Freestyle class #3

Well, its hot again. Last night is was 85 degrees , which I guess is better than 95. Class is very fast paced. I felt bad that I didn't practice at all last week. I kept having bad headaches and then I was to tired from the agility trial. I didn't want to be disrespectful to the teacher by not practicing. If someone is taking their time to teach you some thing, then you should practice. Anyway, last night we went over everything we have learned in the last two classes. Luckily she didn't make us show her individually what we have learned. Then she added teaching your dog to nose touch your hand in different places. Then when your dog has that , you teach them to nose touch you hand with your hand up a little higher so your dog has to jump up to touch it. We also tried to teach the the dogs to touch a little ball that is at the end of a dowel rod. This will give you more extension and teach your dog to work further away from you. Then she showed us a scallop. Your dog can sit or stand on your left side, he stays and you move over to his opposite side by turning to your left , which would bring you in front of the dog and then continue rotating until you end up on the dogs other side. Then you bring the dog around to your other side, by bringing him around the front of you and then around to your side. I'm sure this doesn't make sense. But both your moves mimic each other.
Tonight she played music and showed us how you add the moves to the music. We are not ready for that but it was neat to watch. Next week she will bring her dog and show us some of their dance routines. Its been to hot the last few classes, but a cool front is suppose to be coming. Next week we are to bring a tug toy to class and the ball on the stick. This class is very tiring for the dogs. I thinks it because they are constantly working all at the same time. In agility, each dog works one at a time. So your dog has time to rest. No rest here. By about 5 minutes until the end of class Guiness was done. He just stopped working. Ill have to be more careful about that.

Ive decided to reteach Miley a 2on/2off for contacts. It is very obvious that a running contact isn't going to work for us. I saw this friends dog do some awesome 2o/2o contacts with such speed. That's what I want. When I was deciding on contacts I hoped that Miley was small enough to stride right through the contact zone but she has a huge stride. Its at least a 5 foot stride when going over the dog walk. So tonight we worked on that. We also worked on running to a 4 inch table. She jumped right on every time. Isn't that how it always it. Perfect at home. Ha!

Miley gets her Novice JWW title

It was a very good weekend. Miley did great in the jumpers ring. All weekend she was right on. She took first place all three days and it looked great. No mistakes and I didn't have to repeat anything. It felt great. Standard on Saturday she did great. No jumping on and off the table. Everything was flowing. But she jumped both the contacts. Sunday, again she jumped her contacts and I pulled her off the teeter by rear crossing. It was a 90 degree angle from the jump to the teeter and I thought I couldn't make a front cross in time. O'yea she again jumped on and off the table. I'm going to have to practice that table being 4 inches. I think we have been practicing with a 16 inch table. Big difference. All in all it was a great weekend. She really liked going to the trial. Both Saturday and Sunday she stood at the door waiting to go. ( When she see the purple cooler she know we are going some where) She usually runs away when its time to go to the car. But not this weekend. The courses were great. The jumpers course yesterday had two pinwheels and the course today many tight turns. I hate when you go to a trial and the novice courses are so easy that they don't challenge you at all. The judges were very nice and all the dogs were under control. I didnt see anyone be mean to their dog. Hopefully everyone had a good time.

Mileys first trial

Miley's first run was JWW. She did beautiful. I really thought she would be wild but she wasn't. My only real expectation was for her not to be stressed and leave the ring. Here is her run.

I'm not sure why she hit so hard into the weave poles. I was surprised she didn't come out of them. I had her messaged afterwards to try to ward off injury. She didn't seem injured. So ,she had a great run and took first place. Our next run was Standard. Now that is the Miley I know. She was crazy. The positives were: she didn't break her start line stay. She stayed with me. She did the teeter and the last 4 jumps well. She didn't drop any bars. But the mistakes were: jumped the contacts on the dogwalk and a-frame. Went into the wrong end of the tunnel. Didn't do the weaves. Didn't do the chute. One thing I'm not sure of is if I was giving her commands. I do remember saying table and sit. O'yea, that was the other thing. She jumped on and off the table several times. The table seemed low to me, so she easily stepped on and off the table. So I didn't make her redo much. I did bring her around me to get on the a-frame, but I think that was it. She was crazy. If I ever get the first video loaded, I will then try for the next one. The second video isn't as good as the first. I think my husband was trying to get to close.

First AKC trial

Today will be Miley's first AKC agility trial. I signed her up for jumpers and standard but not fast. She isn't really ready to trial because her contacts aren't great but I did it just for fun. I have to work the trial anyway , so I thought she might as well come. The weather has changed drastically in the last week. From 95 degrees and oppressive to 67 degrees and cool and windy. I think this has effected how Miley is running. Yesterday she was just willy nilly. Running fast but if a jump was in the way and going to slow her down she by passed it. I was thinking , "at least her weaves are good". But in the last 2 days she will collect to get into the weaves and then you will see her accelerate out of maybe pole 3 and by pass the rest of the poles. I see her thinking, " crap, this is slowing me down, forget this". Silly dog. So my only expectation for this weekend is that it be fun and she stay with me on course. I don't care if she by passes obstacles or misses contact. I mostly want her first trial to be fun. So that is my goal. The only bad this is that some freak storm formed off the coast yesterday and has come on shore into South Carolina. So its raining and windy. Yuk!!

