Zoey's continued progress.

I havent been able to do much agility lately. Lou’s been sick. The kind of sick that you never want to hear your doctor tell you that you have. Thats all I’m going to say on that for now. So while I’m sitting here with him having a treatment, I thought I would blog.
I took Zoey to one day of an agility trial that I could drive back and forth to, about 2 weeks ago. It didnt go well. She was over the top excited. Jumped al her contacts and couldnt weave. But we hadn’t practiced at all.  So this past weekend I entered an agility trial , just standard, T2B and jumpers.  I was suppose to be there just Saturday. But then it looked like I was going to be there for 8 hours between my jumpers run until my standard run. So I changed it up and did my standard run on Saturday late afternoon  and my jumpers run on Sunday morning.  I took the RV up and spent the night because I figured I wouldnt be using the RV much this fall/winter. And RVs start having problems when you dont use them.  Lou came with me, to get out of the house. So that was nice. To bad the weather was horrible. It just poured down rain all day.
 Saturday Zoey did her T2B run first.  It wasn’t great but not horrible. I didnt realize that she had dropped the last bar. So that was disappointing when my husband told me that. But oh well.


 Next we ran Novice standard.  She did awesome. The only thing was the missed down contact of the dog walk. So more work on that. I had switched her to running contacts because the 2o/2o was causing her so much stress in the ring and she was just doing crazy stuff on the contacts.
(Sorry I didnt edit the video in the begining but I was worried that it would get messed up. When I edited the jumpers video on my ipad, you tube uploads the part I deleted and nothing else. Which is weird since I deleted it. So I was scared to do it again)



The next morning she ran open jumpers.  She did pretty well. We have been struggling with getting the weaves on the first time but she did it. She got all the hard stuff and just went around 2 jumps. I was late with my front crosses. I need to do better.
(This video I cant post because I edited it and  youtube, like I said, seem to be able to find the part I deleted and uploads only that part. Very werid).

Java is doing ok with healing from her TPLO.  She still limps at the end of the day and she has lost a lot of muscle mass in her rear.  Its so sad.  She is allowed to walk 30 minutes a day. She get rechecked on Monday.

CDTC trial

This picture isnt from the Charlotte trial but I just wanted to have a picture.  It is a recent picture of my dogs at the river here in Columbia.  And I just like it.

So I took the dogs to a trial up in Charlotte. Its the only trial close enough to drive back and forth to. The only down side is , its outside on grass. So if it rains or snows , you are out of luck. But its also cheap to enter.  I took Miley but she isnt entered.  She is having more vision problems and many times cant even get weave pole entries  at home.  Friday, I took Zoey, just to get her use to being there , but she wasnt entered on Friday.  We hadnt trialed in 2 months and Zoey was over the top excited. So we worked on calming behaviors outside the ring.

Java had 2 nice runs but no Qs. She missed the DW contact in standard and dropped one bar in JWW.  But she stayed at the startline. (Ive tried everything to make this vidoe's post clear. I have not idea why they are blurry. They arent blurry on my ipad. I uploaded them again, thinking that I forgot to change it to HD. But it didnt make a difference.  Maybe it just takes a while to process??)



JWW


Then Saturday Zoey was only entered in T2B.  She was very excited but I thought she might be ok.  You can see she wasnt.  She broke her startline, then jumped the A-frame contact and couldnt weave.  Then jumped off teeter. So the AKC has a new rule that if your dog jumps off the teeter half way up, or on the up contact of DW or A-frame, you can put them back on.  So, since she jumped off, I went to put her back on the teeter but the judge said I couldnt.  I went to go on but it was late and Zoey had already circled back around and then got on anyway.  So we were whistled off.




Java 's JWW run, she couldnt finish the weaves. I tried 3 times and she kept popping out.  The weaves where into the corner and there was a tunnel off to the left, that was next.  I guess she just wanted to go on.  Then in standard, she was having a very nice run, then missed the DW contact.  It was DW into a curved tunnel. Then they come out and have to turn about 45 degrees to the right.  She went right back up the dogwalk.

Sunday, Zoey seemed calmer to me so I thought maybe we would do better but we didnt.  Well, she did a little better. She stayed at the startline , enough for me to release her.  But she couldnt weave.

Jumpers.



I couldnt decided if I should run Zoey in standard or not. I dont want her just jumping off contacts.   In the end I  set her up at the startline, she broke. So I put her into the weaves (that wasnt the course) and she did them. We ran out and celebrated.

Java had a nice day. She Qed in Standard.


In JWW she dropped one bar. Ugh, so tough. We are trying to get a MACH and I feel like its never going to happen.  We have over 3000 points , you need 750. But we have only 11 double Qs.  In good news she holding her startlines now.



You can see it was much cooler but luckily the rain held off until after we ran. 

Zoey's first trial

This picture was taken here in Columbia , but I like to have pictures with my post.

