Well, this was depressing.

I decided to go through my trial journal to see when exactly  my table issue started.  It was really depressing seeing what went on.  Why didnt I do this sooner?  Why was I writing all this down if I wasnt going to read it? ( dont feel like you need to read this or comment. I really just did it for my own benefit)


09/27/08   1st trail(akc) ,   jumped on and off the table several times.
09/28/08   got on table
12/20/09   2nd trial(usdaa),  got on table
01/2409    3rd trail (akc)   didnt get on table.
01/25/09   got on table, took a long time to go into a down.
04/04/09  4th trial (akc)   got on table.  It was the only day I wrote stuff about the trial.
04/19/09   5th trial ( akc)  got on table.
05/30/09  6th trial (akc)   ran by table.
05/31/09   ran around table 4 times.
This next trial is when I realized I really had a problem.  wonder why I didnt notice it sooner?  It was already a problem. A big problem. Ugh!
07/02/09  7th trail (akc)  got on table without any problems.
07/03/09  I didnt write anything about the table being a problem. but got whistled off the course for training in ring.
09/19/09 8th trail. (akc)  jumped on and off the table, then circled me a lot.
09/20/09  wouldnt get on table.
09/25/09  GCOC trial,  This was our trial.I didnt write anything for the 3 days.
10/10/09  10th trial (akc).   did a great table.
10/11/09  No sure about the table on this run.
10/17/10 11th trial (akc)  I didnt write anything about the table
10/18/10  again didnt write anything about table
11/7/09 12th trial (akc)  jumped on and off table and circled me 3 time times
11/08/09  jumped on and off table I moved on .
12/30/09 13th trial,  I didnt put her on the table on this run
12/31/09 didnt put her on table
01/1/10  got on table on 2nd try.
01/22/10 14th trial.  (akc), wouldnt get on table, stress circling
01/23/10  didnt have her do the table
02/20/10 15th trial,  (akc)  didnt have her do the table
02/21/10  didnt have her do the table
02/27/10 16th trail (usdaa)  didnt do any runs with table
03/13/10  17th trail (akc)  Looks like I couldnt avoid. the table so she jumped on and off and we kept going
03/14/10  didnt have her do the table.
04/03/10 18th trial, Looks like I didnt enter standard
04/09/10 19th trial. didnt get on table.
04/11/10  didnt have her do the table.
04/24/10 20th trial ( usdaa) didnt do any runs with tables
05/01/10 21st trail. (akc)  didnt have her do the table
5/29/10  22dn trail (usdaa) didnt do any runs with tables
7/3/10 23rd trail. (akc) didnt get on table started circling.
7/16/10 24th trail (usdaa) ran standard.  Didnt try to get her on the table. Just had her come next to me, and sit right next to the table. That was no problem.

So out of all the runs that I have table information on, and ones that I attempted to get her on the table, 6 times she got on without any problems,  14 times showed some type of problem.  I went through my course maps to see if I wrote anything else down, when I didnt write it in the trial journal.  I just cant go through the video right now. Its to depressing.  When I start feeling more positive and feeling  like I cant tackle this problem again, Ill go through the video.

So lets see something happy and beautiful!

Hey Look!

I went to one of Meagan's classes for the first time in 5 months.  After class I thought I would see if Miley would get on the table.  Last time I was at a class there , she would not.  But look, no problem.   Its not the best photo, it was taken with my phone.  I tried to watch all her body movements to make sure she wasnt showing any signs of stress.  I didnt see anything.  One thing I know I do a lot, is make the table last in a sequence. I was thinking maybe thats why its such a negative.  Its the end of the fun.  So Im trying to make sure I never finish with the table.   Will see what happens this weekend.

Here are a couple of the courses we ran.  I had the most trouble with the first one.  Im not sure the distances are correct.  I know the jumps were tight and the tunnels were close to the jumps.  If you care about what I had trouble with you can read the stuff I wrote on the course map.

