Rant!

I will have to talk more about the trial tomorrow. I'm to tired and to mad to talk about it tonight. I will however talk about the judge's call she made on me and my dog on my novice standard run. I know it had been a long 3 days for the judge but I really think she was wrong in my case. First, I'm mad at myself for not going home this morning after my jumpers run. Yesterday it was 8 hours between my jumpers run and my standard run. That's to hard for Miley and me to handle. So this morning after my first run I thought I should just go home and call it a day. But did I listen to myself , no! On to the judges call. First this judge had been very nice all weekend. She gave lots of reruns if anything weird happened. Like a fire engine drove by, it was an indoor trial but all the big garage doors were open, and she felt it effected the dogs run, so they got a rerun. So now its the last run on Sunday, novice standard. Big dogs ran first. A big standard poodle had a beautiful clean run but the dog ran out of the ring. Did the dog come back when the owner called it, no. It tried to run to the stairs and someone blocked it. Did it go back to the owner, no. It tried to run out the garage door area, but people were blocking it. Did it go back to the owner, no. The owner had to leave the ring and finally grabbed the dog as it ran by. It didn't come to her. Did she get eliminated like the rules say, no. WTH!! A while later it's Mileys turn to run. I thought she might get the zoomies because its such a long time between runs ( seven hours, why didn't I go home). We started off good, she didn't break her start line. She ran pass the weaves but came around and went right in. She was running very fast, more obstacles, then the table. She ran around the table 4 times. I think she just didn't want to stop. She had all this pent up energy. So she finally gets on and sits. Ok, runs the rest with no problems. Great a-frame and dogwalk. She stopped in her 2o/2o both times. WhooHoo. It was dogwalk to tire. The end. Did Miley run out of the ring? No. Did she go up to other people, workers, judge, dogs? No Did she run around the ring like a crazy dog? NO. Did she stay near the end of the course? yes. But she wouldnt come to me. So I tried twice to get her to come to me and she wouldn't. So I told her to stay,she did, and I started walking toward her. I'm almost to her, she is looking at me the whole time. So much so she doesn't see the judge come up behind her. Right when I get to her and I'm bending down, the judge grabs her. She said something like, "I'm just trying to protect your dog". I thought this was very weird. But I didn't think that much about it. Well guess what. She eliminated me for failure to control my dog. WTH!!! I was so mad. I couldnt even believe it. She didn't eliminate the poodle but she did Miley. I just cant believe it. I will never run my dog again without asking someone to video. That way I have proof of what happened. I tell you one thing. I'm no longer doing two runs a day with AKC. Its to hard to wait 8 hours and 7 hours for a 24 second run.

More about yesterday

Like I said, we went to the training field last night. The horses were out again. So I left my car outside the gate. I was walking the dogs through the field to the agility field. It isn't far from gate to gate. The female horse didn't even look up as we passed her. The male horse was across the field. The dogs were barking, especially Miley. I had my back to the male horse. Luckily my husband was with me because he said," Diana, look out". I turn around and the horse is trotting/galloping towards me. I turn around and the horse stopped short right by me. Scary. I think it didn't like the dogs and was coming to get them. I'm going to have to pay more attention.
Its been very hot and humid lately and last night it was bad. Miley's first run was great and then went down hill from there. I was sweating alot so I know the dogs were hot. Plus the water wasn't working at the field either. So I couldn't wet the dogs down. I carry a gallon of water with me for the dogs to drink. But it is nice to wet the dogs down. I dumped some of the water I had on the dogs, but it didn't help much.I'm not sure it that's why Miley and I were so out of sync. Except for the first run, it was a disaster. Miley contacts: she didn't stop the first time but did the next two times. And then I rewarded this contact because I felt like she was trying to stop. But after I watched the video, I see I shouldn't have rewarded it even if she was trying to stop. ( so Kathy maybe that's how your dog starts turning toward you . LoL )



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I am going to an AKC trial tomorrow. I just am not feeling positive about it after last night. I will be in the first group to run ( open JWW) and the last group of the day (novice standard). Such a long wait between runs drives me crazy.

Guiness runs again

Yesterday I went to the training field. Guiness decided I wasn't leaving the house without him. So I brought him a long. I wasn't planning on running him. He was just so excited to be there, I thought I would run him through a couple of sequences. So here is one of those runs. Its amazing how much a dog remembers. He hasn't trained in 2 years because of his leg. He seemed to do ok, and I didn't notice any increase in his limp last night or this morning.

