Our Fourth Trial

Today was kind of a whirlwind.  It was not our best trial, but there were some moments of brilliance. 

When we arrived, we went in to find (thankfully) a quiet hall with the table and measuring wicket.  There was no one around to measure him, but I had him hop up on the table and played around with the device to get him used to it.  I’d say he was about 90% relaxed, which I was quite pleased with.  Then the judge came over but she said Jonah wasn’t on her measure list.  Apparently CPE recognized his last measurement as his last, so we’re done with CPE measurement!  We should get our permanent height card in the next few weeks, which will be quite a relief.

Round 1, Jumpers Level 3:  The course was fairly friendly.  It was definitely the hardest jumpers course we’ve done (which you’d expect since it was our first level 3/4/5/C course), but other than a non-flowing tunnel entry (he landed off a jump facing one entry and had to take the other), it was a lot of turns but pretty smooth.  We ended up doing 4 front crosses and a rear cross, compared to two front crosses in our last jumpers run at level 2.

The parking lot was really icy, so I thought I’d skip our usual jog before we ran, and then when I went in the building to go to the warm-up jump it turned out he was only a few dogs away.  They were moving a lot faster than I thought.  So, I skipped the warm-up jump, too, and we went right in the ring.  Jonah flew off the start line and cruised through the first half of the course.  I cut his momentum a little at the hard tunnel entry to prevent an off course, but then he went in the tunnel and jumped the next two…and then he stopped.  It was like going from warp speed to nothing in a second.  He’s never shut down like this on course before.  Suddenly he was not highly focused on me like he usually is, and he just decided he had to find his dad.  Dave was good about not making eye contact with him, and after maybe five seconds of me clapping and calling him to come, he shifted right back into hyper speed and finished the course.  We got the Q, and even with the mental lapse it was a 1^st place.

I was pretty flustered then, but looking back it’s kind of funny.  He’d get an A+ for the course other than that one spot, where he gets a D. I guess I’m going to chock it up somewhat to a fluke, but also I know that I need to be more focused about having a real warm-up routine where I get him obediently paying attention to me before we go in the ring.  More on that to come.

Round 2, Snooker Level 2:  This was by far our greatest run of the day, and the best snooker run we’ve ever had if not the best run we’ve ever had.  My goal had been to plan a flowing course, even if the points weren’t super high.  The course had a nice distribution of reds, and I planned a nice course of 2-5-7.  Again, I know it’s not especially high points, but it flowed nicely.  Jonah was great start to finish.  I did lead out and he broke the stay when I turned around and before I said, “OK,” but that was really the only slight problem with the round.  It flowed, he was fast, and we got through the opening and then all the way through 7 without any trouble at all.  I couldn’t be happier.  Another dog in our class had planned a higher point-total opening, so Jonah was a Q and 2^nd.  The dog who won was about 10 seconds slower than Jonah, so I definitely had time to do a tougher opening, but I wouldn’t change a thing if I were doing it over.  He got the flowing course he deserved.

Round 3, Fullhouse Level 3:  This round was not my finest moment.  Actually, it was one of my worst.  Somehow I really mistimed things again.  There’s not a lot of room to watch at Riverside, so I can’t just stay in there and read while I wait until it’s time to go.  Anyway, I thought I had plenty of time but when I came in to check they were already running 20” dogs.  Actually, the dog in the ring was the dog after Jonah!  The gate steward was very generous and said I could go grab him and run as the last 20” dog.  I literally ran to the car, got Jonah and brought him in, where there were 3 dogs left to go.  Needless to say, we didn’t get to warm-up for this round, either.  Also, in the short amount of time we were waiting a German Shepherd started barking and growling at him, and he responded in turn.  I had to go past that dog to go into the ring, but once we got around the corner Jonah seemed to have forgotten about it.  I was shaking.  Great preparation for a run, huh?

Once again, Jonah started out really fast.  We did some jumps, the tire, a tunnel, and then headed for the A-frame.  I wanted to do the A-frame and then a turn towards me to a tunnel under the frame because it was a similar question to what we would have in Jackpot in our next run.  I was pretty focused on that, and Jonah did great.  Then I guess my handling got less clear.  I gave him a bad weave entry and he missed it and went to a nearby jump instead.  I stood stunned for a second, and then just started improvising.  I did another handful of jumps, including a ‘joker’ double jump twice, and then my brain was just fried.  The buzzer hadn’t gone off but I just sent him to the table so we could be done.  I felt like I had let him down so much by being so ragged and disorganized, so I wanted to end on a good note. 
We ended up with a Q and 1^st, but it was not a round I was happy with. 

