Flying Poodles

WAG NADAC trial

I took Dancer and Rush down to Monmouth for the WAG NADAC games trial this weekend. Rush was not participating, but he got to sleep in a hotel room (on the bed, no less), run in the fields, play with Dancer (and a poodle puppy named Guinness), hang out in the car. In short, he had the whole trial experience except for the part where he went into the ring to do agility. He did very well with the whole thing; I was very proud of him.

Dancer did have some runs. She ran Tunnelers first thing Saturday and came in fifth in her class (which was actually quite competitive), running 5.9 yards per second. She had two Weavers runs, both of which were NQs; she had two Touch N Go runs, both of which were NQs. Sunday, she had two Weavers runs, both of which were NQs, and two Touch N Go runs, one of which was an NQ. Don’t get excited, because the other one was an E. We finished up the day with a Q (unbelievably) in Tunnelers.

The E run in Touch N Go was both a flaming disaster and highly successful. The course was hoop-to-a-frame and of course she jumped the contact on the a-frame. I stopped her, made her come around, and she jumped the contact again. I stopped her again, brought her around again, and that time she stuck the contact nicely. I let her continue over the top of the course, over the dogwalk, and expected her to stop there too. She did. That was a very nice contact, and so I was very pleased, indeed.

If I hadn’t been an idiot and let her contacts slide the first run, the second run, and the third run in Touch N Go, perhaps I would have gotten better contacts on the fourth run. I am an idiot. I have to remember that the next Qs are more important than the one Q. She did come close to qualifying in one of the earlier TNG runs, though; she was over time by 0.49 seconds. Maddening.

Height/weight

Rush weighs 45 pounds today; he appears to be two inches shorter than Elly, so around 21.5″. Hard to get him to hold still to be measured properly.

Note to self:

Going to an agiity trial in December and January? Pretty much guaranteed to have icy roads or cold rain or both. You might want to think about that when you’re planning things next year.

Oops.

I’ve been doing hill repeats up Mt. Tabor of late. I realized that walking the dogs was definitely keeping them fit, but wasn’t really improving my fitness, because it wasn’t quite enough stress. I talked to Jay about it, and he suggested cycling up Mt. Tabor a few times and doing it a few times a week. I started with twice up (and twice down) and noticed immediate improvements to my knees, my stamina and my running speed. When it got easier (not easy, easier), I went to three times up. (Scott points out that’s when I started doing repeatS (with the S) rather than repeat (without the S). Ha. Ha. Ha.)

Monday I did three climbs (that would be one climb and two repeats, Scott); I was on my way home when I hit a patch of ice, felt my bike start to slide, and actually managed to fall well, in that I landed on the back of my shoulder, didn’t hit my head, didn’t hit my knees or hips. I actually remembered those obnoxious lessons my mother gave me in how to fall (she used the sofa cushions); I was ten at the time, so that was 46 years ago. This is not the first time it’s come in handy (once I actually managed to trip, roll, and come back to my feet, but I was twenty-three then), but it’s been a long long time.

So I didn’t break anything. I did bruise my shoulder pretty badly, and it will be a while before I can tug with Rush in training, but it’s healing pretty quickly. I actually think I didn’t tear anything either. If that’s true, I should heal nicely.

CPE Weekend

I took Dancer (and Rush) down to Turner for the Fleet Feet CPE trial. I had one goal in mind for the entire weekend: a single Q in Level 2 Standard. Qualifying for CPE Nationals, to be held a short 25 minute drive from my house in June, requires 24 CPE Qs and completion of all titles in level 2. All I needed was the level 2 standard Q.

Saturday went well. Dancer Qd in Level 3 FullHouse, completing her Level 3 requirements; she Qd in Level 3 Snooker, completing her Level 3 requirements there as well (and the teeter was part of the closing, too). Then we got to Standard. It was a straightforward course, no really scary traps or likely off-courses. 17 obstacles, if I remember right. It started with a jump and the a-frame; the teeter was in the middle somewhere; the dogwalk was the second-to-last obstacle. A mere six weave poles. I planned to micromanage Dancer so that she didn’t have a chance of messing up. I was incredibly nervous; I walked the course until the judge threw me off.

When I came to the line, it was close to the end of the class and most people had Qd without difficulty. Dancer did a nice a-frame contact; the teeter wasn’t great–she was hesitant to tip it, as usual–but she did do it. Her weaves were lovely and fast.

And she jumped off the dogwalk from about two feet above the contact line. People groaned. I stopped her, let her do the last obstacle, and walked her out of the ring. No one spoke to us, because what was there to say? They all knew I really really wanted that Q. The scribe said “it was a beautiful run, except for the dogwalk.” It was true, and I was glad she reminded me. I was proud of Dancer for doing the teeter.