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I finally got it.

Here is the course from the other day that I posted. It is part of the ASSA nationals excellent course. I didnt design it , the judge Carla Boudrot designed it. I just reposted the small part I set up in my back yard. We had lots of trouble and my bad handling made Miley drop a lot of bars. I started thinking her leg must be hurting. But I think it was just my bad cues. But I finally did it.

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OK, here is one of the bad ones

Yesterday and today

You wouldn't believe how long it took me to make that little slide show I posted yesterday. All day, yes that is what it took. I did other things in between like walk the dogs and weed the garden. First I made the slide show on my computer and then down loaded it to You tube. But when it down loaded, which took forever, some of the pictures were blurry. So I decided to do it over and when I went back to the program some of the pictures were missing. So I reloaded them and down loaded it in a different format. That didn't help. Then I decided to try Photobucket. I couldn't figure it out. Then I decided to use my daughters Photoshop program that is on the kids computer. I didn't have all the same pictures but some I had on a thumb drive. It was very easy on Photoshop and I could just slide the pictures around to get them in the right order. Then I added the music. It was music that was on the computer and it seemed ok. Its a religious song, and I'm not religious but I liked it. And finally I was finished and it loaded to blogger easily. I wish I had just started with the Photoshop program.

Last night my neighbor behind me had a party. I'm no sure what time it stopped but the last time the dogs woke me up barking was about 1:30am. Then this morning I went out with the dogs and there were multiple beer cans in the yard. I guess they just chucked them over the fence. I was so mad. I picked them up and just chucked them back over the fence. Come to find out that my husband's friend thought it would be funny to throw the beer cans over the fence. They tried to stop him. So now I feel a little bad about throwing them all back over the fence. O'well what can you do.

This morning I took Miley to the training field. I set up an excellent jumpers course. She did well but I must not be cuing her correctly because she took most jumps extended when she should have collected. So then she was a wide and had lots of extra steps between jumps . She did well on #1-9. Going from #9 to #10 I was on the her right pass jump 9. She came out of the tunnel and sliced the jump. So she had trouble turning to the left to get jump 10. I now can see, from where I was standing, that I was telling her that. But when I was at the field I couldn't figure it out. Starting at #11 all the side changes start. At #13 I had to give her a tight command to get her to collect and that worked well. She was still wide again from #15 to #16. I never fixed that. I rear crossed,and maybe I should have front crossed. The course is posted below.

We did 2 dogwalks and 2 a-frames and she did perfect . Now it was starting to rain so I figured be better go. I parked inside the fence area. Shortly after parking two horses came out and right over to my car. I got worried, do horses eat windshield wipers like goats do? I guess not. But they were all around my car the entire time. How was I going to get out. I went into the field and called the horses like you would your dog. I clicked my tongue. That did nothing. They didn't even look up at me. So I decided to be brave and grab their head halter to walk them away from the car. Well the first horse just lifted his head and jerked my hand out of his halter. He probably knew I didn't know anything about horses. He was probably laughing at me. "Yea right, you are going to make me move". Great now what. I went back in the fence area and called Miley. I told her I had a treat. That got the one horses attention and he came to the fence. At least he wasn't behind my car now. I put Miley in the car and back up and pulled as close to the gate a possible. The one horse could run between the front of my car and the gate but I didn't know what else to do. We got out and none of the horses did. So all's well that ends well. ( I know this isnt well written, but hopefully you get the point of what Im saying in this post today. I have reread it several times and I cant seem to get it right. )

Happy Birthday Miley!

Bad dog training

I went out to practice with Miley today. I have a clean run magazine with me with a course to practice. Here my dog is being very well behaved, even with Guiness running around, and not one "good dog" for her bad owner. Im such a bad dog trainer that I didnt notice this until I watch the video. I had not idea how good and calm she was being. Ugh!! Bad Owner!


