Follow-up thoughts

Just some thoughts about things that happened this weekend. First off, I now see what I did wrong on the Exc. Fast course when Miley went one way and I went the other. My arm came up and looked like a rear cross cue and thats what Miley read. Good dog Miley.

Next the table. I really, really thought she was going to get on the table at the trial. Well,this just shows we have more work to do. So while at the trial, I took Miley's mat ( which is now 8 X 8 inches) and put it down around the outside of the ring. I worked on sending her to the mat. There is one time when she didnt get on. I had put the mat down next to some equipment sitting outside the ring. Thats when she couldnt do it. Hmmm. Also last night she was very excited. I took her in the back yard to play with a toy. She kept jumping on and off the table and then circling around waiting for me to throw the ball. So I decided to try and send her to the table. She couldnt do it. I went inside and got some treats and a clicker. So she knew I had treats and I sent her to the table. She jumped on and off. So I sent her one more time and when she hit the table I clicked. But then she jumped off. But after hearing the click, she turned right around and jumped onto the table and went into a down. So I think excitement and stress is both interfering with her table performance. More work to do.
Next the A-frame. Ive been trying to figure out how to train a running a-frame. I've been working on the box but Im worried . She likes to jump off the a-frame early or high. I think the box encourages jumping. Probably not for most dogs. But Miley has had a history of jumping off. And since its all kinda bounce work, I think that it what will happen. So last night I lowered the aframe alot. ( I almost broke my a-frame because I didnt ask for help and tried to do it myself. So I lost control of the a-frame and it slammed flat to the ground. The hingh at the top is now bent but still seems to be working ok. I almost started crying). Ive decided to have her just run down the a-frame and only reward when she runs thur the bottom. No reward for leaping or bouncing even if in the contact. So we'll see how that goes. Since it is similar to what you do on a 2o/2o you just dont stop, Im hoping that it works. I dont want to use a hoop becuase fading something like that doesnt always work well.

She thought about it.

We had a pretty good trial today. No big crisis. ( knock on wood) First up was Excellent Fast. I thought the send looked pretty hard because you had to be on that side of the course to get to the line. I wasnt to confident that we would do it. We had a nice run. Im posting the course map. She sent over the jump circled with green twice. Watch the video and let me know why you think she didnt give me the send bonus. I cant figure it out. I didnt watch the video until tonight and I still cant figure it out.




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Next was open Standard. I was so confident that she would get on the table. But she didnt. When she missed it the first time, I tried getting her excited with my voice and she almost got on, then turned off and said ,"I cant do it". I tried one more time, then went on. The good thing was no stress when I pulled her off the a-frame rear crossing and after the table we got back together. So that was good.
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Last was Exc. JWW. She seem kinda slow coming out of her crate and over at the practice jump. But she was on fire. Great run except for the wrong tunnel entrance. I was so happy we were still running together. After last weekend , I was kinda worried. Nope, she did it.
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Woe is me

Just a quick update. I took Miley for a lesson and a class on Sunday. She excellent at the lesson. She got on the table every time. The other thing we learned is that me standing over her at the table isn't good for her. It puts to much pressure on her. But if I get her on the table and the get into position showing were we are going next, she is much more excited. Its like she is still working and getting information. Not sitting on a table in a time out. ( I hope that makes sense). But she then gets really excited and her butt comes off the table. But right now Ill take that over table avoidance. Next we talked about the a-frame and Miley self releasing. So I ran Miley over the a-frame and she creeped down. So new plan. Im going to change to a running a-frame. Now is a good time anyway since we are still working on the table issue. It will take the pressure off the table too. Surprisingly Miley still remembered the box work. So I dont need to start at the beginning of just teaching the dog to get in the box and then pounce the box. We were able to go to the grid work. The only problem was she is 3 striding coming into the box and we only want two. So Im to work on that. Moving the jumps closer to the box and slowing moving them back until she is at the correct distance and hitting two strides.

Now to the not so good part. I stayed for class after the lesson. Miley was doing well but toward the end of class she refused the teeter 3 times. OMG, I was really trying not to freak out. I told Meagan, Im not going to be able to handle another obstacle issue. So I finally got her on and she did the weaves ,which were next and then decided to call it quits. I didnt think she was hurt but what else could it be. She has never done that before. Of course I obsessed about it all the way home. The only thing I noticed was when I got dinner ready that night. She usually spins when I take the bowls from the kitchen to their crates. She does tight fast spins. But that night they were slow and wide. Hmmm. Ok maybe she is just sore. I didnt see anything else. I didnt take her to the beginner class I help teach on Monday. No chasing Guiness through the yard. I didnt see anything on our walks. She is back to spinning tightly again. Today I needed to go back out to the field to take some pictures of the triple jump. So I took the dogs with me. I thought I would just put Miley over the teeter and see whats up. Nothing is up. She was awesome and attacked the teeter. No problems there. We did a little table work and thats it. I really didnt do anything else. She did run the fence a couple of times when a car came by. The last time when she came toward me I thought I might have saw a skip. So now I need to decided if she just needs to take it easy for a few days or what. I have signed up for a trial this weekend but just one day. Its not a big deal not to go. Will see how things shape up. I will have to be 100 % sure to take her.