She redeemed herself, however, with a first place in Level 4 Jumpers. Jumpers is always her best class: no contacts.

Sunday I was up at five and left the house just after 6. First dog on the line, slightly more than an hour’s drive away, at 8 AM; walkthrough at 7:45. I got there early enough to let Rush and Dancer play for a while in one of the corrals. Dancer was early in Level 3 Jackpot–tenth dog, I think–and I did my best with her. She missed her a-frame contact, and ran around the double and the tire, costing us 11 potential points. I left the ring knowing I’d finished in plenty of time, but not sure if I’d gotten enough points; the last trial, I got optimistic and got a ton of points–and went over time by one second. You can’t Q in Jackpot if you go overtime.

She got the Q; she needed 40 points, and she got 40 points.

Standard Level 2, the Q I really really wanted, was next. Another straightforward course. A flip-away into the tunnel after the dogwalk. I really pushed her into the tunnel; I didn’t want her to turn back onto the dogwalk and get an off-course. She got the dogwalk contact and I breathed for the first time. From there it went smoothly; they’d adjusted the teeter and Dancer didn’t mind it so much. The a-frame was well away from the spectators and she didn’t perch on the top to check things out.

In short, nothing went wrong, and Dancer got that Level 2 Standard Q. Finally. That completed her Level 2 title, qualified us for Nationals, and I went home to make dinner for friends, skipping the last two runs of the day.

Official results (except for Standard, where I forgot to write it down):
Snooker, Level 3: 45 points, 33.86 seconds
FullHouse, Level 3: 27 points, 35.87 seconds
Jumpers, Level 4: 119 yards, SCT 32 seconds, 29.17 seconds (4.1 yps)
Jackpot, Level 3: 40 points, 40.15 seconds
Standard, Level 2: Q (and completed level 2)

Step One

I took Rush and Dancer down to the barn today to do some training. I worked tunnels and speed and all that fun stuff with Rush, then contacts and tunnels and speed and all that fun stuff with Dancer. It was exciting, and successful, and all that…

In between, I worked with Rush on him behaving nicely while other dogs worked. Paige had her two border collies there. Rush and I sat in an ex-pen; my goal was for Rush to stand/sit/lie quietly–no barking–while Paige worked with her dogs. I started with just Rush and me in the arena, while Paige was getting her dogs. It took about ten treats before Rush was lying down and giving me excellent attention. Then Paige came in, with her dogs, and Rush was suddenly a complete shark, all teeth.

(Sharon Nelson talks a lot about how a dog should never be so out-of-control that he won’t take treats nicely; she wants a dog to be excited… but still gentle with his teeth. I’d pretty much trained that with Dancer and Elly, so I didn’t understand it when I first heard it. Now I do: when Rush is over-the-top excited, he’s a shark. I’m working on his self-control, one step at a time. I want self-control around toys, around food, around balls. Eventually, I even want it around girl poodles, once he gets a little more mature.)

Still, for all he was a shark, there were moments. He watched the dog–her dogs are fast!–and turned back to me; I gave him a treat. The first few times, it took what seemed like forever…. but I did it over and over again. After a few minutes, Rush was watching calmly, in a sit, and then turning back to me. Only once did he get so excited that he barked.

Step One accomplished. Step 1.1 tomorrow: training Dancer is something calm while he stays calm.

Training at high intensity

A few years back I went to ClickerExpo and went to all the Ken Ramirez sessions (and all the Kathy Sdao sessions). One of the things Ken Ramirez said then has resurfaced in my brain over the last few weeks: he was talking about training sea lions, and said that the audience would ooh and aah over what the sea lion he was working with was doing, but… the audience had no idea how much harder it was to train the other sea lions to wait in the background for their turn.

I took Dancer and Rush down to the barn this morning, bright and early, to work with both of them. Of course, I was working contacts with Dancer (as I always do), but I also wanted to work speed and enthusiasm for tunnels with Rush. And his end-of-contact behavior.

I started with Rush. He came out of the car just thrilled to work with me. We have a new tug toy–a felt ring–that he absolutely loves. I insisted on a loose leash on the way into the barn, and got it (yeehaa!). The moment I took off his leash, he was bouncing and excited and totally focused on me and the toy. I had him do tunnels at top speed; I had him wait until I released him, banging on the tunnel with the toy, dancing and waving my arms and singing… he could hardly sit still with excitement, but he did. I had him jump on the table and wait there while I walked to the other side of the barn, with my back to him. He waited.