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Night time

Dogwalk Slat comparison

Here is a picture comparing my dogwalk slat from home with the dogwalks at the training field. The lower slat with the blue and white paint is mine from home. The picture to the left is our clubs new dogwalk. The slat is very high compared to my home slat. The picture to the right is the old dogwalk our club still has. I video taped her tonight on the old dogwalk. I didn't see any sips and I let her run the new dogwalk once and I saw a skip. (skip defined as holding her leg up). I'll try to post the video tomorrow, I'm to tired tonight. But I think this shows the difference in heights pretty well. Which could be why I'm seeing no skip at home and a skip at the training field. Ive been using the new dogwalk. ( click the picture if you want to see it bigger)

Seven things

Seven things Miley likes.

1. Agility. Every time I walk in the back yard she gets ready and keep looking at me with the stalking walk, ready to go. If I'm editing video and she hears me on the tape calling commands, she runs through the house looking for the obstacles.

2. Some music. She gets excited to the theme music to "Two and a half men". I dont know why but she really likes that song. She also likes if you sing "whip it". ( I guess that's the name of that song)

3. Rolling in my bed. Rubbing all over the pillows.

4. Going for walks. Every morning she is ready and pawing at the door until I get my act together.

5. Chasing cars. ( not one I like, but she really likes if she can do it)

6. She love playing fetch with this black rubber thing that was used for milking cows. I cant remember what it is called, but she loves that thing.

7. Playing or waiting for the ferrets to come out to play.

Thanks Katie and Dawn for tagging us.

A weird statement

Yesterday when talking to the vet about Mileys limp on the dogwalk, and she said she thought it was a gait problem. She also asked if I couldn't just slow Miley down on the dog walk. Don't let her run so fast so the gait changes would be easier. I'm sure I had this perplexed look on my face.( Slow down, no one wants there dog to slow down. We are trying to speed them up.) She said, Well you are not going to be on the world team or anything. I thought this was a weird statement. I debated whether I was going to put in on my blog or not. Did it hurt my feeling, I guess. I'm not even sure why. I really don't know what my goals are for Miley and me. First I'm just trying to get her to hit her contacts. Then try to get into the higher classes at trials. Then work on titles and things from there. I do feel Miley has something special. (I'm sure you all are smiling, we all feel that way, Huh? ) But, there is "Something about Miley"......

My dogwalk obsession

I took Miley to the rehab vet today. I had her watch the videos. She doesn't think Miley is injured. She thinks that Miley is having a problem transitioning her gait. She was in a gallop up and over the dogwalk and then trys to gear down to be able to stop. She thinks that is what is causing the problem. I'm not sure what to think. So I ran her over the dogwalk at home. First I let her run it without stopping several times. Then I had her stop the last two times. I notice she didnt have the weird gait like she did this weekend. Is it because she changed gaits later coming down the dogwalk. This weekend her gait change right at the top of the dogwalk. Today it looked like she didnt change gaits until the bottom of the ramp. Another difference is the slats. My slats are very shallow, maybe 1/8 of and inch. The ones at the training field are at least 3/8 to 1/2 inch. Big difference for a little foot. I will refilm in a couple of days at the field and see what I happens. ( Guiness ran the first time. I wasnt expecting that. Usually he is to busy barking at kids and bikes to run agility. So after the first time, I put him in the house. )


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The jumpers course

This is also a video that was taken after the dogwalk stuff in the last post. She doesn't have any problems jumping. I rewatched the dogwalk video on quick time. In QT you can watch the video very slowly, click by click. In it I could see the first time over the dogwalk, when she gets to the down ramp, her right foot hits the first slat and then again the next slat as she is coming down. Her right foot must be sore or hurt because that definitely gets the reaction of pulling her foot up. I will talk with the rehab vet tomorrow and probably go to an ortho vet after that. It just so frustrating because I watch her constantly. Its like an obsession. When she is playing, going up and down the stairs, jumping on and off furniture, running in the back yard, spinning on the deck chasing Guiness, tons of walks and I don't see anything. Ugh!


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Miley's limp

I haven't seen any limping. But check out the dogwalk video. Is she just worried about hurting her foot or is she injured. I also worked her on some jumping after this dogwalk video. Ill have to post it later. You don't see any limping with the jumping stuff. I really am in a dilemma on what to do. When I watch the video I see injury. My husband disagrees. He thinks she is just worried about hitting her foot. And opinions???

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What shelties do at herding trials

This is what dogs do at herding trails. Very different than agility trials. Also, when a dog was in the ring herding, you could hear a pin drop. So opposite of what happens in agility.

You can see the dogs under the other chairs too.

