Water and class

On Wednesday and Thursday I went up for classes with Meagan.  On Wednesday it was a drills and skills class.  And wait for it, Miley was tired after this one hour class.  Shocking, thats never happened.
We worked in groups of twos and rotated thur the drills.  So you were working almost constantly.

On the tunnel drill, if I wasnt quick enough she would take the tunnel after #2.

The next day I drove up with some other people from Columbia.  That was nice, to have people to talk to.  The both run very cute , fast Yorkies.   So three Yorkies were in Miley crate and Miley was in Guiness crate.  Miley was probably wondering what the heck was going on.

We ran the course in both the novice and Masters class.  In novice there were only 6 poles. We we added 12 poles, Miley kept leaving the poles early. Meagan thought it was that jump in front of the weaves causing this. As soon as she moved it over, Miley did all the poles.  So something to work on.  I may add a jump after the poles when doing the weave challenge this week.

We did another course but I can really remember it.
Then we did this course.

This one, Miley took the  #11 off course tunnel after jumping #15.  That happened when I FC in front of #14.  First I RC #16 but she went really wide around #17 and #18.  So then we changed it to the FC after #14. 


My dogs are doing much better crossing the river.  I just have to get them started and they will cross on their  own.

Miley doesnt like it when its this deep. Plus there is a current. You cant see it but she'll start turning sideways sometimes.

"I made it!!"

Ok, lets play ball!!

"Maybe if I close my eyes, she wont notice that I was missing"

"Coming!!"

I took Roxy and Mickey to the vet for their yearly.  Holy crap that was a lot of money.  They did blood work and Mickey needs a phenobarb level.  So I get a call. Mickey's Alt Phos was slightly  high. Roxy's  ALT was slightly high and her BUN was elevated.  You know whats weird.  Three of my dogs have had slightly high BUNs this year. What the heck?  They have water at all times. Multiple water bowels.  I wonder if the lab needs to recalculate their machines. Anyway, they want Roxy to take Sam-e milk thistle for 10days and then recheck her levels.  Its a huge pill that she only takes half. So Im having to half it again to get it down her. (she is taking the whole dose, I'm just breaking down smaller for her)

Class and the Heat

Because I dont think Ive spent enough time on the road, I decided to go take a lesson with Meagan.  At least its only an hour and a half drive.  Heck, that felt like nothing.   Anyway, we worked on me.  LOL Here was the course we used.

My biggest problem was 12-14.  I RC after she took #11.   Then I tried to do a call to heel over the #13 jump, to my left side and send her over #14.  She just kept blasting out of the tunnel over the jump and going behind me. She didnt collect at all. This is a big problem from her and why we go off course after tunnels.  Im really going to have to work on this.  Im not sure why she is doing that.  She must not understand her job.  Anyway we back chained it starting with sitting her at the end of the tunnel and just coming over the jump with me at a stand still.  Then with me taking a step and then a few steps toward #14. Then we added putting her thur the tunnel. She was really getting it.  But something for me to work on.  Then 20 -21 I had her wrap to the right and then sent her into the tunnel.  It worked after I did it correctly.   But then Meagan had me RC #20 so the dog turned to the left. Wow, it worked like a charm. I thought she would go off course over that #2 jump, but nope. She turned tight and go the tunnel entrance. And you didnt have to worry about her grabbing the wrong tunnel entrance.

Then I stayed for the snooker class.  We had a successful class.  Ive been to Meagans snooker class and was unable to complete any course. Not because of her course but because of me and Miley.  But this time we were close the first time we ran the course. I picked an easy plan.  But the next time I picked a harder plan with  trying to get more points.  When I was setting up for me next run, another student said I needed to challenge myself more.  I did pick a harder plan but we didnt do to well.   Miley and I have really struggled in snooker so picking a harder plan doesnt really help me. I want to be successful and once we start becoming successful , I start worrying about getting lots of points. Im challenged enough, LOL   This was the last snooker course we ran.

 I dont know if you can really see this very well.  The red jumps are marked with a little "R".  Then my path was written in blue pen.  And we did it.   We had some trouble at the weave poles. I dont think Miley has ever seen weave poles spaced like that. But we did do it.  Whoohoo for us!!

Its very, very hot out.  We walked to dogs at 8:30 this morning and I was sweating thur my shirt.  Disgusting. I kept thinking it had to be 95 degrees outside. But when we got back to the car, which was parked in the shade, it was only 83.  It felt like 183.  Several times the dogs both just stopped and didnt want to go any further.  So between the heat and all the tick I found on us today. I dont think we will be going back to the really hilly park for a while. Will just have to stick with the snake park.  Here are some pictures from the pass week.  A couple from the week before.  I was so impressed with my dogs, they were going thur the water on their own at the river.  Miley stayed right with me. Guiness ketp running on the the land. Which is scary because I worry that there are snakes in all that grass. So I kept call him out of there. We didnt see any snakes just a crayfish.  The mist coming off the river is in the evening. I think the air is so warm and the river is so cool , it forms a mist.  Kinda cool looking.