I tried something new: with him still on the table, I released him, called him to me, then sent him to the tunnel when he got to me, and then I played tug with him. I hadn’t done that before, and the first time he ran a circle around me, not understanding what I wanted. The second time, he was watching for the signal to take the tunnel, and his path was tight, with no extra strides. Third time, I sent him to the other end of the tunnel. Still a nice tight path. Fourth time, I called him straight to me to play tug. He didn’t even glance at the tunnel.

I’m so excited! He’s paying attention to what I ask him to do! He’s waiting to be told what to do, then doing it!

I’d used fifteen minutes of my barn time at this point.

Now for the hard part: I wanted to work with Dancer while Rush stayed on his mat. He has a great relax-on-mat in puppy class. In retrospect, I screwed up. I don’t know why I thought his relax-on-mat might survive the excitement of watching Dancer run a course. I had Rush tethered, and he barked and carried on and generally made a huge stink about the fact that I was working with Dancer.

I should have taken him out to the car the instant he started to make a fuss, then brought him back in when he was quiet. Or I should have made relax-on-mat a lot stronger. Or both. Or I should have worked on relax-on-mat with other people running their dogs (I think I’ll take Rush to Debbie’s classes and do exactly that.) I didn’t do any of those things, though. Stupidly, I tried to push him to a higher level, probably too fast. I got him back on the mat, I rewarded a down, I sent Dancer over a jump… and instant screaming/barking ensued.

Repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. After about ten minutes, Dancer was having a great time showing off her ability to be sent to a jump (ha, ha, I don’t have a leash on and you do!), and Rush was standing, not barking, with a just barely loose leash. Not what I had in mind, but progress, I guess. I’ll obviously have to keep working on it!

I tried a short sequence with Dancer. She was flying. Fast weaves, good contacts, focus. Rush: bark, bark, bark, but not strangling himself with the leash.

Back to the single-jump version with Dancer. Relative quiet. I tethered Dancer for a bit and did a few short sequences with Rush: jump standard (no bar) to tunnel, to other end of tunnel, tunnel to jump, other end of tunnel to jump. With good results and incredible focus, I dared to dream: jump standard to tunnel, front cross, to jump standard. Rush did it perfectly. All that circle work is paying off.

(Note to self: you still need to do more circle work.)

I put Rush in the car and did a full course with Dancer, including three sets of weaves with three different approaches, two a-frames, two dog walks, and a teeter. Dancer did beautifully.

We finished 75 minutes after we started. Every single minute was as focused and high intensity as I could make it. I’m proud of the dogs, and I’m proud of myself.

In breaking news….

Rush has learned to lift his back leg to pee. He’s obviously thrilled with this, and is peeing at every reasonable opportunity when we go for a walk.

Sadly, he has not yet figured out how to pee without hitting his front legs.

Poor Elly….

Tuesday (a mere four days ago, but before Thanksgiving, and therefore in the deep past)… Anyway, Tuesday I decided I wanted the dogs to look nice for my Thanksgiving guests (Stacia’s future mother-in-law and my friend Deena) (and they needed to be groomed anyway), so I clipped Dancer down with a number 4 so that she has a nice fuzzy-but-short coat, and shaved her face and feet. I clipped Rush down with a number 9 so he has no coat (so he’d scratch less), and shaved his face and feet. That was Tuesday, and that was enough.

Wednesday, I put Elly on the table, brushed her out, and started to shave her face. She has a growth in the outside corner of her left eye; it looks like a mole, and it’s about 2 mm in diameter. It wasn’t there the last time I groomed her (November 9th)–I know that for sure. Of course I called the vet; the only appointment was at 5 PM. It took me 45 minutes to get there. Rush hour traffic was outrageous. It’s an adenoma, it will be removed by surgery next Thursday morning, and it’s most likely benign.

But it’s one more damn thing. Poor Elly. At this point, she has inflammatory bowel disease, hip dyplasia, spinal arthritis, and chronic biceps tendinitis; she had a skin hemangiosarcoma removed three years ago.

It’s a good thing she’s so sweet. Mostly.

Dental ball therapy

About a month ago, Rush’s vet, Paige Pierce, noticed that his lower jaw seemed to be a bit narrow and that his lower canines were coming in a bit too straight–which meant that they might encounter his upper jaw, instead of his mouth closing in a nice scissors bite. She recommended a visit to the canine dental clinic, where the dog dentist examined his mouth and recommended that he be encouraged to chew on a hard ball for some time every day. The hard ball has to be just the right diameter to push his lower teeth out as they came in. She also suggested gentle massage of the lower jaw, pushing the teeth outward gently.

A month later, and his bite is lovely. All his teeth have come in, and they look great.