Running

Mother's Day and other things

For Mother's Day we drove down to Savannah and saw my parents. The weather there was very nice. We sat out on the dock and it was just windy enough to keep the bugs away. If you have ever been to Savannah, the bugs will eat you alive. So no bugs, yea! We were very tired when we got home. I'm not sure why it seemed so hard on us. Its a three hour drive each way. It could be because on the way home we encountered rain storms. Black Sky's and driving rain.
The above picture is what my daughter gave me for mother's day. Its a licence plate for the front of my car. I haven't put it on yet. I'm looking for a clear cover to protect it from bugs and rocks.
I haven't worked Miley on anything since last week until last night. I took her to a different field that she hadn't been to, just to do a few dog walks and not more than 4 a-frames. She did well. I did notice twice on the dogwalk, coming down the ramp, she picked her foot up a few times. I guess we will be doing more rest. The frustrating thing is that I don't see anything else. She goes up and down the steps and Ive been watching her walk and I don't see anything. The vet has checked her 2 more times and cant find anything. I think people think I'm crazy.

I'm redoing my a-frame. I ordered "contact coat" and I'm going to put that over the a-frame contact. I'm not going to use any slats. From the response I got from the clean run group and what Julie said, made me feel no slats are necessary. In case you don't know, "contact coat" is a rubber coating that you put on top of the painted contact equipment. http://www.contactacoat.com/a-frame.html It provides grip and give for the dog and is suppose to make the equipment safer. I'm also redoing ( still) my dogwalk. I'm thinking of taking the slats off that too. But Meagan doesn't think I should. So I'm still up in the air with that.

I finally got my computer back. WhooHoo! So I can now put my video program back on my computer and edit video.

Unlucky Walk

I took the dogs to the state park this morning. I wanted to go early because it was going to be over 90 degrees today. First, I twisted my foot/ankle. It hurt when it happened but then it seemed fine. I thought about turning back , but that seemed silly since it really wasn't hurting. Not long after that, SNAKE! A big 2 foot long snake on the path. I HATE SNAKES! I pull the dogs close to me and cant seem to move. Do I turn back? Is this an sign? First the foot and now the snake. I've been walking in the park for over a year and have never seen a snake. I realize it is the Forest and I know snakes are there. Ive just never seen them. Ive seen them at the other park several times but not this one. Anyway , my dogs are looking at me trying to figure out what is wrong. I decided to go on. And now I cant stop thinking about snakes. You know how many roots are in the Forest, tons. Do you know how many look like snakes, all of them. But I keep walking. Scaring the crap out of myself with roots and any little noise. I'm about 1/2 way done and the dogs seem hot. Ill take them to the river like I always do. We are getting close to the water. The dogs are at the end of a flexi-lead and SNAKE. I don't know how they didn't step on it. O'course I stop and again I'm frozen. When the dogs hit the end of the flexi, they turn around and start coming back to me. OMG they are going to step on the snake. I try to pull them off the path to the side and they some how miss the snake. Now I'm thinking, I got to get out of here. But I'm so far from my car and the only way back it walking it. I get myself together and start walking. Now comes a bike. He turns just in front of us to go up this really steep path but hits a big root. The back part of his bike come all the way up. I don't know how he didn't fly all the over the handle bars but he didn't. I think he hurt his groin, makes a werid noise and gets off the bike. I don't think he realized I was there. So I asked him if he was alright. I know, dumb question. He didn't answer me, gets on his bike and goes. I think he was embarrassed. Well now I'm thinking, there cant be any snakes on the path. This bike was just riding on it. I'm free and clear. Nope, SNAKE. All the way across the path. How did the dogs not step on it? I wasn't going to stop because that would make the dogs come back to me again. So I jumped over it. Now I'm more freaked out then ever and just want to get to my car. I usually let the dogs drink in the smaller creeks but not today. We did finally get to the car without any more snakes. I'm not sure if I will be able to make myself go back there. I hate snakes.

Ugh !

