seminars, run thrus, or anything else
• If she's ready, go to her first trial
• Take her to trials with Jonah so she continues to not be flustered by the environment
• Continue socialization.  She's got a great foundation, but I want to keep exposing her to dogs, people, etc.
• Trick training, as with Jonah
• And again, stay healthy and have fun!

So, this year will definitely be different from last year, but I'm really looking forward to it.  I always wish I had more time with the dogs and for blogging, but I'll make do.  I'm just so lucky to have such a wonderful human and canine family.  Thank you everyone!

Reflection

This Wednesday was the first Dog Agility Blog Action Day that I did not participate in.  This blog has really fallen off since I started work this fall.  I still really value recording progress, but I find that I only have a few 'free' hours each day, and I want to spend as much time as possible with the dogs.

Last night I took Jonah to class, and had such an amazing time.  He's fantastically fun to run...at practice.  This year things have really changed about my vision of trialing.  Nationals shook me into questioning whether he really likes it or not.  After being on a fast and furious trail schedule up to that point, I've only done I think five runs at trials since the beginning of June.  Granted, he did run quite well in a few of those runs.  But then we bought the house, and I needed to spend weekends doing projects, not going to trials.  I've peaked at the 2013 schedule and I do think I'll get back into it.  I definitely want Nika to trial when she's ready.

As for Nika, I'm pleased with how she's doing.  Check out this video.

Far from perfect, and my need to support her for the backside meant my front cross handling was pretty clumsy, but in general I'm happy.  She finishes her Attention class this week and I think Dave's going to do a CGC class with her next.  Before we know it, spring will be here and she will start agility training more consistently.  I can't wait to do running contact training with her!

On Sunday, Jonah and I head to our very first seminar!  It's on gamblers, with Lo Baker.  I'm happy I finally get to work with her, and I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll have a lot of fun.  Going to a seminar was one of my 2012 goals.  We've failed to meet most of those goals, but this one we should be able to check off!