Fun class, Im glad  I went.  Thanksgiving was fun.  My husband got up early Thursday, helped my mom put the turkey in and then went to run a 5K race. He ran in the Turkey Trot they had in Savannah.  He think he did all that before I got  up.  LOL .  My son didnt come to Thanksgiving. He had to work Thursday.  Then Friday morning he called me and he was feeling terrible.  It was a really bad cold but seemed worse than a cold.  I thought maybe he was getting the flu but he never go a fever. (he had his flu shot too).  He was miserable Friday and Saturday.  Today he seemed much better.  Still had all the cold symptoms just didnt feel that miserable feeling all over.  Good thing too,because he had to go back to school today.
Here is the bunny squirrel that is at my moms house.

Lake Murray

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wordless Wednesday

Finally a Trick

I finally have a trick for trick day.   Miley is being a pony.  Well really a stallion but since she is a girl, I just called it being a pony.

Fall Hike

OK, the only way I can load photos is to go into setting and change back to the" old editor".  So we load they way we use to load but I cant make the pictures bigger.  So then I manually went in and changed the width and ht px to 426 and 640.  Now they are big like with the new blogger editor.  Kinda a pain but I have no choice since I can load any pictures the other way. It must have something to do with bloggers new editing and explore 8.

Practice and stuff

Yesterday we held our co-op agility class.  I pulled a set up I saw on someone's blog( video) and just kinda guess at the distances.  Then we all try to run it.  The first couple were easy. But then it got  much harder.  I dont  think I ran any of the harder ones with out either going off course or dropping a bar. It looks like she dropped the bars either taking off to early or I gave late cues.   It makes me wonder if we should be trialing if we cant run these sequences correctly at home.  The only trial Ive signed up for is a USDAA trail at the beach.  Its a small trial that feels more like a b-match.  Im just going to work on start line stays.  If she breaks, we will leave the ring.  I have  a few more weeks until  that trial.  Will see how that goes and decided if we should be trialing.
This was the easy course.


This was the more complicated course.



It took several tries to get this right.  I need to work on wraps.  We had lots of trouble getting them.  I didnt post any of the bad runs, I just deleted them.  LOL  Only remember the positive.  She didnt break any start lines so that was good.  But Im sure at the trial , she will.

We took a walk at the park.  Some of the trees were just beautiful. Well, I just cant get any pictures now to load to blogger.  Ugh!!!!!

Today

You wouldnt believe what I had to go thur to get this picture loaded.  I seem to be having problems loading from my computer. Blogger keeps saying "security error".  Ive tried to google that but nothing that offers me any hlep came up.  So I had to reload my picturs thur Photoshop and save them and then load them to blogger. Ugh. Irritating.
I took today off. I was going to drive Stephanie to Atlanta for an  portfolio review with PRATT University.  But Ive just been so tired so my nice husband took her.   I stayed home. I wanted to do all this stuff but just didnt have the energy.  I did manage to take Miley to the field for a short training session.   We had issues which is to be expected.  Leaving the teeter early. I put her through the weaves a few time, she popped out early.  She dropped a couple of bars because she took off to early.  She just gets so excited and I know she thinks she will get there fast her she leaves earlier.  Silly dog.  Then the table. Ugh!  She is ok with the table when its at the beginning of the set up.   Then I ran her couple times with no table. Then I ended with the table and the problems showed up.  She would go off course to avoid the table. She would get close then turn off.  I then got the clicker out and worked just going to to the table.  I did manage to get her running back to the table.  I think that just putting  the table  at the beginning of the runs doesnt  really work on solving the problem. I think I need to put it in the middle of the runs so that it becomes as common placed as a jump.   It was weird when working with her. She was fine with the table and then all of a sudden, she wasnt.  I have no idea why.  I keep playing it over and over again in my head.  Nothing seemed different.  I wish I had been video taping.

  Someone said to me , "I bet you've cried a lot over Miley's table".  Funny, no I havent.  What does crying do?  Have I obsessed about it?   Sure. I have I been frustrated ? yep!  Will it ever get fixed?  I dont know but Im going to try to keep working on it.  Unless Miley becomes unhappy , then we my never do AKC again.  LOL

Security error

Every time I try to load pictures I get "Security error". Anyone have any suggestions for me.  Ive tried googling it but cant find an answer. 

NYC #2

More of central park.

