Quotations

Andrea over at Agility Addict posted some really nice quotations. Several of them hit home when I think about Lucy and where we're at in agility right now. Thanks Andrea for the inspiration :)

Back to agility practice

Lucy had a nice long break from all things agility until recently. She joined Walter's every-other-week practice group today and last time. Not working on anything specific right now, just basic stuff, front crosses, simple lines.

However, she won't be touching an a-frame until we've done all the pvc box groundwork. Depending on how that goes, it may mean she will have had a full year hiatus from a-frames as her last one was in September!

Lucy's new sport and blog

Lucy has started rally-o. So, of course I had to start a new blog for her rally adventures. :)

A-frame box resources

Mentioned some of these a while ago, but have come across a few new ones too, so here they all are in one place. If you know of more a-frame box resources, let me know and I'll gladly add them here.

• Rachel Sanders' Reliable Running A-Frames DVD
  
  
• Agility Nerd's review of Rachel's DVD
  
  
• TajMuttHall blog's overview of Rachel's method: Part 1 and Part 2
  
  
• Chilean blogger Marcela's overview of Rachel's method (in Spanish!)

The following links take you to people who are training or have trained their dog's frame with the a-frame box. Interesting to see people's different experiences* and the variety of breeds working with the method.

• tegansmom2's You Tube videos. See her golden retriever, Cheetah, in training here and here.
  
  
• Emily Snider's You Tube videos . See her border collie, Josie, in training here and here, and at a trial here.
  
  
• PoodleGrrrl's You Tube videos. See her miniature poodle in training here and here.
  
  
• DogSportz's You Tube videos. See her rat terrier, Spring, in training here.
  
  
• ShapeUpAgility's You Tube videos. See her kelpie (I think), Rogue, in training here.
  
  
• MelanieOwl's You Tube videos. See her border collie, Elf, in training here.
  
  
• LeeMayaApache's You Tube videos. See her standard poodle in training here and here.
  
  
• DonnaNPups' You Tube videos. See her border collie, Siryn, in training here.

*Disclaimer: Although these videos use a pvc box on the a-frame, the methods shown may or may not follow the method/criteria outlined in Rachel Sanders' a-frame box program.

Running frame DVD

During Lucy's a-frame hiatus I've flip flopped a lot in my thoughts about what to do with her frame.

One option would be to drop her to specials where she'd have a lower frame, in which case maybe I would go back to 2o2o since she loves knowing exactly what her job is, and 2o2o really fits that bill. But, she never really seemed comfortable performing 2o2o so maybe that's not the best option.

Briefly experimented last spring with a hoop and running frame but realized it would take hundreds of reps and would she really understand what the criteria is when the hoop is removed?

Rachel Sander's article last spring Clean Run describing her a-frame box method looked interesting. I made a box and started a bit of flatwork with Lucy last summer but had some problems even at the beginning stage so we didn't make much progress. Then her DVD came out and after thinking about it, finally decided what the heck, why not get it and learn more about the method. So, I finally got around to ordering it and got it this week.

Watched it through once the other day and really like the program. Will watch it more closely again when we start to work through it. One drawback to this method is there is a prop which will need to be faded, BUT there is the benefit of having what seems to be a clearly understandable criteria, without the need for hundreds of repetitions which some running contact methods seem to require. There's definitely no room for an a-frame in my house or yard and we can't get to the practice field every day, so anything needing lots of reps isn't an option. Compared to 2o2o, which also has the benefit of not requiring a lot of reps, I can see Lucy digging the box method a lot more than 2o2o. So, I've pretty much decided to go with this option for her frame re-train.

It will be a lot of work, but hopefully I can get in gear this year and give it a go!

Goals yesterday and today

These are the goals I set for Lucy last January:

• Regain her worry-free teeter and dogwalk (she had freaked herself out on a teeter which translated into dogwalk fear as well)
  Woo hoo! Done.
  
  
• Add tunnel/contact discriminations to skill set
  Nope, didn't work on that at ALL.
  
  
• Add "out" to skill set
  Nope. Hardly worked on that at all.
  
  
• Add soft weave entry to skill set
  Nope. Didn't work on that at all except for maybe a few living room sessions.
  
  
• Take time out (from trials) at some point to train a running frame
  Procrastination won out despite Lucy telling me loud and clear that she needed this. Unfortunately I didn't listen until she had to practically scream it to me. She has been on trial and a-frame hiatus since September.
  
  
• Achieve fully independent contacts
  Nope. Hardly worked on that at all.
  
  
• It'd be nice to get her up to Masters in some events to reduce ring conflicts with Walter.
  Nope. She got partway there in Snooker and Jumpers, except with the new rules now she'll need two more Qs before moving up. (Which is fine by me.)
  
  
• To keep her agility tail wagging.
  Nope. She kept her happy table, thank goodness, but a combination of a-frame stress and a general lack of practice led to quite a few stressed out, unhappy runs that I'm not proud of. My poor dog!

