Hanging out at Guides Canins

Lucy was a good sport and a pleasure to hang out with at Guides Canins for Walter's trial this weekend. She's entered in a few trial runs later this fall but not at Guides Canins as it's just toooo distracting with so many little critter smells everywhere.

ADC video posted

The video of Lucy's ADC run has been posted.

Woo hoo! HADC at last.

I am very pleased to announce that at today's Dogz trial, six-year old Lucy earned the last Starters Standard Q required for the Agility Dog of Canada title! But more importantly, she ran the course in happy mode! I give you Lucy, HADC (Happy Agility Dog of Canada):

The last time Lucy ran Standard in a trial was... oh my, over a year ago, in May 2008. I knew it had been a while but didn't realize it had been that long. We'd taken a break to fix her a-frame and work on getting our agility groove back.

Although she had been licking at her feet in her crate earlier in the morning (no raw spots or anything though), while we sat around before her run she seemed really relaxed and comfortable, with a nice perky look on her face while I handed out treats.

The course was extremely easy, even for a Starters course, but hey, no complaints from me. Only two changes of side which were at the table and a tunnel, and only six weaves.

So in we went, I set her up in her stand stay and led out just a few feet (the video's missing just the first little bit), then off we went. At the contacts I waited for her to offer eye contact before starting off again. She gave me her nice happy face each time, woo hoo! Afterward it occurred to me that waiting for her to offer eye contact on the contacts is something I should probably do every time as it's a nice opportunity to reconnect. It's also a great way to gauge how she's feeling because when she's stressed out she either doesn't do 2o2o, or she does 2o2o but doesn't look at me. A new meaning to the term "contact" obstacle! Granted, it can eat up a lot of time -- she was just a few seconds under SCT -- but taking the time to check in with her is worth it.

Some trouble in the weaves, but Starters rules are pretty forgiving so there are no faults for having to restart them.



I must say, I'm not thrilled about the impact on her front end when she hits 2o2o on the frame. A few years ago after I saw video of Walter doing 2o2o I changed him to a point-and-pray running a-frame. Soon after I did the same for Lucy, but in her case this led to stress issues since she no longer understood what her job was. But, since Lucy has a lighter build, and since she really likes knowing exactly what her job is, 2o2o it will be. She'll never have a heavy trial schedule anyway, and I'll limit how many frames she does at any given practice or trial.

So, that was our day, just the one run. She was also entered in the second Starters Standard, but since she had run so well and it was starting to get pretty hot, we opted to go for a nice walk in the woods instead.

Oh and the best part is that Lucy's favourite dog buddy, Sammy, also got her ADC title on the same run! Lucy and Sammy have both had their share of issues in the trial ring, so the ADC title was a few years in the making for both of them.

Looking much better!

This week Lucy went for three practices at the place tomorrow's Starters trial is being held. We didn't work anything specific, just did two runs on a Standard course each time. Did our pre-run routine and treated our time in the ring like a real run except for giving food rewards. Yesterday and today her enthusiasm level was great! Nice speed on the dogwalk and weaves, no walking through them as she did at her last fun match. It was like running the old Lucy!

Here's a step back in time, a course we ran at the K9 Kup in July 2007. If you can get past my atrocious handling, the video is a nice example of the enthusiasm Lucy used to have in the trial ring and which I hope hope hope we can get back to. I love her happy wagging tail and her expectant face on the contacts. She's just so darn cute and bouncy. :-)

Practice

First time doing any practice in over a month! Her feet are looking better these days -- still licking at them, of course, but no raw spots.

A short practice consisting of a brief contacts/mini-table/weaves refresher and two runthroughs of a simple Standard course. She was a willing participant, stuck all her contacts, no weave issues aside from one 10th pole popout, but she wasn't overly excited about the whole thing. Hopefully that's just because it was pretty hot: 22 degrees, 30 with humidex, and this at only 9am. Crazy hot weekend this is.

