The ups and downs of today

Today was a weird day. It started at 6am and it was already 80 degrees out. So I took the dogs for a walk in the neighborhood. Then a while later we practiced some agility. It didn't go well. She was wild and over the top. She couldn't make a weave pole entry. ( sound familiar?) So I went in and got the clicker. I clicked as soon as she got the entry. We did that a few times and things got better. But I felt terrible. We go to a trial on Wednesday and I really wanted to do well.

Then this afternoon I set up a figure 8 of jumps with a tunnel in each opposite corner and the table in another corner. She did really well. She had a few tunnel sucks but other than that it was great. Ok, I felt better. Then after dinner we took the a-frame out of the garage and put it in the backyard. It was the first time she ran over the a-frame that didn't have slats plus it had the new contact coat on it.">



Well the first time over she jumped the contact. Crap!! I just couldn't believe it. She hadn't done that in a long time. I really thought we had this thing nailed. Then next time, she got it. I ran her two more times, she jumped once and stopped the second time again. I hope its just her getting use to the new feel of the a-frame. Once again, I felt terrible. I start thinking about the trial and my high hopes. I' ve been reading Lanny Basshams book ,"The Mental Management system, with Winning in Mind". You have to be positive and think positive. Don't think about when things went wrong , only think about the things that went right. The difference between highly successful people and everyone else is highly successful people write their goals down. You have to not only write your goals down but a time line and how you plan to accomplish your goal. Ive done all that. What is my goal? To make it into excellent by the end of the year. A positive self -image is very important and probably my biggest obstacle. When things don't go right I get really down and cant see the good. Like at the last trial on Sunday, Miley ran open JWW. Afterwards I felt it was a terrible run and wanted to go home. I was so shocked when Meagan came to me and said what a good run I had. She could see the positive. She said I had one of the few dogs that didn't spin coming out of the tunnel and I handled it really well. All I could think about was the missed weave poles. Even though everything else was perfect. So that's what I have to change. How I see things. On a side note, Meagan is such a great teacher. She always seems to know what I need to work on. When at a trial , even though she is running several dogs and that weekend was sick with a stomach bug, still found time to come talk to me. You are going to think this is stupid but it made me feel great.

This evening we took the dogs out on the boat. Its just so flipping hot outside to go for our walks. Miley did great swimming today. So now Im up again. Lol






Look, " Im king of the world".

Look how far Im standing in the water.

( I didnt have my good camera with me, so the pictures arent as good)

Practice

Today I took Miley out to the field to train. I really just wanted to run a course. I set up the course above. I decided to run it and not stop no matter what. I tried to act like I would at a trial. It didn't go well. At the start line, I threw the leash and she released into the tunnel. Oops. ( More training). Then I didn't give enough forward momentum and she didn't carry on to jump #5. So then I was out of place, didn't front cross after #6 , nore after the teeter, so she didn't get in the weaves. Oops, Oops and Oops. But I wanted to keep going to see if I could get back on track. After many problems at the weaves we go back on track and finished the rest of the course. This is kinda what happens to me at a trial. I get out of place and things fall apart. I still didn't handle is well. I probably shouldnt show you the video but hey you have to show the good with the bad.

practice june 27, 2009 from Diana Krause on Vimeo.

Her teeter seems better. I worked it before running her. I watch Meagan the other night work with someone on their teeter. She had the bottom of the teeter on the table. You have someone hold the dog while you go to the end of the teeter. You call the dog to you while holding the teeter and slowly lower it. Then treat them when the teeter hits the ground. Then release. So we did this a few times and then took the table away. So far , so good.

I never talked about Guiness's control unleashed class. One of the things we worked on was holding a treat in your hand so your dog can see it. When you dog looks away from your hand to your face, click and treat. Guiness couldn't do this at all. That says some thing. Maybe that part of our problem. Ive been working on this at home with him and Miley. Miley took longer than I thought before she looked at me. But after that first time, she got it pretty quickly. Poor Guiness took forever to look at me. I think 3-4 minutes, maybe more. He would give me downs and sits, then stare intently at my hand. I kinda had to cheat and move my head a tad, then he finally looked at me. We have lots of work to do.

O'yea at practice today, no skipping down the contacts. WhooHoo!!

Teeter update.

Last night I went outside to take the teeter off the base. I wanted to put it on the adjustable base. I was standing next to it , unscrewing the knobs. Miley ran right up to the end and rode it down. WhooHoo! This morning I had her run it again for 1/2 her breakfast. The other half she got for getting on the table.

Since I was up at 4am because my neighbors dogs started barking and continued until 6am, I decided to get somethings done. I walked the dogs at 5am. Took the car in for new tires and the put the contact coat on the a-frame. Hey, I did more by 7am then most people do all day. LoL

Lesson

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I went up to North Carolina again for a lesson with Meagan. The person's who's house it is at has a pool. So I had asked Meagan if Miley could watch her dogs swim. Maybe she would think swimming is fun. She didn't. As soon as she saw the pool, she tried to bolt. I did make her get in twice for 10 seconds. It was 94 degrees out so it would help cool her off.

The lesson. Miley was weird. First she wanted to run crazy around the yard. I was trying to do a warm up jump and she just decided to keep taking the rest of the jumps. Then we started the course. She couldn't weave. She just kept popping out. To many weave poles yesterday?? I have this problem. If some thing is broken, I over work the problem. I'm going to start keeping a little notebook in my pocket when I train so I can keep tic marks on how many reps I do of something. So Meagan gave me some things to work on to keep her in the poles. I need to work on slowing down and moving away from the poles. Miley is very sensitive to my movement when she is in the poles. Any change, she pops out.

We went on with the course and she wouldn't get on the table. She ran wide circles around the table. I told Meagan that's what she did at the trial but she finally got on. Last night she wouldn't get on. So Meagan told me to put her back in her crate. Which I did. Then I got Guienss out and let him run some tunnels and low jumps and the table. Then I brought Miley back out. Meagan told me if she even gets on the table , immediately release to the next obstacle. Miley sees the table as stopping all the fun. So she did jump right on the table and I release her to the teeter. She ran half way up and jumped off the side. What the heck? Then she wouldn't get on at all. I even went and got some licorice. She loves that. She would only go half way up. Meagan told me to stop working her that maybe she was mentally done. So we did. And we didn't do the contact and weave class either.

I reviewed the video from the field the other day. It looks like she got hit by the teeter. Ive slowed the video down but its so far away that it hard to tell. Ill post the video here . Let me know if you see it too. Video is posted at the bottom. I tried to increase the size.

As luck would have it a Chiropractor came out the the class last night. So I had her check Miley. I didn't really tell her what was wrong but she was able to feel her left hip joint was out and her muscles over her right side were tight. Also her head was out. ( That was my fault too. I had her on a line that was tied at the field and she went for a car before I could get her attention. So I guess you can see what happened there.) So today , I'm suppose to let her rest and then gradually increase her activity. And I'm to let her know if I see any difference. O, I forgot to tell you this. I hadn't seen any skipping on the left leg down the dogwalk in a while. Last week when I went to my lesson I was thinking, she is doing great. So you know what happened. She was running the dogwalk and her foot got caught in the space between the up ramp and the cross ramp . As soon as that happened she skipped down the down ramp. Crap. I saw her skip at the training field this week too. Crap! But I haven't seen anything else.

This is the dogwalk from the class. I know its dark but you can see the space.


This is the dogwalk from our training field. No gap.

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The gap is probably not a big deal for bigger dogs but for Miley's little feet,it just fell right in. So last night I brought Styrofoam and put it in the space. That seemed to work well.

This post is getting long so Ill talk about Guiness's CU class in another post. Last night when I got home, Miley wasn't tired at all. Eleven at night and she barking at me and bringing me toys.

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The morning walk

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Do You see it?

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How about now?

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I didn't finish walking that path after that. I turned around. But we had already walked pretty far so it was ok.


My son comes home today from college orientation. He is very happy to be coming back. It was stressful for him. I think is was hard because he didn't know anyone. He roomed with 3 other guys and they all knew each other. Two were cousins and the other was their friend and they all went to high school together. So he was feeling like the odd man out. While there, they had to take classes on classroom behavior. I thought this was weird. Then another class on dorm room behavior. Weird again. But I guess some kids don't know how to act. The first night some kids got arrested at his dorm. I cant even imagine that happening.Im glad they are not my kids. What were those kids thinking. The guys in my son's room went out drinking last night. At least that is what they told Lou. Maybe they were just trying t act cool. Well, if they did do that, at least they didn't do it in the dorm. The campus is alcohol free and tobacco free.

Today

Ive been lazy about walking the dogs. I was walking them twice a day all year. But since being off from work , Ive gotten lazy. Some days they don't even get walked once. Here is a picture from this evenings walk. It just so hot outside, the dogs seem like they cant take it. Tonight it didn't seem as humid even with the temps in the 90's ( 32C) . So we manage our hour plus walk. I made my husband come to this park because the river runs right next to the path. So just in case your dog gets over heated , you are close to cold water. My husband likes the other park better because you go up and down hills . But the only water in the evening is at the hose at the front of the park. And Guiness acts like I'm killing him when I wet him down.


Earlier today I took Micky and Roxy to the vet today. Mickey needed a phenobarb level and Roxy needed her yearly done. Everyone loves Roxy. They all want to hold her. I think its because its unusual to see a merle colored chihuahua.

I did some training with Miley this morning at the field. I didn't realize I made her do so many weave poles until I watched the video. I would really like to get a Open JWW Q. We keep missing it because of one thing or another. The last trial it was weave pole problems. The trial before that is was weaves and I sent her off course. I guess we have only been to three trials this year, so not that many. But man it would be nice to get one Q in jumpers. I did notice today that I need to cue the chute much earlier or she misses it. In the video, the dogwalk is to your right and the chute is to your left.

Agility practice June 2009 from Diana Krause on Vimeo.

This is for Lian

The link for running contacts. http://www.agilityvision.com/sweet Lian, let me know if you still can find it. Once you get to the link, just click on the video.

Has everyone seen this but me?

A friend sent me this link. http://www.agilityvision.com/

At the top is Katies blog. She has a sheltie named Miley that has awesome running contacts. She really jumps the apex of the a-frame that brings her in deep. Looks at the site, it has a lot of interesting stuff on it.

Im a wreck

I took my son to college today. He is there for a 3 day orientation. I'm nervous and he is nervous. I hope he manages ok. Heck, I just hope he wakes up the the alarm clock tomorrow.

Stephanie is also away at camp. She called not to long ago and said they were going swimming in the gulf. I asked if she knew what to do if she is caught in a rip tide. "No" in that sarcastic teenage voice. How many times have we talked about rip tides. So I told her again. I'm sure she probably wont call again. LoL.

Silly Miley

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Miley likes to take her bones, any bone, and dumps it in the water bowel. Then she has to reach in a get it out. She usually has to blow bubbles to get it out. I guess she likes them to be a little soggy.


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It must be Mothers Day

Today is fathers day , right? I gave my husband a new coffee maker. ( I don't drink coffee). His old coffee maker kept leaking every where. I didn't use to be a problem. He would just make one travel mug and go to work. But now he works at home and makes lots of cups. So there is always water or coffee marks on the counter. Plus the old one only made one travel mug of coffee. This new one will make a pot or two travel mugs. I think he really liked it. The other thing I got him was a Ryobi tool kit. In the kit you got a drill, a saw, two batteries and a charger. Ive been looking at the Ryobi fan that works on a battery pack. The fan was only 30.00 but by the time you bought the battery and charger , you were up to 100.00. To much. I have a battery fan from Walmart that works well but is uses regular batteries. The other day up in North Carolina is ran out. It wasn't a big deal because it also works with a pug. I have a regular plug in my car. ( how cool is that) So I just plugged it in for the dog in the car when at my lesson. But that wouldn't work if I'm at a show.