Well, 2008 sure was a good lesson that things don't always go as planned. With the exception of that last one and the frame issue, I'm not bothered by any of our failed goals because the plain fact is Lucy got next to no practice last year, which was really focused on improving Walter's skills. (For most of our green fee season it's too hot to leave a dog in the car, and it can be a hassle to dig out the big clunky metal crate from the bottom of the trunk every time, so most of the time I brought just one dog to the practice field and 9 times out of 10 that dog was Walter.)

Moving on to goals for 2009:

• To get her agility tail wagging again.

Yep, that's it, that's all! : )

Lucy and Walter 2008

Our second annual compilation video:

I had a lot of fun making the video as a little souvenir of our year.

Hmmmm, Lucy seems to have gotten the short end of the stick on this one. Well, at least she has the dignity of not appearing in the bloopers section!

Practice

A great, fun practice with Lucy. Just short jump/tunnel sequences with lots of reinforcement. Was great to see her so happy and into the game again. I'm glad she's not entered in any more trials this year and am in no rush to get back to trials. Maybe next fall but we'll see, no deadlines, no expectations, just want to see the super-happy and confident agility Lucy again.

All Dogs trial

Three runs today:

Advanced Team: Signed her up for this back when I was feeling more optimistic :-D Fortunately, our draw partner who has a nice little Pyr Shep was totally easygoing and both our dogs totally screwed up so no one let anyone down. They took the first part which meant that Lucy didn't have to do the frame and that I wouldn't have to deal with getting a hold of her in the box. Well, Lucy had her sights set on the nearby offcourse dogwalk on the opening line. We must have had a few other goofs but I didn't write it down and now the day's details are a fuzzy blur. Oh but I do remember that she held 2o2o on both dogwalks (the offcouse and the legit one) but she was sniffing the ground both times while in 2o2o. Good news is that she happily waited for me before exiting the ring.

Advanced Snooker: Just what I was hoping for: There was no frame on the course, yay! Our opening was the #7 teeter twice and the #2 tunnel. Lucy was slow and unpeppy but somehow we made it through to the end of the closing even though she *walked* through the weaves. So a Q for Lucy but not exactly our best ever performance.

Advanced Jumpers: This was at the end of a long day. If only my dogs would be able to sleep in their crates/xpens during their downtime. Anyway, let's just say man did my pom-poms get a workout. Halfway through the course, however, she went to the fence and started sniffing at the grass. Clearly she was not into this run so I put an end to the torture for all involved and signalled to the judge that we were done. Lucy's fence-sniffing was strange behaviour as usually when she's stressed or just not into a run she heads straight for the exit gate, but the fence she went to sniff at was at the opposite end of the ring and even when we went running to the exit I had to really cheerlead her to get her to break into a canter.

Later at home I looked at her feet out of curiosity and noticed a cut on her left rear pad which was definitely sensitive to the touch. No idea when or how she got it as it wasn't there a few days ago when I trimmed her nails, and she hadn't been limping. Surely to goodness this injury played a role in today's performance, my poor Lucy. She has gotten strange cuts like this before including once shortly before a trial from which I therefore scratched her, $45 down the drain but obviously the right thing to do. So, I vow from here on to inspect her feet before every single run to make sure there are no cuts.

As usual, she was a joy to hang out with, and she even got some compliments on her sweetie-pie good looks from a very nice woman who was taken with her. Lucy loves everyone so she was glad to soak up the lovin' and it was nice that for once it was her instead of Mr. Fancypants Walter who got the attention of a stranger. :-)

Practice - Discovery!

If I haven't been blogging much about Lucy's agility practices this year it's because, well, we haven't been doing very much of it. I've been really focusing on developing a number of skills with Walter this year so as usual Lucy's agility training has taken a back seat. Taking both dogs to practice at the same time involves digging out the heavy crate from the bottom of the trunk and setting it up and I've just been too lazy this summer. So I take her out with Walter from time to time when it's cool enough and shady enough that the dogs can wait in the car while it's the other dog's turn. We've done simple little sequences but that's about it, haven't worked on skills development at all. Sad but true. (But, she is my main focus in flyball, and I would love to get into rally with her at some point... so hopefully it all evens out in the end?)

Anyway, today I decided to see what would happen if at one of our usual practice fields (BF) I treated it like a trial run: We did our typical warmup exercises and I left our treat bag outside the ring, no treats inside the ring. Then we ran a simple standard course. Well, lo and behold, we had the same issues we have at trials! Where she seemingly tunes out now and then, running around aimlessly for a bit; where she sometimes locks onto obsacles in front of her instead of turning with me; where she runs toward the exit gate.

So, could it be that the issues we've been having simply come down to a lack of practice? Geez when I think about it she gets a heck of a lot more flyball practice time and flyball is the same darn thing again and again and again, none of the complexity and variety that's found in agility.

Looking at it that way, it all makes sense. Too bad it took me to the end of the season to figure it out. Oh and there is still the frame retraining issue which will need to be addressed.

Hopefully next year I'll get back on track with her as Walter has made good progress on his skills development this year (weaves aside, ahem!!) so he can take more of a backseat next green fee season.