I pulled Miley from the USDAA trial for this weekend. Last Friday I saw her skip 3 times on the morning walk. I didn't see anything else until yesterday. Last night I took her up to the training field. I saw her do that weird gait going down the dogwalk ramp. It wasn't as bad as the time a few months ago, but it was there. She also wouldn't turn to the right on a jump sequence. Did I not cue it right? I had to do it several times and then she finally go it. Did it hurt to jump to the right. I don't know. Dogs are hard to figure out. She jumps up and down at home when she is excited. Boing, Boing, boing! That doesn't seem to affect her. She still has a nice tight tuck sit and can go into a stand on her back legs without moving from her spot. I did have the rehab vet check her this past Monday. But of course nothing seems to be a problem. I really feel it has to do with the a-frame. My a-frame or any a-frame , I'm not sure. I built my a-frame myself, maybe there is something wrong with it. Maybe she is stubbing her toe. When watching her yesterday on the dogwalk, it really seem like a foot/toe problem.


Then of course it was raining again this morning. I tired walking the dogs but everyone was acting like it was torture so I took them back home. Then Miley pooped in the living room. Loose poop too, so I had to get the steam cleaner out to clean it up right.


I see the rehab vet again on Friday. I'll have her check Miley again. I kinda don't know what else to do about it. I wish I could figure out what the problem is or what is causing it.

O,yea here is a positive. Miley had excellent dogwalk contacts yesterday. WooHoo!

Greg Louganis seminar

So, I went to a Greg Louganis lecture on Sunday. It was about 4.5 hours long. The name of the lecture was called, "Performance Enhancement of the Natural Athlete". That should have clued me in right there. "Natural Athlete". I'm not an athlete. ( let alone natural) I have never played a sport in my life. I sucked at all sports. I was the last picked in school for any teams sports we had to play. I got a "c" in tennis in college. But, I digress. I really don't know what to say about this lecture. It started off with him asking everyone how much they use mental imaginary. Me, huh never. He asked me why. I guess I never felt the need for it. Never did sports. As a nurse, no need for mental imaginary there. You don't have time to imagine. You think quick and react. Someone stops breathing, act quick. Call for help, turn on the oxygen , grab the bag, put it over there face and start bagging. Also, I'm not one for imagining. I'm a very concrete person. I see things very black and white. ( not always a good thing).

Anyway, I'm not really sure what I learned. He is interesting to talk to. I asked lots of questions. When I was driving home, I started thinking. Was I one of those irritating people that wont quit asking questions? Was everyone behind me rolling there eyes at me and wanting me to be quiet? I don't know, I couldn't help myself. I was just trying to understand it. I think if feels natural to him because he has been doing it a long time.

One thing he did say that hit home was , "visualize success, not perfection". When he was diving, he would practice his dives with mistakes so that he was prepared for it in competition. So if he didn't jump up high enough off the board, he knew what he needed to do to correct for that because he had practiced it.

Something that I do to myself on course is, if I walked the course and I feel that we can really do this course. It shouldn't be a problem. I see the results before its happened. That a negative thing to do to yourself. You should always be on your game. Don't think, "I got this" before you do. Because you will usually screw it up. ( These are my words not his) .

We practiced some relaxation techniques and did some mental imaginary.

The only bad thing was when I was driving home , there was a tree on the side of the road. It didn't look like it was over the road. But it put a big scratch all the way down the side of my nice shinny van. Crap. I'm hoping I can buff it out.

Before Agility

Things I did before dog agility.

Sewed curtains and stenciled walls.

Wall papered rooms.

Painted lots of rooms.

Owned a wonderful springer spaniel.

Went on family vacations.

Lots of family vacations (without dogs).

O,yea. Made cakes. ( sorry its sideways)

More a-frame practice

Im still thinking about how to fix Miley's running a-frame. I decided to go back to the ground work and see where she is. I put the yellow sheet in the middle of the box to help her maybe transfer the box work to the a-frame. When I first did the ground work a few months ago, she was 3 hitting. I did what the video said to do, to change her to a 2 hit. I did this because I felt she would jump off after 2 hits. But she isnt getting in the yellow on the a-frame with 2 hits. Not even close. So I watched her on the ground again and she is three hitting. ( Sara, I can go to my camera and watch it in slow motion, thats how I can tell she it three hitting. Then I can adjust what Im doing right then and there. Sorry, but my computer is away being fixed so I cant edit any video except what my camera can do. I can watch it in slow motion but cant down load it that way.)

After a few reps of ground work, I put the box back on the a-frame.

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Three hitting looks much better. So that is what I'm going to work on. Will see what happens when she gets excited at at trial if it will hold up.