So how come its mothers day. Look at the pictures below. My husband , my son and I put the a-frame back together today. Ive had the boards painted for weeks. Now all I have left to do is put the contact coat on it. It may be to hot here for that. Ill have to read the directions. But , whoohoo, the biggest part is done.

Oh yea. I got my Ryobi fan too. Since he had an extra battery pack and already had the charger. LoL See , I told you it was mothers day.

At the lake

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Here we are out at the lake. All dry, wind blowing my hair.

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Dont hate me because Im beautiful.

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This is as far in as Guiness and I will go.
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Then my mom makes us go in and now look at my hair.


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Guiness loves to dig holes in the sand. Maybe he has to go to the bathroom?

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Hey look, fish like liverworst too.


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Time to go home. Maybe my hair will dry in this wind.

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My mom just likes this house. She thinks it would be wonderful to live here. She just doesnt understand that I dont like getting wet.

Control Unleashed class

This class was very interesting. There were 5 of us in the class. We all took a spot far apart from each other. We had a crate and mat for the dog. It started with connecting with your dog. Thinking about good things your dog does while touching and messaging him. Then each person took there dog to a small fenced in area. You were to bring you dog in and see how long it takes for you dog to look at you. I thought this was very interesting. Some dogs went in and immediately looked at their owners for what they were going to do next. Some dogs took a long time to look at their owner. They were to busy looking around and sniffing the area.

Most of the work was done at your crate. We worked on taking the leash off and it being a non-event. You would get a hand full of treats and take the leash off and put the whole hand full of treats on the ground. Then step away from you dog. After the dog was done eating, he should look up for you, coming toward you. Click and treat. That keeps the dog looking at you for the rewards and not rewarding himself when the leash comes off. We also worked on walking with the dog on leash, click and treat for looking at you. Then while walking, drop the leash and keep walking. Click and treat for the dog looking at you. Meagan talked about default behavior. We practice walking to a gate, wait for the dog to offer a default behavior at the gate. Click and treat. Then again once outside the fence. You don't move through the gate until the dog offers you a default behavior. Guiness wouldn't go out the gate. It was the gate by the car. ( Hmmm, do you see a pattern with my dogs. LoL) So we had to move to another gate that wasn't near the car. We also worked on the grab the collar game. Shelties don't like this game. When you reach for a sheltie's collar the play hand dodge. So this is a good game to play with both my shelties.

At home Ive been working on Miley and the leash. Ive been trying to only bring the leash out to play tug with and then put it up. Ive also brought it out for fun things. She gets very excited when its time to eat. So before she can eat, I'm making her put her leash on. She also really likes seeing the ferrets. So again , before she is allowed to go do that, she has to put her leash on. Hopefully , she will see the leash as leading to fun. Also Meagan told me not to let her run around when I go to the training field or even at home when getting ready to practice. Treat her like I would if I were at a trial. Put her in her crate or keep her on leash. That way she know exactly what to expect.

Thanks for everyone advice on getting Miley to like the leash. Also someone asked me where I got the leash and collar. It was off of ebay. Agility Q www.agilityq.com

Contact and weave class

Here is the course Meagan had me practice. I don't know if the distances are correct. Sorry. First I ran it with post turns. No problem. So then she said run it with rear crosses. Sounds easy huh? Not. Start with your dog on your right. Send them over the jump and into the poles. Then r ear cross after your dog goes into the poles at #2. Funny, as soon as I did that Miley popped out. It took about three tries before she weaved all the way down. Then Rear cross again between #2 and #3. That was hard only because she kept going into the second pole. Something to work on. The rear cross between #3 and #4. That wasn't a problem. Fun little set up to see where your problem places are.

3 for 1

Yesterday I went up to North Carolina for a lesson with Meagan. To get the most bang for my buck, I first had a private lesson, then took the "weave and contact" class and then took the "control unleashed" class. So I left here about 3pm and got home around 11pm. And that kicked my butt and I'm beat this morning. I was suppose to go with my husband down to the beach this morning. He had a meeting down there but I just couldn't get my act together in time to go. Poor Lou.