Round 4, Jackpot Level 2:  This time I was very deliberate about warming up properly.  For the fourth time, he was great off the start line, and he was great for a good while.  He confidently found a tough rear-cross tunnel entry, cruised through his weaves, did a jump combination and a bunch of other jumps.  Then we tried to do the combination again.  It was two jumps with a 180 degree turn between them.  Coming out of the weaves before the combination, he slowed down a lot.  He jumped the first jump and then just stopped again.  He wasn’t looking for his dad this time, he just looked unhappy for a minute for no apparent reason.  Maybe he heard or saw something that I didn’t pick up on.  Anyway, the buzzer sounded before we jumped the second jump so we didn’t get those five points.  Once the buzzer sounded, we took off for the gamble and Jonah instantly picked back up.  He cruised through the tunnel, up the A-frame, turned towards me and did the rear cross in the tunnel, and drove out to the table.  It (the gamble) was picture perfect.  Q and 2^nd.

Overall points:

-I need to warm up properly.

-Jonah’s interaction with other dogs is getting bad at times.  This is really stressful.  I know the trial situation is stressful for him and there are lots of dogs in a very small area, but I wish he could relax.  Usually I can bribe his attention to stay with me, but I wish it weren’t so much effort.  He used to be great with other dogs.  I’m thinking we should take him to Willards Woods and keep him on leash more, since his off-leash social skills are great.  Also, hopefully outdoor trials will be a little easier for him since there should be more space.

-The running A-frame is super.  He’s sped up a lot and isn’t coming close to blowing the contact. 

-Jonah’s weaves are great when I give him a good entry, but I shouldn’t take tough angles for granted.  As the snow melts we’ll work on entries.

-Jonah’s energy was superb at the beginning of every round today (at least the first 6 obstacles were pretty much full speed).  Now I just need to figure out how to maintain it. 

-We’re 20/20 on Qs.  I heard a lot of people today making some comment about the ‘elusive Q,’ or being so surprised/ecstatic when their dog would qualify.  I want to appreciate the fact that, although we’ve only had a couple runs I’ve been happy with from start to finish, we’re getting the job done and making progress.

Riverside Trial Preview

On Saturday we head up to Riverside for our next trial.  Here's what we have ahead of us:

Measuring.  I think this might actually be the last time he has to get measured?  I know I've said that before, but I think this is his second measurement after his second birthday, which should be his last.  Only seven dogs have to get measured and they can be measured Friday or Saturday, so hopefully the environment won't be quite so stressful for him.  Once we're done with that, agility will seem easy :).

First Round:  Jumpers Level 3.  Our Level 3 debut!  I'm expecting a big step up from our last Jumpers courses, but he's been fantastic in Jumpers the last few times, so hopefully he'll be up to the challenge.  There are only two dogs in Level 3, 20" (Jonah included), so a Q should mean a good placement, too.

Second Round:  Snooker Level 2.  If we get this Q we'll be done with level 2 Snooker.  My goal is just to plan a smoother round than last time where we barely pulled the Q together.  There are two other dogs in the class.  One is the dog that pretty much always beat us last time we were at Riverside, and the other is a border collie.  Could be a tough order, but in Snooker more than in any other class I really just want to qualify.

Third Round:  Fullhouse Level 3.  This round should be a bit of a breather.  Hopefully he'll come out quick and we can collect a bunch of points.  Fullhouse is fun without all the pressure of a lot of the other games.  It's probably the least stressful game for me.  There are two other dogs in this class.

Fourth Round:  Jackpot Level 2.  It looks like this will be our first traditional Jackpot (judging by the fact that the levels are split up in the running order).  We'll run the same course as level 1, so I'm not too worried.  I think it will be a pretty straight forward gamble, and Jonah should be comfortable by this point in the day to be working away from me.  Maybe I'll try to work a little distance into our Fullhouse run.  There are two other dogs in this class again.

If we get both the Snooker and Jackpot Qs we'll finish our CL2-S title.  I don't want to get ahead of myself, though.  Snooker's hard!

Really I think the most stressful part of the day will be measurement, and then things will get better from there.  Wish us luck!

Lesson at Riverside

Jonah and I had a great lesson at Riverside today.  The big highlight was that he was actually excited and happy about 95% of the time.  He let me 'rev him up' and didn't get worried--he played along and started to get to his playful, almost nippy self.  I was thrilled, and it made him run faster.  There were a few times where I'd be walking the course and I'd just leave him free and he was going around picking out obstacles on his own.  He would jump, get on the contacts and he even weaved by himself.  Then he would look at me wanting a big cookie.  Smart man.

We worked on some wraps that were difficult for me as I just haven't done much of that before.  When I'm not sure of myself he picks up on it and gets a little worried that he's the one screwing up.  Of course, it's pretty much always my fault, so I need to figure out how to be encouraging to him even if I'm messing up royally.  The first wrap was a threadle with me picking him up on landing and pushing out to the next jump.  He did it correctly every time but it took me a few tries to get my handling smooth and minimize my backing up.

The second wrap we did was a much bigger struggle for Jonah.  He was supposed to take a jump and then wrap around towards me.  He was on my right approaching the jump and then I tried to front cross while he was in the air so he'd come between the stanchion and my left side to go on to the next jump.  Well, it used to be that Jonah was so scared at Riverside that it was a success when he did any obstacle.  Now, as I mentioned, he's actively looking for obstacles.  When I did my front cross, I was pressuring him too much rather than inviting him into me, so he back-jumped the jump.  Oops.  Well, I got more deliberate about my handling but he kept back-jumping.  This is something we're going to have to work on.  I'd rather have him excited to jump than not, but this could cause us trouble in competition.  I was able to get it to work, but it was quite an effort.  I also tried handling it as a post-turn, which was a little more natural for him, but it would be good to be able to do it either way.

Other points of note:
1.  The running A-frame looks good.
2.  I need to keep my upper body upright.
3.  Rear crosses were great today.  We rear crossed single jumps, a double, a tunnel, a tire and weave entries.  No trouble anywhere.
4.  I need to watch where my feet are pointing.  When I tried to send him ahead but was turning too early, he would turn before the obstacle.  I can't wait to have outdoor space to work on distance handling.
5.  Dog walk contacts were great.  I still have to rev him a little for him to be really running across the top, but he's driving into the contact great.

Overall, Jonah's doing super.  Lots of room for improvement, but he's only been doing agility for 6 months!  That's hard to believe...it feels so natural now.

February Goals

I just realized that, with one week left in February, I forgot to update our goals.  Sorry for the delay, but I thought better late than never.

Here were our January goals:
1.  Keep performance of teeter, weaves, chute, and table sharp.
     I'd say we've done a good job on this:  I'd give us an A-.
     We've been doing the teeter whenever I think of it and Jonah is very happy with our teeter at home.  He was great at All Dogs Gym when he had to do the teeter for his standard course, and he willingly does the teeter at Riverside, where it's especially 'bangy'.  We did have trouble with the new teeter at DLC, so I'm a little worried about his nervousness at generalizing on teeters, but we'll get there.
     The weaves are going great.  I set them up in the backyard today where we *finally* have a strip of ground without snow or ice.  It's pretty narrow, but perfect for weaves.  He was speedy and accurate, and I worked on both front and rear crosses.  He sometimes struggles a little going straight away from me, but otherwise his distance weaving is quite good.  In general he's a little slower away from home, but I'm alright with that for now.
     I must admit I haven't been getting the chute out much, but he hasn't had any trouble whenever we've seen it at trials.  Maybe I'll pull it outside tomorrow.
     The table is good.  Somehow he seems to know when he's supposed to down on it and when he can just jump up (CPE trials).  I must be doing something in my body language, but I couldn't tell you what it is.

2.  Attend our first and second trials, where we have safe and happy experiences.  I hope to pick up some Q's, but most of all I just want to be able to assess where we are and get some good feedback about what we need to work on.
     This has been an overwhelming success.  We get a solid A.
     There are certainly things for us to improve on, but we have been safe and (well, generally) happy.  We've Q'd in all our runs, we've won 8, come second in 7 and fourth in 1.  I've gotten a good sense at what our strengths and weaknesses are, even if I can't predict how forward Jonah will be in a given run.  I know what we need to work on, now we just need the snow to melt so we can do it!