This was St. Peters church ( I think).  It was kinda weird. People were allowed inside to tour but they were holding mass.  It felt really weird to be in there.  I only took 2 pictures.

Then we were beat and my sister and I went back to the hotel.  Stephanie and her cousin went on there own.

Yes the wax museum of famous people.  I dont know the real name.

The next morning we got up early and went to CBS.

We watched the "Sunday Morning" show.  Most of it is taped and this guy comes in and does all the short segments. It was interesting to see how they piece it all together. Then at the end he had to wait because they had to shorten the end . The regular station show ran over so they fix that by adjusting his time on the air.
After that we went to the Statue of Liberty.  It was a really long wait.  The security to get on the ferry  was worse then the airport. Anything with metal had to be taken off and put thur the machine.  Even then, some people had to patted down.  Not us , thank goodness.

We went to China town next. I dont have any pictures of that.  Then the trip was over. Well, except the the scary ride in the cab to the airport.  The cab driver was a manic.

Wordless Wednesday

Taken by my niece.

NYC 1st post.

Let just say it was exhausting!!  I cant even begin to tell you how much my legs and feet hurt.  We walked and took the subway everywhere.   The first day we went to  ground zero but you cant really see much because of all the fencing. Plus they are putting up the new building.  But then someone had to find a restroom and we went inside this cool building.

 

Inside was really neat but I just couldnt get a good shot.

Once inside you went up these steps and you could look out the window to ground zero.

There was also can art all around the inside of this building/mall.

I couldnt see the designs at first. Then my sister said look at it through your camera.  And that worked and you could see the designs.  Funny.

Then it started getting dark.

 After some shopping, where I didnt buy anything.  It might be a great deal it was still a 100.00 purse. Im not spending a 100.00 dollars on something that isnt dog related. LOL
So then we went back to our hotel and got ready to do see .....

Great show and funny.  There were a couple of time where Sean Hayes did some funny mannerisms and then Kristin Chenoweth would try not to laugh. She would have  her head down or turned but then you could see her shoulders shaking.  It was funny.  There were a couple of unplanned funny things that happened.  Thats always entertaining.

The next morning we went to Radio City and saw the Rockettes Christmas show.

It was a very nice show.  They did some 3-D stuff that was really neat.  Then they did this thing with a bus. The bus was real but the drive through the city was using a background. It looked almost real.  I dont know, its  hard to describe.   Then we went to Central Park.  Wow,was that a crowed place.   People everywhere. I just cant describe how many people were there.  Not like in the movies.

More tomorrow.

To Tired to Post

Im to tired to post anything  much . We are waiting for our next flight. So here are some pictures of Ben Stiller filming in NYC.  Stephanie was very excited we got to see him.  Its for his new film  "Tower Heist". ( There was no free internet at the hotel so I couldnt post.)

Hate Flying

I took the above picture yesterday evening from my cell phone.  It was so pretty out when I got to the park but I didnt bring the good camera because I didnt think there would be anything to take pictures of.

Im on my way to NYC. A sisters/daughers weekend. We just got off the first plane.  Man I hate flying.  The wings go down, the plane banks to the right. The this wings go down the other way, and we bank to the left.  Then we turn again. Its not like we are on a twisty road.   I want to go knock on the cabin door and say, "What the heck?"  Cant it be a straight line. Im only going 30 minutes from Columbia to Charlotte.  Then the one flight attendant (small plane) tells me we need to open the window shade on the decent to the airport. What, the pilot have a blind spot or you just want me to have a better view when we crash?  I dont know, seemed like a weird request.  But we made it here. Now waiting for the next flight.  The boys had to stay home and take care of the dogs.  Poor dogs. LOL just kidding.  Thanks Lou!

Teaching Stay

I found a new way to teach Miley that start line stay.  She is watching a video of Patricia McConnell teaching stay.