Only 3 more days of school until Spring break. I should be excited but that field trip is on Friday. 900 plus kids , three hours from home and one nurse. Ugh!! I will be so happy when its over.

Our agility trial is in a week too. There have been problems. Every time I think, ok I wont let that happen again. Something else goes wrong.

Stephanie had an exciting day today. Last week she turned in a project for a graphic design art class. The teacher gave them a made up company name. Then had to come up with a product, a slogan, a logo. She printed out letter head paper, a coffee cup with a design and slogan on it and a business card. It looked really cool. Then she had to give a presentation in front of several graphic design business owners. Today she found out she took 1st place. And one of the owners of a local graphic design firm offered her a summer internship. The lady said she was very impressed with Stephanie. Awesome!

Run Thurs

Look how green it is.

Miley wanted to go down for a drink, I wasnt going down in all that mud.

Mickey is much better today and acting like his normal self. I think he was sore yesterday so I gave him some pain medication but today he is playing again.

First thing this morning we went to the park for a walk. It was really pretty with the sun coming thur the trees and everything becoming green. It was almost like neon green. The only bad thing was I lost my filter lens. Im not sure how. I was trying to take pictures with and without the lens to see if I can keep Miley from being washed out in the sun. I thought I put it in my pocket but when I came out of the woods it was gone. I retraced my steps but couldnt find it.

Then our club had run thurs at the field today. I wanted to test Miley's table. Well there is good news and bad news. The first time thur the standard course she jumped off the table and started to circle. And I think I said "table" instead of "mat". I cant remember if I just grabbed her or if I threw a treat or bait bag to stop the stress. I then took her collar and set her up and sent to the table. She got right on. I think we took the wrong tunnel entrance and she self released on the a-frame. I wonder why she keeps doing that? She doesnt do it with the dogwalk. So I needed a new plan for the next run thur. I was planning on using a target on the table. But then changed my mind. I decided to do the table first and send her a few times to the table then run the course from the beginning. She went right to the table. I got her excited asking her "Where's the mat, do you want to get that mat?" She got into a crouch position ( showing excitement ) and got right on the table both times. Then I took her to the begining and ran. She did great but self released the a-frame again. When we got to the table she started to run toward it and right before she got there she pulled off and didnt get on. She started coming toward me. I said in the kinda deep excited voice, "Where's you mat, are you gonna get that mat?" and you could see the change in her body and she got excited and jumped right on. Big reward on the table. Multiple rewards. Ok, was that all it took? To change the inflection in my voice? Hmm, will see what happens the next time we are at a trial or run thur. Overall she had a really good run. Great weaves both times!

Table Failure

I went an took a lesson today with Meagan. Here was the course to the best of my ability. Im sure the distances probably arent correct. But you get the idea. First we did one thur 12. The first couple of times Miley took the dogwalk instead of the tunnel. Then I kept shooting her into tunnel entrance #1 instead of #7. Finally got that. Then we were able to run 9-12 but it felt very uncomfortable. I stayed to the left of the jumps but the push and pull seemed really hard on the dog. She did it but it didnt flow nicely. What worked the best was rear crossing ten and then immediately rear crossing 11. It felt like it was easiest for the dog. Then we did 11 -21. The first time thur Miley got right no the table no problem. The second time thur she jumped on and off the table and then started to circle. Ugh! I was able to get her on the first time she tried to circle me. I grabbed her by the colar (nicely) and said, "Where's you mat, want get you mat, Get it". And she ran right over and jumped on. I rewarded highly. Meagan gave me some more things to work on with Miley. I just couldn't believe she jumped on and off and then started circling. Of course I thought about it all the way home. Im so mad, angry, irritated, frustrated , sad and tired. Not at my dog, just with the table problem. Ugh!! Im sick of taking this table places. I took it to a different park this morning and she had no problems. I wish I knew why this caused her such stress. She pops out of weave poles, jumps off a-frames and off the side of teeter and she doesnt stress about it . Why does she do it with the table.

Bike, Hike, and tables.