3.  Get Jonah happily using his crate.  We're working on this at home so that, at a trial, I can leave him to go walk the course, etc.
      Here we get a B-.  
     We've worked on the crate, but then we discovered that Jonah was just a lot happier working out of the car rather than being in the loud, crowded crate room.  Once we figured that out we kind of abandoned the crate project.  He was getting happier in it before we stopped, though.

4.  Work on playing leash tug so we have a motivating game before our runs and an immediate treat after our runs.
      Our grade:  B
     Usually I just forget to bring my leash outside to play with him.  He likes to tug on it at home, but he's uninterested at a trial, and when I have any food he wants food, not the leash.  We'll keep working on this, but I'm feeling less like it's a huge priority.  He's pretty happy at trials and that was the main point of trying to play tug.  

5.  When weather permits, work on distance handling.  I think Jackpot may be the hardest game for us right now, especially since Jonah becomes more of a velcro-dog when he's nervous.
     Another B.
     When we're able to work on distance he's doing great, but the weather simply hasn't been very permitting.


Well, our grade point average isn't very good this month as I set out the goals, but I'm actually really pleased with everything we've done in the last 6 weeks since I wrote up the goals.  It's hard to believe we've only been trialing for a few weeks.  It's starting to feel pretty natural, and Jonah's pretty darn good at it.  I still can't believe he'll be in two level 3 classes this weekend!  Even the blog is looking a lot snazzier with the professional pictures.  It's like Jonah's become a real agility dog :).


So, as I said, March is only a week away so I'll do another big goal list then.  As for the next week, here are some basic goals/plans:
1.  Practice the teeter, weaves, chute, table and tunnel at home.
2.  Enter the trial at Breezethru, our first trial at a place we haven't been to class at before.
3.  Have a positive lesson at Riverside on Wednesday, and hopefully use the measuring wicket again
4.  Have another positive trial experience at Riverside this weekend.  We've got Jackpot and Snooker at Level 2 and Fullhouse and Jumpers Level 3.  That's a pretty tough day for us, and we're really just going to have to see how the courses are.  We know we're capable of doing Level 2 Jackpot and Snooker, but they can be difficult depending on how the judge is feeling.  Then Jumpers will be the 3/4/5/C course and could provide some real challenges.  Fullhouse should be a bit of a break, though.  I'm not too worried about that round.  Anyway, as far as goals go, I'd love to Q in all of the runs, but we'll see how challenging they are.
5.  Get Jonah his rabies vaccination next Monday.


Should be a busy week.  I'll let you know how things go!

Another New Picture

Here's the picture from our most recent trial at All Dogs Gym.  This one was taken towards the beginning of our Snooker run, before I had made Jonah dizzy with lots of non-flowing loops.  I love the shot because he just looks so happy and his tail is so cute out behind him.  Thanks to John Woolley Photography for a great shot!

When Dave gets home I'll ask him to put it into the website.  Last time I tried I screwed it up :).

Outdoor Weekend

Jonah, Dave and I had an agility-free but still wonderful weekend.

On Friday, Dave got out of work early and we went to the beach!  I had no idea what to expect with all the snow, but it turned out that the beach itself was fully clear of the snow.  The dunes and surrounding area were still all white, but the beach was lovely sand.  The weather was beautiful--50 degrees!  That meant that the parking lot was a complete lake of mud.  Luckily Dave and I had worn our boots.  Jonah was not so lucky and Dave had to pick him up while I wiped his muddy paws before we put him back in the car when we were leaving.  Once we were out of the parking lot, though, the beach was lovely.  

They have an expansive area for off-leash dogs (you go left off the board-walk for the dog area, right for the horse area.  It's well planned!).  Mostly Jonah wanted to stay with us rather than meet new dogs, but he did make some casual acquaintances, and at the end made a good friend with whom he ran and wrestled for a good while.  

The beach was fantastic because it was the first time Jonah had been able to really run full speed in a good long time.  The snow really slows him down at home, and the agility rings are small enough that he's never flat out.  He had a ball chasing us up and down the beach.  You could see how thrilled he was to really put his ears back, flatten out and gallop across the sand.  We all got tired more quickly than we should; the combination of not having run much lately and the sand underfoot made for quite the workout.  

