Ferrets, Feet and Footwork

I took the ferrets back to the vet this morning. Its funny , Wednesday I thought the one ferret wasn't going to make it. She just laid in the cage and wouldn't come out. I gave her a little peanut butter but she still didn't perk up. I took her out and she just laid there. I figured this was it. The next morning I went to check on them. I lifted the blanket they sleep under and they both looked up at me. "What, turn the light out". They both looked find. I covered them up. Last night the seemed find. Both came out of the cage and ran around. The one who kept falling over was walking fine. Weird. Anyway the other vet checked them. They ran a blood sugar on the falling over one. Her blood sugar was 25. normal is 60-125 ( I think). So she was pretty low. They said she has insulinoma. So she has to take prednisone everyday. I take her back in a week to see if her blood sugar is better. The other ferret, they think because of the hair loss, has an adrenal tumor. If its on the left,it can be surgically removed. If its on the right , they can only remove a part of it because it wraps around the vena cava and they cant remove it or you die. They didn't feel any tumors but that's what they think. And it only cost 350.00 to have surgery to see which side its on and remove it. Hmmm. I don't think we will be doing surgery. Will just have to let her live as long as she can like this and go from there. The insulinoma ferret can live from 3 months to 3 more years. They just don't know. But at least I didn't put them to sleep.
Next subject is feet. I just cant find a pair of sneaker that don't hurt my legs or feet. I was wearing Adidas trail runner supernova 5, but they don't make them anymore. Ive been buying them different places. ( I guess until they cant be found) I ordered them from a site I found them on, and they are killing my feet. I ordered the same size but they are just not right on my left foot. Maybe they only have defective ones left now. So Ive been looking for another shoe. Ive tried Nike, Brooks, Muinzo, Keen, Asics to name a few. I'm so over this and just don't know what to do. I really need a new pair of shoes. The treads are warn off my old shoes. I guess I will just keep trying.
Footwork. I work Miley a little today. We did that set up that the Agility Nerd had on his site where you work front crosses, rear crosses and serpts. Miley did really well. Then we work on tunnel entrances. Just jump to the tunnel. She did well today. Will see if that holds up. Instead of saying "in", I'm using "here". I try not to use "here" on course because I find if I'm nervous, I will say "here" and not mean to. Or use it in the wrong place. ( Just a note. On my jumpers run where Miley "Qed" and got her title. You hear someone yelling "here", that was the girl in the other ring). Also when I run at a trial, I tend to be really quiet ( again a nerve thing) so I try not to rely on verbals but in this case I'm going to have to do something.

I posted the new header. That's more realistic of my dogs. Why is Guiness's tongue hanging to the side. Because a bicycle had recently come by and Guiness was going crazy. Stephanie was embarrassed by the dog acting crazy. You know, kids never embarrass you, only dogs.

Fall Walk

I took the dogs for a 4 mile hike at the park. It was kind a cloudy until we were almost back. So the fall foliage didn't turn out as nice as it was seen with the eye.





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I thought the holes in this tree made of an interesting picture.



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This tree I just think is cool.

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I like the blackness of the trees in this picture.

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I wish this picture turned out better. They look like they arent happy. They are probably thinking, "How many times do we have to do this?". Lol

I didnt mean to sound so negitive in my last post about Miley's lesson. She looked really good on lots of things. She had great contacts, teeter ,table and until the Master course weave poles.

Class

I finally made it to a class last night. I really need to go more consistently but I just don't know how to do that and get up for work the next day. I took today off. So instead of getting up at 4:50am like I usually do. I didn't get up until 6:15. I just couldn't sleep any longer even though I was hoping to sleep in until 7am. O'well.

I wanted to go to both the novice/open class and the Master's class and Meagan said it was ok to come to both. I left my house with plenty of time to get there a little early so I have time to warm Miley up. But there were 2 huge wrecks on the highway. The first wreck was on the opposite site side and I stupidly thought, "I'm glad I'm not on that side". Guess what, not even a mile and I was in bumper to bumper traffic on my side from another wreck. Ugh! 20minutes and I hadn't gone anywhere. I was finally able to get off the highway and went around. So a trip that should have taken me 1 1/2 hours took 2 hours and 15 min. I was 30 min late for class. Crap. I need as much class time as possible to learn. O'well, I tried my best.