The weekend

 On Saturday I loaded up the car with the tunnel , sandbags and jumps to take to the park, to work Miley on some convergence  skills.  We got to the park and they were having a "Strongman Adventure" thing.  So we couldnt use the grass area of the park.  So  much for practicing.   So we just went for a walk with the dogs.  Everything is green and pretty.

I also watched a lot of WTT.  Wow, some of those courses were tough.  I watched  a lot of great people not be perfect.   And they are normally perfect run people.  I felt bad for them.  It was stressful for me to watch. Wanting them to do well so badly and one little thing went wrong. Ugh!   Sunday seemed to go better for everyone.  Lots of very competitive times and perfect runs.  Very exciting.

I took the  dogs to the park early so I could watch more of the WTT this morning.  The weird thing was, while we were on the way back, something was in the woods. Something big and I was thinking it was just a deer.  I couldnt really see it with all the dense brush.  Miley started growling and Guiness barking.  I decided to just keep going. We were close to the parking lot. Then Miley started freaking out.  Acting really scared. She didnt want to keep walking. I picked her up and tried to carry her and I almost dropped her because she was trying to get away from what ever was in the woods. Now I was scared.  We've seen lots of animals in the woods, deer, rabbits, squirrels, coyotes, and that bobcat. She has never acted like this.  We finally made it to the parking lot. And she  calmed down.  I dont  know what was in the woods but what ever it was, Miley didnt like it.

Later today I took a lesson with Meagan.  I wanted to work on planning out my run because I think that is my weakness.

 I dont think the distances are correct but this gives you an idea.  On this course we did ok until #13.  I just didnt give her the info she needed and she took the off course tunnel after #13.   I tried laying that #2 jump so I could really pull to the #14 jump, still didnt work.  I had to really  turn my shoulders into her and call her before taking the  # 13 jump to get her to come my way.   Man is she tough. LOL  Then the next trouble spot was after the chute. I went between the chute and the weaves.  Well I couldnt get enough forward motion to push her over that jump. I should have been on the other side of the chute so I could RC the jump. 

We did another course but I cant remember it.  Then we ran this one.

On this course Meagan had me be the dog and she would run my plan.  Wow, I could really see why what I was planning wasnt good. It didnt show my dog the correct line. Like after #8 , I was planning to pull her over nine and then RC.  But when she had me sit at the bottom of the aframe, I could see that Miley would see the weaves and could go off course. Then she FC after the a-frame. It now showed me just the jump. I knew exactly where I was going.  Also after the teeter I was planning to FC and run on the left side of the jumps #17-19.  Again she had me at the bottom of the teeter.  What is showed the dog was the #17 jump but you couldnt see #18 or #19.  But if you ran the right side of the jumps, you saw all three jumps and there was no question.   Wow, what an eye opener!!

Christmas Eve

Well I cant believe that I finished Christmas shopping and have wrapped all the gifts.  On Wednesday, I only had one gift  and that one was being shipped and hadnt arrived yet.  So between Wednesday and today, I got it all done.  WhooHoo!  Christmas isnt to exciting once your kids get older. And really the only one who is getting a great gift is Stephanie.  Im hoping she is going to be really excited one she opens it.   The poor dogs dont get any gifts.  Its hard enough to buy people gifts let alone dogs.

Next month I entered another USDAA trial and Im going to be on a PVP team.  Neither of us care if we Q or not, so there is no pressure. Plus she has seen Miley run and go into stress mode and she is ok with it.  The good thing about team is there is no table in Standard. WhooHoo, maybe we have a chance at a nice run.  Although team snooker kinda scares me. LOL

I went to class last night and Miley did great.  We did a course that was in clean run but I forgot to ask which one it was.   Lots of turns and crosses.  Its so funny when you watch the video of yourself.  I felt like I was really moving trying to get where I was going.  On the video it looks like Im lallygagging thur the course. I tape the run so I could remember where we put all the crosses.  Sometimes thats easier than me writing it all down.



My phone taped this really well. I wonder how it would do at a trial?

Rough

Mickey had his teeth cleaned today.  He also had two more front teeth pulled.  I think he only has a couple of front teeth left.  Poor guy.  It must have been a rough time because he looks  a mess.  His hair is all messed up like the vomited on himself or the spilled something on him.  He has been crying a lot too.  I gave him the pain medication. I dont see much difference.  He did eat, so I guess he is ok.