The second course above is one of the sequences we worked on. It was from a regionals course, I think that is what Meagan said. My first problem was between 3 and 4. First I did a post turn. What do you think happened? Yes , she went into the wrong end of the tunnel because that is what my shoulders told her to do. Then I tried a false turn, and it was a good concept, but I wasn't being very effective. So we worked on using my left arm coming up( arm furthest from the dog) which cues the dog that we are turning, telling her "tight" so she wraps the jump, and then once I get her head, flip back into the correct tunnel entrance. But Meagan did say with Miley she probably would just do a front cross there but I still need to know the other skill. Next problem area was 8 to 9. Trying to get Miley into that tunnel entrance was not happening. I either made her turn right back onto the dogwalk or sent her into the weaves. I needed to release Miley, take a step back and then pull her toward me to send into the tunnel. Something else I need to work on.

The top course is a continuation of the bottom course but I couldn't remember what was in between the weaves to the a-frame so I just made a new sequence out of it. Again I had the same problems. Going over jump 2 she then flew over the double #5. So again I was to use my outside arm, get her attention and then send to #3. Then I started pulling her in to much. At least I know what I need to work on.

We also work on the circle of death for serpentines, treadles, 180's ,front crosses and post turns.

Very good lesson. The weaves and contact class was very good too. She set up some more sequences to challenge weave entries. Maybe later I will get around to posting those. Last was the "control Unleashed class". I took Guiness to that. He was so excited to be there. I think he thought he was going to an agility class. Poor guy. I will do another post on that class which I learned a lot to help both Guiness and Miley.

Miley's new magic leash

Well, its not new and its not magical. But I hope it makes things better. Miley has a problem coming to me to put her leash on if its not something she wants to do. Like if we are going to the park and I get the leash. To get to the park we have to go in the car. Miley doesn't like getting in the car. So she wont come to me. Sometime at the agility field, when we are done, she wont come to me. I'm not sure if its the car thing or she just isn't done having fun. Then the last trial when she wouldn't come to me. No car thing there, she just didn't want to stop doing agility I guess. So I brought out Guiness's old tug leash. I had put it away because it made me sad to see it. But sometimes you have to move on. Ive been working with Miley on playing tug with it and making it fun. Because she doesn't run with a collar on, I ordered a new martingale collar. The collar fits easily over Mileys head, which is important in the ring. It has my phone number stitched on it,but I had Stephanie color it out with photoshop. So it looks plan here, but its cute. I'm hoping to make it more fun to put the leash on so Miley doesn't see it as a punishment. If anyone has any other suggestion, please send them my way. Ive tried food, that doesn't work. I could be covered in peanut butter and she wont come.

Pictures from our walk in the park

I took the dogs for a long 4 mile walk at the park. It was still pretty hot and I had to dunk them in the water several times. Miley just looks wet. Guiness he rolls until he is dry, and dirty.




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Then after the walk. I come home and this is what Miley does.





Are you ready to play?
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Hot as Heck

I took Miley to the field this morning to practice a course that I saw this weekend. It was on the live feed from the USDAA regionals in Pa. I'm sure the distances in obstacles aren't correct but I did the best I could. First it was hot as heck outside. At 6am the weather man said the humidity was already 90%. When we got to the field it was 83 degrees outside. My son came and helped me set up the course. It took us a good while to do that. I was already tired and very hot by that time. Now I needed to run. I really didn't feel the energy to do that but did it anyway. So here is my video of the run. I think I only ran the course 4 times. I figured we could practice the problem places at home later. We kept dropping the bar on jump #3 and the bar on the jump after the second tunnel. ( sometimes we kept them up. ) If you see what I'm doing wrong let me know. Sorry for the last video being so shaky, I think my son was hot and hungry. When we left the field it was 91 F (32.7 C) degrees. I think I'm either going to go a lot earlier or just train in the back yard. It was just to hot. After my last run, I felt sick. I told my son he was going to have to move all the tunnels and sandbags himself. I felt better in a few seconds but man that was a weird feeling. I told you I was getting old. LoL.