The novice class set up was similar to the course I posted above. I really cant remember what the difference was in the run. The course posted is the master's course. Its from memory and I'm sure the distances and stuff aren't correct. I just wanted to give you an idea of the flow of the course. Both classes I had similar problems. Trying to get the correct tunnel entrance. I just couldn't do it on the #9 to #10. I tried doing a false turn and then shooting her in but I kept releasing her to soon which sent to the off course entrance. Ugh!

I also couldn't figure out how to handle #14-16. Meagan had to show me how to handle it. I wouldn't have figured that out on my own. Which comes to my next problem. This week I couldn't run the sequences that I set up from clean run. I know it was because I couldn't figure out how to run them. So how do you fix that? How do you learn how to run the course. Some things are easy but there are times when it isn't so straight forward.

So #14-15 was handled as a serpentine. You stayed on the 14 side of the jump and pulled your dog back over 15 and then ran them over you feet and flipped them into the tunnel. It worked great. Our last problem of the night was the weaves. You thought I was going to say table huh? First time to the table she was running so fast , she almost slid off but was able to catch herself. WhooHoo! Anyway, the weaves. In the novice class she got the weaves no problem and it was the same, table to the weaves. But in the Master's class she couldn't get it. She kept getting in the second pole. I'm wondering if it had to due with the fact that it was dark. There are lights on the field but its still pretty dark. But after she missed the weave pole entry a couple of times she started that stress behavior of running around the ring and not coming to me. Ugh! So Meagan had me send her over a jump, then reward and stop.

Just a note. We didn't run the whole course at one time with both classes. She broke them down and we worked on small sections. Then at the end of class you ran the whole course.

Choices

The ferrets haven't been doing to well. The one has been loosing its hair. She doesn't look horrible but its noticeable. The other ferret is having problems walking. Sometimes she seems ok then other times she just falls over on her back end. One of them hasn't been going to the bathroom in the litter box. They are almost 6 yr.old. I'm not sure how long ferrets live. When I look it up, some sites say 6 years and some say 10 yrs. I took them to the vet today. The vet thinks there is something neurological going on with one ferrett and the other one she is pretty sure she feels an adrenal tumor. They want to do blood work on the falling over ferret, but it was 200.00. That's a lot of money to spend on a ferret. I'm not sure what to do. If it were my dogs, no problem. I would do it. But a ferret? I just don't know and I think my husband would kill me. The ferret with the adrenal tumor would need surgery. So the vet wants me to bring them back on Saturday to have the other vet ,that has more experience with ferret, see them. If he agrees with the first vet, I may just put them to sleep. Its a hard decision. Ugh!

More Practice

I took Miley out to the field this morning to practice. The sheep were in the area where you park your car. We didn't park in there because they also have a billy goat. Those things are crazy. They will jump on your car and eat it. It also sounded like it was spitting at us.

I decided to do the set-up in this months Clean Run. Its near the back of the magazine and called "Shorties". It had all my problem areas. Weaves, table and tunnel discrimination's. Can you see where this is going? I guess I shouldn't have tired to conquer all the problem areas at the same time. Needless to say we had problems. I couldn't get the correct tunnel entrance most of the time. I couldn't run the sequence the way they said to. It just didn't work. So then I started running it the way I wanted to. We did better, still couldn't get the correct tunnel entrance. I really have to be able to drive to the entrance but sometimes you just cant get there. I think I'm going to teach "in" and "out". In being the the tunnel entrance closest to me, and of course "out" being the entrance furthest away from me. So we practice a little of that. Our weaves were terrible. We couldn't get an entrance if it was on side. Ugh! On the way home my husband asked what I had done different since the trial. Hmmmm. It wasn't what I was doing different versus what I haven't done. I haven't practice any weave pole entries. Last we practice distance work. We work on the tunnel to the teeter again. I need at least one step in the direction to get her to the teeter.

This afternoon we practice just weave pole entrances. WhooHoo, success.

Bugs and Ears

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Look at this praying mantis. Weird huh? Ive only seen them in green. Do you know what this bug was doing? Weave poles. Lol

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I tried grooming the dogs ears. When my husband notices they need to be clipped it must be really bad. They turned out ok. I wish I could a better job. I kinda think Guiness turned out better than Miley's. And I did his first.