Scratched (licked?) from trial; allergy woes

Darn, darn, darn. Lucy's foot-licking issue has been getting worse this week to the point she's got a sore spot on her left back foot now, between two toes. So, I scratched her from today's Dogz trial where she was entered only in Advanced Jumpers. Too bad, since this is a place we train at so I was looking forward to the chance to trial her somewhere she's comfortable. But she wouldn't have been comfortable with her foot in the state it's in, so it's a moot point.

Poor dog. She's pretty much always tended to lick at her feet and she gets recurring ear infections. Vets have suggested both may be due to an allergy (maybe food, maybe environmental) so last fall she started on a strict allergy diet where she ate NOTHING but a certain type of kibble for three months; no change so we did the same thing again with a different type of kibble; still no change. So, at the vet's recommendation we started her on an Omega 3 oil thing about a month ago; no change. Now that it's been getting worse lately I started her yesterday on benadryl since that's something we haven't tried yet.

Hopefully she's not allergic to the cats! ;-)

Fun match

Lucy shared a spot with Walter at the fun match, taking the two Standard runs.

Her first run was decent, but she entered the weaves a few poles in and was uncharacteristically slow on both the dogwalk and table. The table might be because she's used to the 22" table and hasn't yet been trained on the short mini table.

Her second run, her start line stay was very distracted and she ran around the third jump which told me something was off. I was going to stop the run but the judge gave me a timbit to reward her with and she immediately pepped up, though her reward up to then had been dried chicken which I thought should be pretty good.

I really need to figure out what is going on with Lucy's right back foot. She gets this skin condition on it; I thought it was looking better but I'm pretty sure it's still bothering her. I wouldn't want to run and jump if my foot was sore either. Offer me a hundred bucks to do it and yeah I might pep up a bit but that doesn't make the discomfort go away. Sigh.

On the bright side, her a-frame is looking nice with her happily sticking 2o2o.

Woot!

Today at All Dogs Lucy ran in her first trial in nine months. Just one run, Advanced Jumpers. No contacts or weaves to worry about. She had been doing well in practices so I decided to give it a go, especially since this class was the first of the day so it wouldn't be too hot. She ran in specials for the first time -- she seems happier with the lower jumps and at 6 years old she's almost a vet anyway.

I just watched video of her last trial run which was in this very same ring last September (K9 Kup): there were four separate instances of her running distractedly past obvious obstacles, plus she sniffed at the fence. Well, I am VERY pleased to report that there was none of that today!

Her run was the highlight of my day :D

Dogz fun match

Lucy's first fun match at this great venue since last spring because last year most of the dates coincided with K9 Kup.

There were a few attention lapses and sniffy moments, one of which was rewarded by her finding a treat on the ground - d'oh! Her sniffy moments felt like ages at the time but actually they were pretty short. Ah, the benefit of video. Thanks again L.L.!

An unfortunate moment in her second Standard run of the day where she stung her toes on the second jump which was right before the a-frame. By the time I heard her crying, she was already on the frame. She was fine after a few seconds, but sheesh, this is not exactly the kind of thing we need given the a-frame issues we've been working through. Oh well, not the end of the world.

She had no weaves to speak of today. She kept flying past the first six poles. This is something Walter sometimes does, but out of character for Lucy. When I switched to offside she did a lot better but popped. Actually come to think of it, she hasn't practiced weaves lately since the ones at our practice field are all wonky.

Fun match!

Today's fun match at Red Gate was Lucy's first agility event since last September, and her first fun match since way too long (July).

For the most part I broke the runs down into segments with lots of food rewards.

I couldn't have asked for more: She was focused and engaged and stuck all of her contacts, including an a-frame which she naughtily snuck over and did when we were supposed to run past it since we're not done with the re-train yet. Still I'll happily take that over her refusing the frame which she started doing last year in conjunction with our a-frame criteria chaos.

A few off courses where I had failed to provide her with a road map, but it was no big deal and she got a treat for being so innovative. Weaves were good, just one last-pole pop which I didn't bother fixing. She wasn't particularly fast today, but looked pretty happy.

We did just three of the four runs since she had done so well and I didn't want to push it.

Rather than bore you with the full runs on video, I'll just bore you with this compressed version: