Seminar weekend!

I went this weekend to a Daisy Peel seminar.  I only did half a day on Saturday and then the whole day Sunday.  I left my house with plenty of time to get there. I was even planning on stopping to get lunch. Well there was an accident on the highway and we only moved 2 miles in 30 minutes. Ack!! Now I was going to be late because I did stop to go to the restroom. I got there about 5 minutes late. I felt bad but there was nothing I could do.
Saturday was on blind crosses.  Very fun!!.  I wish there had been a whole day on this.  Ok, I know most of you probably know this and Im the only person who didn't but here is goes.  Its what you do before you blind cross that cues the turn. OMG!!  LOL, I didn't know this.   So your lateral motion, or your deceleration ect. cues the turn. Good to know!!  LOL



Only 5 dogs were there, so we got a lot of running time and it was great!!!  After the day ended I drove down to my parents and spent the night. It was only an hour from the seminar so a lot closer than my house.
The next morning I made sure I had plenty of time to get there. I wasn't going to be late again!  I got there with no problem.  This day was on cueing combinations.  We aren't allowed to post any video from Sunday.  You would think I would  have been perfect since I had seen these before went I went out to Oregon  to the DP camp. But I wasn't. Ugh!!   One of Java's relatives was there too.  And then several other people I knew.  That was nice, to know people at the seminar.   Today was full with I think with 11 participants so not as much working time as yesterday but still nice.  It was nice out, until you were running. Then the sweating came on. LOL    I think Java has definitely improved since the last time I saw Daisy in person.  She is no longer driving all on her front and not stopping when asked.  Before if I stopped on course, she would just fly on by but now she engages here rear end and can stop.   (although still needs to be reminded sometimes). Several dogs had this problem at the seminar and they had to do the stopping on course thing and reward the dog if they actually stopped. We did one more very short easy set up at the end of the day. I was tired and just wanted to stop. So I didn't do well on an easy course. Ugh.  So Daisy suggested I listed to this book on tape called, "The Sports Gene".  (its not an agility book).  But she thought it would be insightful for me to read.  She said I have good foot work,  and motion and training on my dogs. I lack figuring out timing. When to do the footwork and the motion. (its true and Im not offended by this at all).  Ive never been good at any sport.  My timing was horrible. Always. Ugh.    Oh well, all I can do it keep working at it. I think I am getting better.  Miley finally got a double Q a couple of weeks ago and Java Qed all three runs on that last Saturday. So I hope Im going in the right direction.

I had new carpet put in my bedroom. Holy crap, what an ordeal that was.  I had no idea how much junk was in my bedroom. Then in the closet, they thought they could just remove this bar that was attached to the floor and the clothes would be ok. Nope, everything fell to the ground. Ugh!!  So now all the clothes had to be removed from the closet too.  What a lot of freaking work.

Its does look nice!!

Got turning cues?

I have turning cues but my dog is not reading them.  She also can turn tight, but isn't. See video below.



This is part of my Daisy P homework.  The last sequence  was so frustrating.  Daisy said that Java is just seeing jumps in front of her and taking them instead of checking in with me. (Remember when she wouldnt take jumps in front of her??  Ugh)   Also she is running on her front  and not engaging her rear end.  So she wants me to play the freeze game. Run, stop, if she stops with me, reward and then keep going.   Then add it to courses. The reward is to get to go on. Also to go into the jump more so I can show more motion when going away from the jump.  We'll see if I can fix this.
Not much going on. Its freezing and I haven't been doing much. I HATE winter.

Day 2

Look, Java is 8 months old!
On day 2 of the seminar I audited. Java could have done the foundation stuff but I didnt know that. I was worried about doing a lot of jumping but they really didnt.  O,well.  First I was tired.  Driving 2 hours home after the seminar and then getting up and being back by 8am was rough. I got up and thought, "I cant do this".  But I did do it.     I decided to sit in a different spot on Saturday because I had a hard time hearing on Friday.  On Friday, I was seated to the side but sitting next to some people I knew. So Saturday I wanted to sit straight in front so I could hear better. But I was sitting next to this lady who had a bad attitude. She was in the puppy seminar and I dont remember her being like this but I wasnt sitting right next to her. She apparently was mad at this dog for not lying down on the table at agility trials.  When the instructor has to call you out on your attitude repeatedly, thats bad. You think she would have been embarrassed.  She didnt treat her dog very nice either. It made me sick!!! And you should have seen how people were trying to help her with her dog. I think the one girl, who was also auditing, was trying to help her because she felt bad for the dog. But it got me thinking. Was this lady doing this for attention?  Finally after she talked again about her dog not lying on the table at trials again, I told her "my dog hasnt gotten on the table at a trial in 2 year, at least your dog gets on the table". First she just looked at me like I was crazy. Then she said "And you are still trialing her?"  I said yes, its not the dogs fault. She didnt say anything else. But then she hurt her ankle. She was just standing there and took a step. She said she heard something pop. She  left the seminar. I know you think Im mean, but I was glad she left.  She was making things unpleasant.
The first half of the day was working on foundation stuff.   4 basic turns on the flat. Which this was good because Ive been teaching this in my class and they have been struggling. But so were all these people in this class. So I didnt feel to bad. I kept thinking it was how I was teaching it but it just must be hard to master. The one thing I liked is, she taught the "Front Cross" in a two step process. Ive been teaching it as one fluid motion. I think this will help my class. Then they worked on the 6 "Recall to heel" postions.  When you are teaching this, the most important part is your dog coming in straight. And you want them to be pefect with this. If they cant do it slow, they will never be able to do it at speed.  It doesnt sound like much but that took the first half of the day.
The second half of the day was Running Contacts. Now trying to learn running contacts in a half a day seminar , impossible.   But it gives you an idea of whats involved in the process. There are major differences in how she teaches it vs Sylvia T. ( at least in my opinion).  It was confusing and I started to wonder it I should have audit this half of the day.  Sylvia wants you dog running, as fast as they can,always.  Daisy, just wants them out of a trot and with good feet separation.  As long as their gait is right, even if they speed up, the gait will stay the same. (Ive been struggling getting Java to really run and not be airy) Daisy doesnt worry about the dog being airy either.  Daisy wants the dog running without you moving at all. Sylvia, what every it takes to keep the dog running.  But both methods must work because the dogs learn it. There are other small differences too. I like how she taught turns off the dog walk.  Im sad to say that I didnt stay to the end. I left an hour early. I was cold. It was 50 but the wind had really blowing all day and I was tired.  I know, Im a wimp. When I read about the temps that some people work in, I dont know how you guys do it! 
Please remember this is what I heard and took away from the seminar.  It may not all be correct.