Its raining again. I did run Miley through a couple of sequences before the rain started. We worked on some distance challenges. Since the Fast class seems to like tunnel to teeter stuff that's what we worked on. What I realized is I need to be really down the line when she is coming out of the tunnel to show her the line to the teeter. Waiting for her coming out of the tunnel just pulls her toward me. I know you are probably laughing because I should already know this. But sometimes it takes me a while. Lol

Good news. I finally got my AKC height card. My last measurement was in May but I had never received my card. Well I finally got around to sending the AKC an email asking what I needed to do. Apparently the jump height registration papers were coded wrong so it was never sent. They fixed and I received my card yesterday. Yea!

Yesterday

Yesterday was my son's 19th birthday. After work I drove up to his college and had dinner with him. He seemed kinda sad. I think as you get older and realize birthdays just aren't as exciting as when you are younger can be a hard thing to accept. We went to dinner and he was very quiet. He kept apologizing and saying he just didn't know what to talk about. He told me not to bring his birthday presents because he want to wait until he got home this weekend to open them. He was regretting that decision. After dinner we decided to drive around and see if we could find a bookstore. He loves the bookstore and will spend hours there. Just down the street we found a mall. It looked really little but most malls have book stores. Well success. He sat in the bookstore for about an hour reading. I finally told him that I needed to start driving back home. I bought 2 of the books he really liked. When I dropped him off at his door, he jumped out of the car and ran into the dorm. I guess he was really excited to start reading those books. But it made me happy because he now seemed happy. I posted the picture above because its one of my favorites. He loved Batman. So when he was 3yr. old I made this costume. Its just a baseball cap turned backwards. I put makeup on his face. I had bought a pair of black sweats and some black and yellow felt. I cut out the batman symbol and sewed it on. The cape was just some material I cut out , no sewing. He was so happy when he saw himself in the mirror. "I'm batman".

Just some pictures

This was a picture I took of Miley after her JWW "Q". To bad the sun was in her eyes.
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I think the horses are saying, "Crazy damn dog".

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I disagree

Did you read Susan G. blog about having a special connection is a must with your dog. I really disagree with her. Not that I have any of the qualifications on dog training that she does. But I don't think you need to have a special connection when you first meet your dog. When I was looking for Miley , she wasn't the dog I wanted. I was looking at the litter and I wanted a male dog. I like male dogs. I don't know why, I just do. And I really wanted the bi-black boy out of the litter. I went out to spend a couple of days with the breeder to choose the right puppy. The bi-black and bi-blue boys were just so cute, I really wanted one of them. But I couldn't ignore what Miley was showing me. She ran everywhere. When I took each puppy outside, she was the only one to still played with toys. I still didn't know what to do. I wanted a boy. The bi-black boy was so smart and calm. But, I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen and Miley was playing. Running through the kitchen , jumping over my legs, running down, hit the busa board, round the kitchen, under the chairs and back jumping over my legs again. I couldn't ignore that. She was screaming , "pick me, pick me". So I did. And I love her. She has just now starting lying down next to me on the couch. She doesn't like to be loved on. She wants to play all the time. Isn't that why I got her? Why I choose her? Yea it bothered me for while that she didn't want to be loved on. I use to think she didn't like me,but its just her. Besides I have 2 Chihuahua's that sit on you constantly and want to be loved all the time.
Lets look at this another way. When you have a baby and the delivery didn't go to well. I cant say its love at first sight. I'm going to be blunt so you may want to stop reading. When you had forceps up your wazoo and they pulled a baby out that didn't want to come out. You have ripped to your rectum. Its not love at first sight. All I could think of was, "If someone asks me to breast feed that baby, my head is going to spin around and green pea soup is going to come flying out of my mouth". Yea I can look back now and laugh. But I wasn't a happy camper at the time. But did I love my baby . Of course. Did I feel a special connection. Uh, not at that time. But, you take care of them, love them and they love you back. Every day the love grows.
One more thing. What about people who adopt a baby. Can you imagine the adoption agency's faces if you said, "I'm sorry, I don't feel that special connection with this one. Can you bring out another?" Lol. You sometimes learn to love. Love grows.
So anyway, that what I think. Its ok not to feel a special connection. And things will still turn out great!

Beach Pictures

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The dolphins were really close to the shore. They were all jumping out of the water and chasing fish. I took lots of pictures but I was to slow. So there is a lot of pictures with just water splashing.
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Miley did it.