On another note. I went and saw the movie "UP". Very cute. Lots of dog stuff. I love when the dog, who is wearing a collar that talks, is talking and then says,"squirrel". He stops and looks for several seconds and then starts talking again. Funny. Also, they have to wear the "cone of shame" when they are bad ( the other dogs do this to each other not the owner). The "cone of shame" is the plastic cone we put on dogs to keep them from biting there stitches etc... Its also very funny. The doberman's , who is the leader, collar keeps shorting out and he has a chipmunk voice when that happens. All the dogs start laughing at him. Funny.

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Trying to add pictures

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Finally some weave entries

So after not being able to hit a weave pole entry all week, even if it was the broad side of a barn. She finally did it. I really wasn't going to work any weave pole entries. I just set the weaves up at the end of the sequence. WhooHoo! I know its hard to see the sequence but it was a set up of an excellent course from the last trial. I only set it up to #17. By the tunnel is a serpentine.I first lead out to the left of the dog just pass #1 and tried to work the serpentine from the inside, closest to the tunnel but that didn't work for Miley at all. So then I did a lead out pass #2, did a call to heal and handle the serpentine from the outside and then rear crossed the pinwheel. That worked much better.






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Cool trial pictures

If you biggify the first picture, you will see the spit in Miley's mouth.

Trick Day

Here are the chihuahua's tricks. They arent great, so try not to laugh to much. I just thought it would be fun to give them some video time. Sorry Im in the way of the video.

Getting older

Well I think Ive been pretty accommodating with life. Getting older brings on lots of changes. I haven't let it bother me. The gray hair, wrinkles, fat dimples in the skin, facial hair, age spots on my hands, high blood pressure and all the aches and pains I now have. But not being able to see is making me crazy!! Ive never wore glasses. But I guess I'm going to break down and buy some reading glasses. Every time I open this stupid computer the font is smaller and smaller. Ive complained so much about it, Im sure my husband would like to chuck me out the window. I now have my computer screen up to 125% so I can read everyones blog. So while reading my blog if one day the font is bigger then the next, I'm having a frustrating day being able to see and I taking it out on blogger font.

And little Miss Miley is just full of herself. Endless energy. After playing fetch, talking an hour brisk walk she still was needing attention. So I thought, I take her outside and work some agility. Probably not the brightest idea Ive had. What did I try to work on. Weave poles entrances. Well, I'm sure you can guess how that went. I gave up after three sends and no entrances. I did do some jump work and dogwalk runs. Crazy dog. And for the first time , while I was trying to do the weave stuff, she left to go fence run with the dog next store. Crap!

Test video

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Does this video look and clearer?

Bad Practice

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It was very hot today. We left the field around 10am and it was already 89 degrees. At least in the video I look like I'm running. We also practice putting the leash on and off between some of the sequences. Only once out of five times did she not want to put it on . At the end she must have been really hot. When I was putting stuff away she was lying under one of the tables. A truck went by and she didn't go after it. So that was twice on her own she didn't chase cars. I would like to say it was my training but I think it was just plan hot.

Pictures

Of course the Chihuahua's still wont hold still for a picture. I cant seem to move the pictures anymore with blogger once they are on the post. I'm not sure what is up with that.

I bought an on-line seminar on grooming a sheltie. It was pretty good. I did learn some things but not as much as I was hoping for. I really wanted to learn how to cut ears. It did tell me some things I didn't know on cutting the front of the ear but what about all that hair down the back of the ear. I don't know. I do think they look better but ..... Miley's chest hair was getting so long it kept getting caught in her teeth. LoL.

Agility wise, Miley is having trouble getting into the weaves. So I decided to go back and reteach the 2x2 weave poles to get entrances. It really helped last time but then we had to take that break because of her foot. So things kinda fell apart.