Do I have any teeth left???

Last night I went up to a class in North Carolina.  I did the novice class and then the masters class.  Uh, we had some problems.
The course was from a Dana Pike

 We didnt run those numbers. The first run was this.

So I thought the hard part was getting the weave pole entry.  We didnt have a problem with that, it looked beautiful.  What did we have problems with?  The beginning. We kept dropping the bar on #2 because I would lead out to #2 then start moving when she got there.  I needed to be before or after two and then start moving.  The for some reason she went wide over #3 like she was going to the weaves.   So we worked this section several times until I got it right or close to it.

With this one , we had problems with #6,7,8.  You could take either tunnel entrance but we did both with different runs.  I kinda did a front cross wrap thing at #6 and I was on the right side of the jump #7 to post turn into the weaves.
We did this same course for the masters class and I decided to do two rear crosses at #6 and #7 into the weaves.  Miley slipped  coming over #7 and face planted. Then started stress circling.  I had to finally grab her to get her to stop and then sent her into the weaves.  Poor dog, I dont know why she does that. People probably think Im mean to her or something when she is wrong.  But really, I dont do anything when she is wrong.  Sometimes I will say "nope" if she misses the a-frame contact or weave pole entrance . And then I will pull her and put her in the crate if she breaks her stay , which she didnt  do all night.  So I dont know why she gets so freaked out when she makes a mistake , which its my fault anyway. Ugh!
So what I figured out worked best, in my opinion was front cross/wrap  at #6 but stay to the left side of #7 and then RC on the flat into the weaves.  Thats something I really need to practice.

This one we also struggled with the RC on the flat into the weaves after #5.  I dont think we got that once. We didnt look like we belonged in this class at all. When I watched everyone, they looked beautiful running, so in sync with their dog. We did get the correct tunnel entrances all night. So thats good.
Lastly the chiro came after class to adjust dogs.  Miley first showed signs that something was wrong on the left back, thats the opposite side of her pass injury.   But she only did it the first time she assessed her. Then next two times she didnt respond.  So Im hoping that was nothing. 

Lessons and other things

Here is the course that Meagan set up tonight. Its from memory to the best of my ability. I don't know why I cant remember to bring my notebook with me. What is up with that. The lesson went really quickly and I couldn't believe it was over. I felt like we hadn't done anything but I knew we had. So I'm not sure why I felt that way. Miley wasn't tired at all. And she wouldn't come to me at the end. She hasn't done that in months. I finally had to use my emergency word to get her to come to me. That word is "back". This word makes her crazy because I use it to train Guiness. And every time I say it, she come tearing over barking at me. ( jealous?) . It worked like a charm tonight. Then when I took her out to the car,she wouldn't get near the car no matter how hard I pulled on the leash. I had to go get her and put her in the car. She was not a happy camper. It could be that it poured rain all day , so she didn't get any outside time today. Maybe I need an extra 1/2 hour lesson at the end of a shared lesson. Who knows.
So anyway, the above course is what we worked on. I shared my lesson with a very nice border collie. That dog looked great tonight. I'm not sure how we looked tonight. Miley was slow going over the a-frame several times. The a-frame has big chunky square slats on it. For bigger dogs their feet can hit the slat and the board at the same time. But for smaller dogs, it has to hit right on top of the slat or before the slat. So I think she doesn't like her toes to hit the slates. It probably doesn't help that I have no slats on my a-frame at home and its rubberized. I think it should be required that all a-frames be rubberized and the slat should have to be rubber or not on the a-frame at all. It really has amazed me how different a-frames slats can be from one trail to the next. Ok , Ill quit talking about that.

On to the lesson. First we did #1-12. So we did well until #9. She got on the table and I went to the left side of #9. I wanted to do a call to heel and then push over the jump and front cross #10 before the a-frame. Meagan said that wasn't a very good line for the dog. It would be better to be on the right of #9 then rear cross 10. That was my plan at first but I thought it would push her wide and she would take jump #20 . So I did it the way Meagan said and it worked perfect.

Then we did 12-20. I had planned to do a front cross after the poles and then rear cross # 14. So this time I talked to Meagan first. She said that tight of a rear cross would pull her to tight and she wouldn't go out to # 15. So I rear cross after #14 and that worked great. I wonder how long it takes for you to learn how to walk a course correctly.

Next, the ferret. Yesterday the sick ferret wasn't doing well. I went to give her the medication and she was completely unresponsive. She did have a gag reflex but that was it. I worked with her for 10 minutes putting honey on her gums and tongue ( when I could get her mouth open) but nothing helped. I put her back in her crate and went to work. I called my husband a couple of times and he said she still wasn't moving. But by mid-morning she started to move around again. This morning she was back to herself again. My husband is calling her Lazarus ( from the bible).