Miley "Q"ed her JWW run. WhooHoo! So she now has her Open Jumpers title. Now we can start playing with the big dogs.
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Next was Standard. She was again awesome. There were 3 tunnel discrimination's. She got the first 2 but the third one I was to far behind and she took the wrong one. Oops! She also missed a jump coming out of the tunnel the first time. Because of the camera angle I cant tell what I did to cause that. I think I should have been on the other side of the jump before the teeter. But it was still a great run.

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After that my legs were starting to hurt.But over all I felt much better today. I didn't stay for Fast. I didn't want to mess up what great runs we had. So we were done by 10am and got to walk the dog on the beach. It was pretty cold this morning, 47degrees. But once the sun came out, it didnt feel bad at all. Ill post some beach pictures tomorrow.

You know that saying...

"Great dog, shame about the handler" ? That was me today. I would first like to say, she did the weaves in both JWW and Standard. That's huge for us. Next, we got the correct tunnel entrance in both JWW and standard. WhooHoo. But no "Q"'s.

First was our Open Fast run. Ah, we had some handler problems but I still feel like it was a good run.
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Next was Open JWW. It was taking forever to get started. I was waiting to run and they were calling the walk thur for Open Standard. The jumpers ring was far behind. There was a new judge with an AKC rep. there. I think that was slowing things down. So I gave Lou Miley, and went and walked Open Standard. But now I was stressed. I walked it a couple of times and went to run my jumpers course.It was kinda a tough course. I was unsure how to handle the pinwheel into the weaves. I really wanted to make sure I drove her to the correct tunnel entrance. But when she came out , she couldn't see me. I should have been on the other side of the jumps. So she went off course and I just went with it. Your dog shouldn't have to look for you coming out of the tunnel.
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After I was done running they called the briefing for Standard. I went over and they decided they wouldn't start until JWW was done. Ugh! I wish I had known that. I did get to walk again.
She missed the teeter and I thought I would just send her to the table. I don't know if she knew she missed the teeter but she did a touch and go on the table and got the zoomies. But when I called her to my side, she came right in. Then got on the table.I wasn't sure how to handle the pinwheel after the a-frame. I was planning on getting in front of her and then front crossing into the pinwheel. But she didn't wait to be released from her 20/20. So that got a little messed up.
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Things I need to work on. Rear crossing into a pinwheel. She isn't taking the 2nd jump of the pinwheel. I'm not sure how to fix that. Also I need to work on post turns. She doesn't seem to read them very well.


They had a B-match after the trial but I was just hurting to much to stay. Several people came up to me and asked if I was staying for the b-match. When I said no, they were like , "really?" Hmmm think they were trying to tell me something? Lol I probably did need to stay and work Miley but I just wanted to leave. I messed up taking my medicine. I usually go to a trial, check in, get my stickers and course maps. If they are walking or close to walking, I walk. Then when I'm done, I go take my medicine to ward off the pain. But I didn't do that today. I'm not sure why. So I didn't take it until right before my standard run. Well I was miserable by then. I wont make that mistake tomorrow.

It didn't rain but it was dark all day. We did get to the beach a few times. Miley isn't tired and she is driving me crazy. We have thrown the ball down the beach a zillion times.
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Pictures

"Look mom , no feet!"

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Isnt she just so happy!



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Off we go to the next trial. The only thing we practiced was some weave pole entries on Tuesday because of all the rain. Should be interesting.

Gotcha!

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Trash

Its pouring down rain today. It poured all day Monday. It was nice Tuesday and I was able to work on weave pole entries. I also took the dogs for a 3 mile hike. But now its back to rain. Its suppose to rain all week. Hopefully it stops by the weekend. This weekend I'm going to a trial that is near the beach. I went to a B-match there in the Spring. It was a nice area. My only complaint was the rings were in the grass, and the ground was rock hard and uneven. I wish they could put the ring in the horse arena, with the dirt. Since it raining all week, maybe the ground wont be so hard. The best part is, the timeline shows I will be done with all 3 runs by 1pm. WhooHoo. Hopefully Miley can keep it together and I can handle things correctly. One thing I notice is I'm not driving to the correct tunnel entrance. I send her and make her choose. I didn't think I was doing that until I watch other people run their dog successfully. That's when I noticed what I was doing and what they were doing. So my goals are to drive to the correct tunnel entrance and the weave poles. Think about where my shoulders are facing and to try and not let her know she is wrong. When I walk the course, I will try to take notice of the off courses that she could take and have a secondary plan to handle the off courses.