The seminar

This weekend was the Daisy Peel Seminar.  On Friday I had a private lesson at 9am and then I was signed up for the puppy seminar at 1pm.  I took Miley with us because I want to talk about her table issues. I had video on my computer to show her where at B-matches, she gets on the table, then doesnt at trials.  (Most of my video was lost because I accidentally dropped my video camera chip on the floor and didnt know it. Java chewed it up and it didnt work anymore.  So then I only have what I loaded onto YouTube )   First we talked about Miley.  She watched the video.  When she saw the video with Miley running big circles around the ring, she said "Oh My".  LOL  "She isnt even taking any jumps".  So we watched a few more videos. She said she didnt think Miley was stressed at all. She said once you move on, she is right back on track and she may even be running a little faster.  She thinks Miley is circling me at the table to get me to move. Which works. She circles me three or four times, I get embarrassed or what ever, then I move on and we do the rest of the course. So we took Miley out into the agility field. She had me set Miley up. Walk out about 20 feet and call her to me. She came. But then when we started to walk back up the field, she starts circling me. Which is usual. I try to control it by calling her to me, to stop it. Or putting her on leash. But thats not correcting the behavior, thats just stopping her from doing it which isnt the same thing. The dog needs to choose not to do it.  So thats what we worked on. When I got to where I wanted to be and stopped, I was to stand there and wait for Miley to choose to stop circling. Its me she is trying to get to do something. She doesnt circle anyone else.  And when Im at a trial, when she starts circling  at the table, I am just to stand there until she does anything else but circle , then give her a verbal reward and leave the ring and give her  her treats. This behavior has more to do with me stopping and the dog trying to get me to move. So I can work on this at home because she circles me when we are practicing and I stop, either to start something else or to redo something that went wrong. She said it will probably take a long time to correct. Because you only get once a day to work on the table at a trial, she thinks it will take about 20 trials.  And hopefully I have nice judges who wont whistle me out of the ring. I will have to be really watching for any change in behavior while circling, like even going from a run to a trot. I will need to video tape every run and time how long it takes for her to stop circling and then make sure that time is decreasing. 
On Java she told me I cant have both. I cant work on getting her to"wait" but also work on her drive. I need to forget about getting her to "wait" for now, there will be plenty of time to work on that later. Just work on her drive. And all the things Im doing are  great for that. And its ok to let you dogs chase each other to encourage them to run. I need to work on getting her to come in straight to me on the "call to heels".  You have to expect perfection because they arent doing it at speed right now. If they cant do it right slowly, then will never get it with speed and jumps in the picture. 
Then the lesson was over. I was so excieted about the table stuff for Miley. I hope she is right. I had 3 hours to wait for the puppy seminar. So I drove out to the beach. It was a warm day but cloudy and it rained a few times while out at the beach. There was not one there which was awesome. I wish I had more time but I only had 30 minutes so I didnt get great pictures. I hope to go back sometime.

There were down trees everywhere. My faviorite.

"Who added the soap suds?"

I only had about 30 minutes at the beach before it was time to drive back. Then I couldnt find my car.  I parked right at the beach, how could I not find my car?  I think part of the problem was there were no other cars there, so you couldnt say, "oh ya I remember that car".  All the parking lots looked the same.What the heck?  So then I turned down this road but I just knew that wasnt right. I came back and walked a little further and there was my car. Some trees were blocking me from seeing it. Ugh!! Then I got lost driving back to where the seminar was. You couldnt put her address in your GPS because it wouldnt take you to her house and I forgot  to  mark it in my GPS.  So I was lost. I called her but had to leave a message. She called me back and I was so close and just didnt know it. LOL. But I was late for the start of the seminar. Ugh!!

I hardly took any notes at the puppy seminar. I didnt even realized it until I just looked at them.  We worked mostly on trick type behaviors. Like circling the pole, backing and targeting an object, stacking metal bowels and getting the dog to knock them down.  Java had not problems with any of this stuff because we've done it all. At the end she had several puppies off leash at the same time and they could run and play. Java did run once but then came right to me. The other people had to walk across the field and then hide and then make noise for their dogs to look and go to them.  I think Java just doesnt want to play with other dogs. Plus I think she maybe going into heat. The one puppy just kept his nose up her butt. And Ive noticed she has started marking, licking herself and today Guiness has really been in her rear.

I drove the 2 hours home and probably should have just stayed in town. But I audited Saturday and didnt want the dogs  sitting in the car all day.  Saturday was a long day. I was tired. Im not sure if Ill comment much on Saturday.  This lady next to me had a bad attitude which didnt help. So will see.