Lesson and more

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I drove up to Charlotte today for a private lesson and then a class about gamblers.
Meagan set up some small sequences with table in them. She used this page from the Clean Run Exercise source book.



I had the most trouble with the second one (E) set up. To keep Miley out of the tunnel I had to stand pass the tunnel, facing the dog and stand between 2 and 3 ( probably around the 45 foot mark) I hope that makes sense. Then I had to call her to front ( so she came straight to me) and then turn and send her to the tunnel. I would have never thought of doing that. Then to get her back on the #5 table I had to rear cross her on the flat coming out of the tunnel. I tried sending her into the tunnel with me staying at #4 end and then calling her out of the tunnel but she kept turning the wrong way. I think Meagan must have done some other set ups with this but I cant remember what they were.

Next we worked on table sends.



We did this set up with me standing next to the dog at #1, then send to the table. No problem. She went right to the table. Next, I put Miley at the #2 position and sent her. Guess what, she took the jump and turned back toward me. She never drove to the table at all. So this is my homework. To work this set up. I may need to move in to help her but the goal is to be able to send her to the table from the last jump (#4) with out me having to move. When ever the dog makes it to the table , of course reward , then send on to another obstacle like the a-frame or weaves.


After all that I stayed for a Gamblers class. It was lots of fun and Miley did really well. She did self release herself off the a-frame 3 times in a row. I had to finally put her back on in the 2o/2o postion to get it right. Then did the sequecne again. She was trying so hard to nail it, her whole back end came completely up in the air and back down onto the contact. Poor dog. But she got the idea.

Im so excited.

You probably cant tell from this picture but this is a mini ball chuck-it. Its the smaller version of the chuck-it so the pole is shorter. But its for little balls. I've been looking for this forever. Miley gets very excited over the chuck-it. So I usually have to slide the chuck it up my shirt sleeve so she cant see it when we go walk. Its kinda uncomfortable walking with this long hard plastic tube in your sleeve. I knew they made the shorter chuck-it for regular size tennis balls but was hoping they had it for little balls. Yesterday I was at Wal-mart. I hate Wal-mart, not sure why, and try to never go there. But I went looking for a new soft crate . I didn't find a crate but found this instead. WhooHoo. We ha vent used it yet because its been raining. We've had about 4 inches of rain in the last 2 days and I think we are suppose to get 2 more. I wont be able to use my yard this week. It will be a swamp for a while.





After my last run this weekend, a friend was waiting for me at the end of my disastrous run. She said, "You have got to fix your start line". She also gave me the list of reasons why. I'm not sure why but it made a huge impression on me. Its not like I didn't know it was a problem but it really just struck me like a big neon sign. I really respect this person and she would give me advice if I asked her. But she would never just tell me things. I'm really glad she did this.





I did drive up to Charlotte yesterday for a lesson with Meagan. I wanted to work on start lines, tables and tunnels. We had three people in the lesson so Miley would be excited, especially when other dogs run. She didn't break her start line. I don't think she creeped at all. I practiced walking pasted her, running passed her, saying different words and trying to remember to either move first then release or release and then move. That way she doesn't release on motion.


No trouble with the table. But that only seems to be problem at trials. Do you think she knows I cant catch her so she does touch and go? I'm not really sure what to do about the table.



Here was one of the courses we ran. This is to the best of my memory so I'm not sure its correct with distances and stuff.



I did a 2 jump lead out. I am the red person. I did a call the heel type thing and sent her over #3. It did work for me. But Meagan said I should have been more forward, the green person, to give the dog better information and not have the potential of dropping the bar. Also the dog should have been farther back and more of a slice then what I had my dog. ( the red and the green people should be farther to the left on the course but to late to fix it now, hopfully you get the point.)

Next problem was the #6-#7. If you rear crossed behind #6 it would pull your dog over #13. You really needed to cross behind #7. But I was so far behind my dog I just couldn't get there. So I think I crossed behind #6 and ran behind #13 , to get closer to the correct tunnel entrance. As my dog was about to take #8, I was to tell her "tight" and do a false turn to bring her in to me. That worked perfect and she go into the correct tunnel entrance. ( of course Meagan had to tell me this because I didn't tell her "tight" the first time and just tried to do the false turn. She took the wrong tunnel entrance.)

Next problem was #12-#13. I wanted to do a post turn but that wasn't enough of a cue for Miley to turn and she went off course. I had to do a front cross and really call her name to keep her off that #5 jump. I shouldn't have run so close the the jump and held back a little more. I had to much forward motion. We did finally get it. The rest wasn't a problem.

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.