I went to have my mammogram today. So I brought in a book that Ive had in my car. Three times now I have tried reading it. I just couldn't get pass some things. But today I thought I would try again. The book is "Dogged Pursuit". I'm sure you have heard of this book. Its about a guy who wants to get another agility dog and be competitive in agility. His first dog is now old. My first problem with this book is he gets a sheltie from rescue that is basically terrified of his own shadow. Why would you pick that sheltie to do competitive agility. If you were doing it to give the dog confidence I could see. But pick a different rescued sheltie. There had to be a better one for what he wanted to do. I hope you are not taking offense to what I'm saying. I just think there could have been a better fit. Plus how many times does the dog have to vomit and poop in his BMW before he puts the the dog in a crate? But the final straw was him talking about a lady and what she does to calm her dog down. If this lady really does this, then she needs a shrink and a man. I'm not sure I can even tell you what she does to her dog before she runs him to help calm him down. Lets just say if he had hands he would probably do it himself. Ugh! How repulsive. Just as I got to that part in the book, they called my name. When I left, I tossed the book in the trash. I'm sorry, I would rather be happy in my ignorance about what people do with their dogs.

Just so you are not left with that disgusting thought, here is a picture of Roxy from this weekend. If you are on my facebook, you've already seen it. At the trial, I got this big cookie with my lunch but didn't eat it. I had put it on the counter. I had planned on moving it but forgot. Roxy runs by me carrying this cookie that was huge, compared to her size. She took off, under the bed, all the way to the back so I couldn't get her. I was freaking out. If she eats that chocolate chip cookie she might die. I was finally able to get it. Afterwards it was funny to think about her running by,head held high, trying to go fast without tripping on the cookie. ( the picture doesnt really show how big the cookie was. It was bigger than her head)

CDTC Day 2

Today was the second day of the trial. I was so tired while driving up to Charolette that I thought about turning around and going home. But I didnt. My first run was Open JWW. Miley was awesome! Took 1st place and Qed in 22 seconds. WHooHoo. Ive uploaded the video to YouTube but the first time is was blurry. Not sure why. I did everything the way I always have done. Not sure if it will still be blurry on the second try. So if it is blurry, sorry.

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Next we ran Open standard. I don't have any video because I couldn't find anyone to tape me. We had a great run. No crazy jumping on and off the table. She ran the whole course without any circling or taking obstacles she wasn't suppose to. I did pull her off a jump when I rear crossed and when she got on the table, I thought if I moved to get into position for the next jump, she might break. So when I released her, I was facing the jump but not toward the weaves. She took the jump but was wide and really had to pull in to get the weaves. So she went in on the right instead of the left. Oops my fault. But she was ok and finished nicely.

I probably should have left then. It was only 11am. But I stayed for open Fast. It was a crazy run. She scooted up from her start line, all the way up to the first jump. Uhg!! But she popped over and didn't knock the bar when I released her. We couldn't get the send bonus. It looks like there is room to run after the tunnel but there wasn't. I just couldn't get her to have forward momentum. So she got a little crazy after that. I should have stepped over the line and helped. I don't know what I was thinking. But I got her back and finished nicely.

CDTC trial

Well , I'm home from the trial. I had finished all three runs by 1pm and was home by 3pm. Cant beat that. The rain held off. I was planning to leave and not do standard if it started raining. I didn't want Miley falling off any equipment. But it only rained for a couple of minutes in the morning and that was it.

Our first run was Open fast. The blue numbers was the course I was planning to run except the #10 tire. My front cross after the triple was late , so she took the tire before coming in for the a-frame. The run was great! She did everything, even the weaves were perfect. When I did the send bonus, I had planned to back up after she was in the tunnel so that I could then give forward motion driving into her line, to put her over the next two jumps in the send. I remembered to do it and did it right. She read it perfectly. We ran the course in 24 seconds and got 62 points. First place, whoohoo. Things are looking up.

Right after Fast, was Open jumpers.