Got Tunnels

I taught a class yesterday at the field.  One of the people I knew who was coming  has been trying to motivate her dog. He runs really fast at home but not at class.  One of the things I suggested she change was playing  with the tennis ball.  He really likes the tennis ball and she plays it  a lot with him. So I told her to only play the tennis ball game when he does agility.  Well the dog has really started to speed up.  So when I was thinking about class, I thought I would set up a tunnelers course since her dog really likes tunnels and does them fast.   OMG, do you know how hard it is to set up that many tunnels?  A killer.   I got tired at the end  and  one of the tunnels was changed to the chute.   I asked the student to tape me one time so you could see the course.  I didnt run it like it was on the paper above.  Also note, I didnt design the course.  Its a NADAC course map but I was unable to down load the file so I redid it on course designer. So dont want to get in trouble from trying to say this is mine.  I did NOT design the course above. 

What a lot of work to run the tunnelers course too!!  We added little things as class went on. I put some weave poles in and changed the teeter for the table.  I think we only ran the full course once or twice and then we did little parts.  It was to hard to run all that.  Class was lots of fun and the dogs seemed happy. 
I stuck to my "No stay,No play" rule.  She broke once and went into the tunnel. So she lost her turn and went into her crate.  The next time out she didnt move a muscle on the startline but when she was released she went slow thur the tunnel. So she knows something she did wasnt correct but Im not sure she knew it was the break at the startline.  She didnt break anymore.  Now my next dilemma is, how strict should I be at the startline.  Any movement at all , and you loose your turn?  It kinda worried me how slow she went thur the tunnel after having to go to the crate. So I did let her take a step once and leaning forward another time.  But maybe it needs to be black and white.  Maybe it should be "you move, you loose".  Any opinions?
She also didnt have any problems getting on the table. Ugh!  How am I going to fix this problem if it only happens at trials.  In the article this month  about tables, it talked about the dog showing stress at home when doing tables that you may not recognize.  So I had the student take some pictures of Miley running to the table to see if she has any stress in her body signals.  I dont see any.  Most of the pictures are blurry but they pretty much look the same. Does anyone see anything?

My computer was going to cost to much to fix so I bought a new one.  I debated on a ipad but I felt like I needed a laptop to do all things I need.  This time I bought one that should be able to handle  HD camera editing should I ever get a HD camera.

No computer

My laptop is having problems for the last several weeks.  Some thing is wrong with the "C" drive.  First I lost all my pictures.   Insert massive panic!   My son was able to help me and  fix part of the "C" drive that was corrupt and I got the pictures back.   But there are still corrupt files in the "C" drive so I am unable to open Internet Explorer on my computer.  Any software that uses Internet explorer will not open.  The only way I can get on the Internet is through google chrome.   Its very irritating and I lost all my favorites that I was using.  So if I havent visited your site its probably because I can no longer find you. Ugh!!  So if you leave me a comment to I can link to you blog that would be great.  The last couple of days Ive been moving all my pictures, videos and  documents onto an external hard drive.  It still didnt fix the "C" drive.  So I dropped it off last night to have someone look at it and hopefully fix it.      I will not be able to post any pictures until I get it back.  I had already had this picture on a saved post and thats why it here.

Startline Stays

So Ive been trying to fix Miley's startline stay.   On Monday I help teach a beginning agility class.  There are only 2-3 people in the class so "T" and I run our dogs too. We are working on handling skills.  So this week I decided enough is enough.  Im going by Meagan's "No Stay, No Play" policy. If she doesnt stay at the start line, she goes back in her crate and looses her turn. Well guess what, she didnt break all night.  But it will happen again.  And Im sticking by that policy.   Anyway, I was talking to "T" in some emails about start line stays and his dog has this issue too.  So here is his reply he sent me.  It had me cracking up but you probably have to have this issue to find this funny. Maybe not...

"I am just worn out by this whole start line thing.  They should do agility like they do NASCAR, you get to warm up for a few laps, then they wave a flag to start when you are at full speed!   Plus, in horse racing and dog racing, they put them in a box and open the door when its time.  And, the jockeys are already on the horses!  I've even seen pig races (at a steakhouse in Montana) and the pigs don't have to have a start line stay.  Pigs are smarter than dogs.  So, why, WHY do they do things this way in agility?  Rubberized contacts, weave pole spacing, displaceable tires ... who cares!  The real tragedy in the sport is the start line stay."


Way to funny and had me cracking up.


When I got home today this was posted on facebook.   Too funny. This is for you "T"