Jonah was a little unhappy when he was thirsty but the water was salty.  Yuck.  He did like wading in the water.  He didn't go in past his legs, but it was shallow a good ways in and he was happy to be wet.  There weren't really any waves to speak of, so he was more comfortable going in the water than he was the last time we went to the beach.  When he came out he was diligent about rolling in the sand so he was good and dirty.

Right when we were headed back to the car, Jonah met a nice dog that he got along well with.  As they were running the dog's mom asked if we did agility.  I thought that was kind of cool since it was out of the blue.  Apparently Jonah looked like an agility dog to her.  

- - -

After leaving the beach, we all drove up to Vermont for a quiet weekend away.  It was cold and snowy again once we got up there, but we got to enjoy winter the way you're supposed to.  We made warm fires, slept late, read books and enjoyed playing in the snow.

Dave and I rented snowshoes and we went for some great walks in the woods with Jonah.  He was able to run on top of the snow, and the snowshoes allowed us to get around without falling in past our knees. Jonah still thought we were way too slow, but it was a huge improvement from the alternative.  We spent a couple hours each day out on the trails behind our house, exploring.  There's a nice pond we like to hike to, and then on Sunday we tried a new trail that took us to a beautiful view on the other side of the mountain.  There was a hefty elevation change and we were sweating, but it was all worth it.  Jonah chased a flock of wild turkeys and went after a deer, but otherwise he was just as thrilled as he could be jogging along the trail in front of us, stopping frequently to look back at us and remind us of our inadequate speed.  He was grinning every time I looked at him.  It makes me feel guilty that we don't get to do things like that every day, but it's tough when it gets dark so early and most of the local trails are icy messes right now.

Other than our snowshoeing adventures, Jonah and I went for a brief morning run on Saturday.  The air was cold and hard to breathe, but the run got our blood flowing.  We were running on the snowy shoulder of the road, but there was a lot of sand and salt that got all over us.  Jonah was a mess when we came in and even after toweling him off we had to wash the comforter of the bed which he got all muddy.  

Then, on Sunday morning, we almost got a new friend.  Dave and I were just about to go down the hill for breakfast when we looked down the driveway and saw a dog.  She was a beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog.  At first we figured she must be from the house across the street, since she was sitting in the street between the two driveways.  We let Jonah go play with her and they had a nice time until Jonah started to get a little tired and her size started to bother him.  At one point she wrestled him into an icy snowbank and he cried a little.  She was clearly just trying to play, but it was a bit much for Jonah.  Anyway, they played for 20 minutes or so but there was no sign of the dog's people.  We didn't want to just leave her out in the road, so we thought we'd walk around the block with her and see if we didn't find her house.  Well, we went all the way around and saw no signs of people looking for her.  By the time we'd gone back to the house she'd been with us for over an hour.  We got the dogs some water and I called the clubhouse to see if anyone had called to report her missing.  Nope.  I left my number but no one ever called.  After I'd gone in to use the phone, she trotted off down another driveway and wouldn't come when I called, so we just hoped that she was on her way home and we went on with our day.  She had no sense of cars so I hope she got home alright.  There's not a lot of traffic up there, but I'd still be very nervous if Jonah just went missing.  It seems to funny to me that no one was calling for her or actively looking.  I guess it's just a different mentality.  As for me, I'll keep Jonah close by.

When we got home Jonah's collar had arrived.  It looks really good!  I'll have to post a picture soon.

New Picture!

Well, a few short hours after my last post, I got one of the pictures!  It was as if she'd read my post, because I got the full image uncropped:

I think it's really cute.  In the horse world, I would usually only consider a jumping picture 'great' if the horse was just reaching the peak of the jump.  This picture would not fall into that category, since he's definitely in his descent, but given the visibility in a tire, I think this is a much better shot.  If he were really in the middle of the tire, you probably wouldn't be able to see his whole body as well, or at least it would be hard to get a good, bright picture.  Riverside is a fairly dark area, so I'm impressed with the quality of the shots the photographer (Cindy Telley of Petart.nh) got.  There were a few other good ones of Jonah but the backgrounds were messy or they were basically the same as pictures I already have.  I think I look a little silly so I cropped myself out for the sidebar image.  I like the variety of having some shots that aren't just basic jumps.  Hopefully we'll get some good contact/tunnel/weave shots at upcoming trials :).