I wanted to try really hard to make sure my shoulders were in the correct position for the weaves. Then next thing was the tunnel entrance. When you went over jump #7, the dog could only see the wrong tunnel entrance. I know it doesn't look that way on paper , but walking it, that's the way it was. Miley ran great but went into the second pole, I didn't fix it. And she took the wrong tunnel entrance. I should have driven harder into her line and to the correct tunnel entrance. I was already thinking about getting in front of jump #9 for when she came out of the tunnel. Then rest of the course was great.

Last was Open standard.

First off, Miley jumped on the table and went right into a down. And didn't jump off the table. WhooHoo. Contacts were great. She really ran great until...... She went into the weaves, the correct pole. I was thinking, wow we might actually pull this off. But no. She popped out of the 10th pole and then took that dummy jump right in front of the weaves. Some how she most have known she was wrong. I'm not sure if I'm doing something, maybe stopping motion, that is causing her to know she was wrong. So then she got the zoomies. After that jump she went up the a-frame and jumped off from above the yellow. I'm freaking out thinking she is going to break her leg. Then she runs into the tunnel and I caught her coming out. I took her off the course. I wasn't trying to say she was bad, I just didn't want her doing dangerous things. I hope I handled it ok. She still got treats, just not as many as she usually does.

Over all things were so much better than they were at the last trial. I just need to react better when she goes off course, so she doesn't know she is wrong. I'm not sure why she is so concerned about being wrong. Its not like I have ever done anything to her for being wrong. Weird. I got a lot of great compliments about our runs, which always makes you feel better.

B-match

This weekend I'm going to an agility trial. Today they had a B-match at the trial site but not in the same ring as the trial. So we could use food rewards. WhooHoo! I had signed up for 2 runs. All day I kept thinking I couldn't go because I just didn't feel good. I couldn't imagine how I was going to drive an hour and a half to the site after work. But I really, really wanted to work on Miley's table. So I went. My very nice husband brought Miley to my work so I didn't have to drive home and get her. Plus he brought me an ice cream. Hey, life doesn't get much better than that. So off we went. We got there around 5pm, I think the match started around 3:30. So we missed the first run thurs. We signed up for the second one. Here was the course, taken out of Clean Run.

This was the hardest course I have ever walked. How was I going to get my dog from # 3 teeter to #4 table without going off course? It doesn't look that bad on paper , but when walking it, all the off course obstacles were staring you in the face. Then trying to get from #12 tunnel to #13 weaves, good lord. What the heck? We didn't have much time for the walk thur and by the time I thought maybe I should run the novice or excellent course instead, to late the whistle blew to leave the course. When it was our turn I really wanted to treat it like a trial. It felt like a trial except not as many dogs. I did have a 2 hour wait from the time I arrived until we ran, so that's like a real trial. Finally it was our turn. What dog would show up at the start line. Ill tell you which one, the creeping forward and wanting to break her stay. But she didn't. Off we went. And what happened after the teeter? My dog shot out, like a bat out of hell, over jump #10 and into the tunnel. I'm sure my shoulders told her that, because she was so sure that was the way to go. After the tunnel, I said table. Drum roll please.........and she got on the table and stayed on the table. WhooHoo!! Boy was she shocked when she got a treat. The look on her face was priceless. Then off we went thur the course. Beautiful dogwalk, correct tunnel entrance and a-frame. Then the tunnel. I really didn't know how to handle into the weaves. I think I was to the left of the weaves toward the tunnel exit but some how I blew it and she missed the entrance. I had to bring her around and she got in. We had a nice finish. Great run, no circling and she got on the table. What a blessing.

Now to wait for our next run. But now its after 7pm and they are running tall to small. So we are last. I didn't know what to do. If I waited until my next turn I wasn't going to get home until 10 or 11pm. So after a little thinking, I went up and asked if we could run at the bottom of the 8 inch dogs that were running now and just do 8 inch jumps. They said ok. The girl who was waiting next was going to jump 4 inches but she was very nice and let me get in front of her. I told her I would be quick. She said not to worry. "Ive seen your dog run. She is fast. You'll be done in a few seconds".

So here we go again, but I was going to run the course a little differently. I was going to go teeter to the chute and then on the course. Then after the a-frame straight into the weaves and skip the tunnel. It worked great, except Miley self released on the dogwalk, into the tunnel. Again, boy was she surprised when I picked her up and put her back on the dogwalk. So I then released her into the correct tunnel entrance. She came zooming out the other side and straight up the dogwalk. Oops! I stood by the table. Told her touch as she reached the far side and then released her and she came straight to the table. Whoohoo!! Finished the course and she did the weaves perfect. Whoohoo.