As I said before my husband is training for a triathlon. So today he did his first race , well sort of. It was a Colon Challenge ride. So not really a race. Plus saying the word race made him to nervous. It was freezing this morning, around 40 degrees. But was suppose to get to 80 degrees. That made it hard for him to decided what to wear. He decided to dress light.



Here he is at the 12 mile mark

I figured I could get to that check point before the first riders came through. I told him I probably wouldnt make anymore check points. After that I went home to make sure my son got up to have fasting blood work done before he had to be at work. He is taking accutane and you have to have monthly blood work. Then I took the dogs to the park for a hike. Half the trails were closed at the park due to wet paths. Why didnt they close them a long time ago when it was raining all the time and the weather was crap. Now that all the bikers have wrecked the paths and the weather is nice, you can't use the trails. Ugh! Figures.So we walked some different paths. None of my pictures really turned out. Im not really sure what happened. The best one was the one at the top of the post. When we were done hiking , I stopped at one of the picnic areas . I thought I would do some table-mat work. At first I had a long line on her because I was worried about cars coming. But then I decided to take it off. In January when she had the leash on in the ring for the b-match, she would get on the table. When I took it off , she wouldnt. So I figured it was better to leave it off. No cars came.

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Then I took the dogs home and drove over to the high school. Thats where the Colon Challenge ride ended. I was hoping I didnt miss the finish. I didnt. I had to wait about an hour until they showed up. He road with a couple of other people.

He looks happy here. I hope he is still happy tomorrow. His legs were pretty stiff after he got off the bike. This lady who road with him called her son at the 60 mile mark. She wanted him to come get her. You know what he said to her. "Finish what you start" and hung up. LoL just like a teenager to throw your words back at you. She thinks he wasnt were he was suppose to be, home, and didnt want her to find out. LoL That sounds about right. So she finished. I think the ride was about 67 miles. The map said 65 but the computers on the bikes said 67.

My mat is ok

Last night I took Miley to the beginning agility class that Im helping to teach. At the end of class there were multiple travel planks ( for 2o/2o practice) set up in an "L" format. I put the mat in the corner of the "L" set up. We ran going "touch" , "ok", then "touch" "ok" and continued running the different planks. Then I sent her to the mat. No problem, she got right on and into a down. WhooHoo, I didnt wreck her mat.
Last night we reviewed what shaping was. We had also sent the group an article on shaping so they could understand what it was. Then we did a demonstration of "T"'s dog getting all 4 feet into the box using shaping. Wow, what a great job "T" and his dog did. The dog first was getting clicked for just looking at the box. Then putting his head in the box, then one foot, then two and then 4. The dog progressed very quickly. Within several minutes the dog had it. It couldn't have gone better especially within such a distracting environment. I think everyone there was impressed.

Im going to Savannah this weekend for a trial. My parents live very close to the trail area, so that is great. And its suppose to be warm! Lets hope they are right. My goal is to keep my dog on course and if we go off course to make her think she was right and not let her get into circling mode.

One funny thing. Miley has been breaking her stay at home. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Right before I was going to say , "ok" she would break. This morning I figured it out. As soon as she sees my mouth start to move, even before the word comes out, she is breaking. So I started proofing that this morning. Smart little bugger.

Ugh!

This is what I did today after work. This was all filmed right in a row even though the daylight looks different.

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Before the snow

School closed one hour early today because snow was coming. I was able to get home and get some practice in.

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Then the snow started. Its was getting dark, so I didnt get any great pictures. Im hoping for some great pictures tomorrow.

A teacher, I am not

Hey look, here is another video of our mat work. I only got a very short video, lucky you, because my camera didnt have my card in it. LoL

You know whats weird. I keep having this same bad dream. Its about me not getting the judges for our agility trial. Everyone shows up , and I dont have any judges. You can guess what happens after that. Im not sure why I keep dreaming that. We have judges for the trial. And I dont even handle that aspect of the trial. Im just the chairperson over the trial. I guess its just worry in general.

Today I helped teach a class that is suppose to help get people ready for beginning agility. Tonight we worked on the plank (for the 2o/2o), nose touches, flat work of front crosses and ball work. I was trying to explain shaping of getting all 4 feet on the plank. Im not sure if I was doing a good job because they just kept looking at me. They didnt know what shaping was, so I tried to explain it. Maybe I can find a good article on shaping. Im also planning on giving them an article on teaching a 2o/2o with the plank. I tried to tell them this is suppose to be happy, fun. I told them that they want their dog to be so excited when they bring out the plank. That the dog is thinking, "OMG, she's got the plank" and they jump right on with all four feet, "I did it, where's my treat". I didnt want them to use their body language to get their dog on the plank or off the plank. I sure hope I explained things right.