So Zoey is now 16 months old.  She is finally running in agility, so now Ive lost my startline. She also cant control herself , in that she wants to chase dogs that are running in the ring.   When I go to trials, Ive  been working her at the practice jump and Ive been able to keep control of her.   But  not this weekend.
This weekend was a small UKI trial.  They sometimes offer nursery class for dogs 16 to 18 months. There are no weaves, teeter or spread jumps. They can also enter speedstakes.  So I entered Zoey in those 2 classes.  It was a one ring trial, which is where I will be with Zoey, so she doesnt jump the ring gating and chase the other dog running in the other ring.
 The first time she ran in the nursery class, everyone took a break. There were no dogs around. So she stayed with me. You will see in the video, she was over the top and kept bark and jumping up at me and trying to get me. She doesnt normally do this when we practice.  I only see this when we go to a new place or  she is over the top excited.  So I have to be careful with how much excitement I build into her when trying to get her to run.
The second run she did much better. Before her run, we tried to practice at the practice jump. She took off, running down the ring gating, after the dog that was in the ring. Ack!!!  I had to call her name twice, and she did come back, but I was freaked for a second that she was leaving for good.   I didnt take the leash off at the practice jump anymore.  I used a long line and put the bar on the ground and practice her staying with me.   She did well after that.   So on her second run she left the startline to go see a dog that was outside the ring but came back to me  when called.  Otherwise, she did really well.  I have to remember she is a baby dog and needs more support, especially when coming out of the tunnel, to make sure she takes the jumps.
The next day, we practice a lot more at the practice jump, with the long line on, to make sure  she understood what is expected of her.  We did the nursery class again.  She did well, except she wouldnt come to me at the end of the run. As soon as she saw me with the leash and I called her, she just dead stopped.  She had figured it out. Fun is over. Ugh!!.  So I acted like I was leaving the ring, and she blew by me and ran out of the ring.  Great.  So now I called her, she stopped and had to think about if she was going to come to me or not.  She did finally come to me.  So , I have lots of things to work on.

Wow, long time since I posted

I keep meaning to post but then I get busy and forget.  Zoey is now 9 months old.  At 8 months she was 16 inches.  I hope she doesnt keep growing but she hasnt gone into heat yet, so who knows.  My other female shelties were mostly done growing at 6 months. From 6- 9 months, they grew about 1/2 inch. Zoey has grown 2 inches in that same time frame. Yikes.

I took the dogs to the beach on the lake. We spent several hours there.  Then when I got home, 1/2 the pictures on my camera had an error message on them. So upsetting.  I googled how to fix it and tried several things that were posted on line but it didnt work.  So then I down loaded a program that recovers pictures from cards.  You get to see if it worked and what the pictures are before you have to buy.  It cost 40.00 to have the program for 2 years.  I was just happy to be able to see the pictures.

Zoey has fun no matter what she is doing.

The water must be down at the lake because Ive never seen this part of the beach before.

 I didnt know Lake Murray had muscles?  Just like New Hampshire's lake.

The leaves are just starting to turn here.

 I havent seen these rocks sticking out of the water before either.  The ones on the point, behind the dogs -yes, but not these.

Anyway, thats enough of the beach pictures.  If I dont post them here, I wont be able to find them again. LOL

Ive been trialing.  One weekend Java and I get 3 out of 4 Qs. Then the next weekend,  1 out of 4. Ugh. So frustrating. !!  Broken start lines and teeter fly offs are killing us.  I took a class on retraining the teeter. Which I think helped but she just gets excited and its go, go , go.   I was trying to get to nationals but its just not going to happened. Unless we are freaking awesome at the next two trials.

Zoey's training is moving along.  I know she likes to run and run fast. Ive seen her run across the yard, to recall into the house. Or chase Java.  But its not transferring to agility.





She looks pretty good here. But yesterday, I did a speed circle, tunnel, jump,jump, tunnel. She looked really slow, to me.    But Ive also been working stays and tight turns to a jump.  Because I want this dog to actually have  a good stay.  I think with Java I spent so much time trying to build drive,  and  I thought I could put the stop on later. NOT!!   Plus, I know its in Zoey, to run fast. Ive seen dogs in her line.  So I just need to be able to get it out of her. .

Miley's career is coming to an end.  She just acts to crazy in the ring.  There are times everything is great and the next day , she just falls apart.  So I will continue to run her but not as much as in the past. I did drop her to 8 inches , which has really helped with her crashing jumps.  It didnt fix her taking off to early but she has a better chance of clearing the jump, when she does.

Im in charge of the agility classes for our club.  So since August Ive been teaching all the foundation classes, beginning agility class and the competition class.  Im hoping to get help soon, so I dont have to have all of this on my shoulders.  I really hope we can get agility going in the club again. Its kind of fallen apart in the past few years.  We need club members to help with the agility trials.  Its to much work for a few people to do. My one friend and I stay at the trial site for 13 hours , every day of the trial. Its just to much. I think that is why I got so sick last time.  I was sick before the trial but was getting better. But after 2 - 13 hour days, I got home and was running a fever.  It took almost 2 weeks for me to get back on my feet completely.  So my goal, is to have 2 people for each position on the committee. Some people come in early and can leave early, and some people can come in later and have to stay to the end.   Well see if it works.