I hope it goes this well this weekend.

O'yea snake #4 -terminated.

What is this?

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You thought it was an A-frame but you are wrong. Its a squirrel feeder.



Here a picture from our walk today.

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Turf Wars

Last night we had turf wars in our room. The dogs barked and growled alot last night. I'm not sure what the problem was. Mickey sometimes growls when he is worried someone or some dog is going to step or roll over on him. But everyone seemed in on the chaos. My husband said Guiness was sleeping on the ottoman,which is usually Miley's spot. So Miley kept getting on the bed and stepping on my husband which probably caused Mickey to start growling and then Miley barking. Ugh! I finally kicked Micky out of the bed. It was quiet after that.
Today I took the dogs for a nice walk at the park. It was cool outside and the park was quiet. Nice and peaceful. Then a little later I took Miley to the field to practice. We had a very nice practice. She got all her weave entries except one and of course my shoulder were not facing the correct way. We then practice small sequences with front and rear crosses. I tried running with out using my arms. I think my arm flinging causes my shoulders to turn , which then leads to other problems. Mostly this was successful.
After that, Stephanie and I drove up past Charlotte to Concord, North Carolina. She wanted to go up to that big mall to look for a homecoming dress. Its very hard to go shopping with Stephanie, well more like torturous. But she actually did better than I excepted and found a cute little ( little being the operative word here) dress. Hey I have to pick my battles. It was a long day but I'm finally done with everything. I hope I can do nothing tomorrow, I want to be lazy for a day.

Private lessons

I took 2 private lessons with Karen Holik this week while she was here. On Tuesday we worked on the table issue first. She first thought Miley was coming off because of something I was doing with my body motion. Nope, that wasn't it. Then she thought Miley didn't understand her job. Nope, that wasn't it. We tried to make Miley fail at the table but she just wouldn't, until we got things really exciting. She had to run and play with Sizzle close to where I was working Miley on the table to get her to fail. Then I could correct her. It was probably a mistake to let her not get on the table at trials because then Miley figured she didn't have to do the table. So if she does it at a trial again, I'm to bring her around back to where her approach was and make her get on that way. Don't let her pick the way she wants to get on. She gave me table drills to work on with her. And I need to do it in really exciting environments. Karen thinks you should reward the dog coming off the table toward you because they are never going to be fed going away from you( toward the table), or when they are on the table at a trial. But they may get a reward coming toward you, they dont know. When you release from the table, you have set their line and they are coming toward you. ( remember this is what I think I heard her say).
Next we workes on weave poles. We set up entries and Miley did really well. I think she only missed one. So then Karen had me run a small sequence. Guess what, Miley missed the entry. Why, because of what my body motion was showing her. I first was way behind my dog when I could have led out from the a-frame. So when I released her to the jump she then started to curl back toward me because I was so far behind. Which made the weave pole entry hard and then my shoulder were turned and not facing the weaves. So totally my fault. I wonder how many times I have done that to my dog. She gave me weave poles entries to work on and an exit drill to work on. When I worked Miley tonight I notice her head was up every time she came out of the poles. Probably looking for the bait bag flying over her head. I thought I had better timing but this shows that I don't.

The next day we worked on pinwheels because at the trial I pulled Miley off the 2nd jump in the pinwheel a couple of time. Again, its me and my shoulder rotation that is causing the dog to pull off the number 2 jump in the pinwheel. The 2nd jump in a pinwheel is a forward send. As soon as your dog is committed then you can turn and run. Once I did it correctly, Miley did really well and had a tight turn.
Lastly we worked on rear crosses. I really messed theses up. Depending on how tight you need your dog to cross will dictate how you cross. If I wanted my dog to turn tight as I rear crossed her, I should step laterally toward my dog as she is parallel to me. Then cross behind the dog. If I need her to go out more and then cross, I need to converge on her line. I cant remember the third type of rear cross was , so I sent her an email and asked her. I forgot to bring my notebook to the lesson to write down stuff.
They were good lessons and I'm going to try the stuff she told me. I don't have anything to loose considering how the last trial went.