The weekend

Miley hasn't been feeling good. It started Wednesday with vomiting at 4:20am. But by 6am she seemed better. I fed her a little scrambled eggs and went to work. My husband works at home and he said she was fine all day. I took her for our agility lesson and she was fast and worked hard. The only thing was she didn't do all that silly circling. Thursday she seemed ok. I worked all day and then had a club meeting that night. I didn't notice anything weird about her. Then Friday morning she was ok but when I got home from work she just wasn't herself. Then she vomited all her breakfast and it was undigested. Saturday morning you could tell something was still wrong. She wouldn't come near me, she kept going outside and turning in tight slow circles. I never saw her vomit. So I just gave her some chicken broth mixed with water. She drank that ok. Saturday our club was having Agility Run Thurs but I didn't take Miley. I didn't leave until about 10:30 and she seem just fine by then. Running around the yard but I felt like if I gave her any treats she might start having problems again. So I went to the run thurs without a dog. We had a pretty good turn out considering is was cloudy and cold. I took lots of pictures of the dogs running the course. Some of them turned out pretty cool. Sorry I cant post them , but their not of my dog and I didn't ask any ones permission. It looked like people had fun , so that was good. It didn't start raining until I was on my way home. It wasn't suppose to rain but it did. We have had the worst weather. Rain, rain and more rain. My yard is a mud pit. Miley is much better today . She woke up and was begging to play. So I took the dogs to the park , its a swamp is some areas. Here is the beginning of the path.



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And then I was walking a long and all of a sudden. No more path. Major flooding.
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So no path to walk on. We had to just stomp thur the woods. It was difficult getting through all the brush. Miley didnt like that at all. I finally found the path again. I was getting worried that I should have turned back. So Im on this path and my heart is pounding, my legs burning and Im breathing heavy. I think to myself, I have to be on the inner loop of the Spider women path. Its the only place that my body starts to protest. But it felt like it went on forever. I finally merged onto the truck path and knew that lead out to the main path. Thank goodness. I didn't want to be lost today. I did get some pictures of the dogs but nothing great.
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O yea and the sun came out today for about 2 hours. I was so happy. That's when I put the dogs in the car and went to the park. After our walk, I stopped at one of the grassy picnic areas to work on Miley's mat. I put two mats out and sent her to each. We only worked it a few minutes. When I went over to the mat is was covered in ants. Ugh! I don't think Miley got bit, at least she didn't act like it. You think those ants would have drowned by now with all the rain we have had.

Sorry, more mat work

I'm really just posting this for my records. Its boring so dont feel you have to comment. (Plus its raining again) I noticed tonight if I wiggled my arms , she would break her stay. So Im slowly trying to proof that.

I just listened to this video. Lol, I sound like a manic. I didnt listen to it at home because Miley gets to excited and tries to bite the camera or the computer.

More Mat work

I took Miley back up to the field today. I took Guiness too. I was feeling guilty about never taking him anywhere. But it was a disaster. Miley was a wild women. I'm not sure if it was Guiness or that there was another person their working her dog. Or was she crazy because I came straight home from work, loaded the dogs up and went straight to the field. I also couldn't just let her run like I usually do when I first get there. So she was wild. It wasn't our finest practice. She couldnt think. So inbetween agility practice we practice the mat work. I had talked with Meagan earlier in the day about Miley crawling on the mat. She told me work not just rewarding on the mat but releasing off the mat. She also told me work separately the next 3 things: 1. drive to the mat 2. staying on the mat and 3. lying down on the mat. So this was the session after I had rewarded her coming off the mat. I also didn't use the clicker for the first time today. She did much better with the crawling thing. The reason she keeps looking to the side is that a car is coming. She was thinking about chasing the car.

Mat work

The weather is not nice here today. Its been pouring down rain and the temps are at 33. So no snow for us. My yard is just the biggest mud pit and I'm not sure if its ever going to recover. So since I'm bored, I decided to take Miley up to Pet Smart and work on her mat. She doesn't like Pet Smart. She seem really nervous there. This always surprises me. How does she go to agility trials where she doesn't show any outward signs of being nervous. But Pet Smart, less people, less dogs, more stress. Anyway, I figured it would be a good place to do mat work. She did really well. My only problem is she is starting to crawl forward to get the treat. Maybe I need to work closer to her until she stops doing that. I don't want her crawling on the table. The videos are loaded backwards. The second one was done before the first one.

Here are some pictures from this morning. I thought it looked like Christmas lights on the trees. Its the only pretty thing out there, LoL

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