Freestyle class #2

Class was lots of fun. I'm not sure why, it just is. The instructor is very nice and supportive. We practiced everything we worked on last week. We had to, one by one, show each move and she gave us tips to improve the move. The one thing I didn't get was ,when doing the heeling and then you have your dog turn out away from you, that you need a different word for turning out left and turning out right. I was just saying " out" for both sides. But when you are performing your dog may be in front of you. So you need a word like "out" for the turn out to the right and then maybe "rout" for the turn out to the left. (You can use none sense words) . This week we added a bow to the tricks. I need to make sure to get Guiness's elbow on the ground before treating. We also practiced giving his paw. Guiness's knew how to do this but only with his left paw. I kept trying to get him to do his right and he was getting confused. He started backing up. So the instructor say to use this. Click and treat and say "back" to teach your dog to back up. If your dog starts offering something else , just go with it. Back to the paw trick. Once your dog has it, then start to get him to touch his paws to your feet when you lift them up. We also practice teaching the dog to move away from you and toward you when in heel position. We are terrible at this. One thing, my dogs don't really know how to heel. I hate teaching it and I'm terrible at making the dog understand what to do. But maybe one day I will be successful. The class is now all shelties because the lady with the lab decided it wasn't for her. At the end of class Guiness was very tired. He jumped in his crate and went right to sleep. When we got home Miley gave Guiness an ear full of barking. And not the kind of barking that says, " I'm so happy to see you". She was mad.
Miley has been off this week. When Ive been trying to get her lined up at the start line, she been circling me and not coming in. She hasn't done this behavior in months. I'm not sure what is going on. She did that Sunday and today. Today she ran as fast as she could just to run. Not really paying attention to anything she is doing. Flying off her contacts. Ugh. Im not sure what to do. On the other hand, Guiness has been coming on some of the morning walks again. Yea!!

Silly dog

This morning I woke up at 7am. I sat straight up in a panic. Miley never lets me sleep until 7am.( Its like when your baby sleeps more than 3 hours at night. You wake up and realize the baby didn't wake you up. You panic and run into their room to make sure they are ok. And they are just sleeping) Once she let me sleep until 6:30am. And when I opened my eyes. Miley was standing over me, nose to nose. She was probably thinking, " Are you dead? Don't you know there are balls to chase, walks to go on, food to dish out and bars to jump?" So this morning, I was thinking, "OMG she is dead. She choked on a toy" . But she wasn't. She didn't look like she felt well. My husband was already awake and he said that Miley let him hold her. Now that's a shock. Being held, in Mileys opinion, is for sissies. Life is for running and playing, none of that touchy feely stuff. I took Miley outside and she went to the bathroom and then got on the dogwalk waiting to run. That was a good sign. I brought her up on the deck to go inside, but she wouldn't come. I told my husband she looks like she is going to vomit. And right then she did. And now she is back to normal. Playing , running and eating.
I did some jumping grids with her last night. It was interesting. On all the collection jumps, she didnt drop on bar. But on the extension grids she did. Twice she dropped the first bar. I was video taping , but I couldnt get all the jumps in the frame so I didnt see what she did. Another time she dropped the 3rd bar. That one I caught on tape and she hit it with her front feet. I dont know what that means but I guess we need to work on extension . One thing I have notice when running her. If I get to far in front of her, I think she panics and really speeds up. Then she will drop a bar. But Im only trying to be where I can cross. Not sure what to do about that but practice.
Well, Im off to make the baskets for the judges for the AKC trial we host next weekend.

Rehab vet appt.

Yesterday I took Miley to see a rehab vet up in Charlotte just to make sure the bar dropping isn't an injury. It was ruff because Miley had been in her crate all day. I came home and had about 15 min. to let her play and go the bathroom before putting her in the car. She was not happy. We got to our appt at about 5:30. There was a Shar-Pei dog in the waiting room. He just kept barking, growling and lunging at Miley. Miley was terrified. After about 2 minutes of this ( it felt like forever), I asked if we could go stand in the hallway. The hallway separates the waiting room and exam rooms. There is a solid door , so that dog couldn't see us. The mean dog stopped barking right when we left. I didn't need Miley to think this was a terrifying situation. We saw the vet, who I really like. She watched Miley trot up and down the hall. She then examined her and went through all her joints and muscles. Then watch her walk around some more. Then she wanted to see Miley sit. Usually Miley doesn't have a problem doing this. But last night she would sit for a split second, then down and then sit up. I had treats and I guess she was just trying to give me all her tricks to try and get the treat. It was funny. I finally got her to sit nice 3 different times. The vet said she didnt see or feel anything that would give her any indication that Miley was injured. She did say there is an injury the toy dogs get that could be possible but she didnt think Miley was showing any signs. A small dog can fall and hit their hip. The trauma causes the blood flow to stop to the ball of the femur bone. Then the ball starts to die because its not getting any blood. If you took an x-ray right when the dog got injured you wouldn't see anything. But in a couple of months the dying head of the femur would show up on x-ray. Its called leg-Perthe's disease. But she really didnt think Miley showed any pain. But its something to keep in the back of my mind.So if in another month I thought she was still having trouble we could do an x-ray. Then it was time to go home. I think I paid more for gas to get there than I did for the appt. We got back home around 8:30 at night. It was a long day for both of us.