Karen Holik Seminar

Today I went to a Karen Holik seminar. It was just a 1/2 day seminar. We started around 9am. It was kinda chilly this morning but once the sun came out it quickly warmed up to about 70 degrees. There were 6 people and dog ( BC, Rotti, lab, boxer, boykin spaniel , and miley) teams . All the dogs were a little crazy at the beginning of the seminar. Miley was over the top. Taking jumps, tunnels and just doing her own thing. Then when I tried to get her under control and bring her to me, the circling started. Ugh! It was embarrassing. Everyone elses dogs seem to settle down quickly except Miley. I'm suppose to take her to our club trial this weekend and boy was I having second thoughts . I have no control of my dog and I'm sure everyone there agreed. The guy with the border collie was glad I was there. His dog kept running away, so with Miley circling, he didn't look to bad. Miley finally settled down by 11am. After that she ran great. Karen asked me, it that she usually runs. And I said yes. Even with all the circling, Karen did say she thought Miley was going to be a great dog.
One of the biggest things I got out of this seminar, was I need to do obedience with Miley. But really, I had already come to this conclusion. This just brought it home. Ive always hated obedience but I need to become a better team member. She thinks I should put the circling on cue. Her dog Sizzle did do tight circles around her ,but she could stop it, and I cant. Tonight she is giving a lecture and will talk more about getting herding behavior under control.

Another key point that she teaches in all her puppy classes it to get your dog to look at you. Call you dog's name and when they look at you, click and treat. Once you have that, start moving around and call there name, click and treat for them looking at you. After the dog really gets the hang of this and they are out in the yard or doing other things, call their name. When they look at you, click and they will start coming to you to get their treat. And when they start coming, then put the word "come" in there. That's how you teach your dog to come to you. ( I thought that was a neat way to teach come). One thing she told me was to teach Miley the difference between "Here" come close to me vs "here" come all the way next to me. Like if you are walking and you just want your dog to come along "here" or you are on an agility field and you want them to come between two jumps so you need them right to your heel. ( I hope that makes sense) So "come" with in 10-20 feet of you, or "come" right to your side. And of course you need a different word for both.
We did lots of small sequences. Ive got to get my arm flapping under control. Karen asked me, "what are you pointing to? Your arm is way up here and your dog is little. Do you think she can see your arm?" Good point. So that is my goal for this weekends trial. Keep my arms under control. Point to the jump , but point to the bar, not over the top of the jump. Also to keep my shoulders straight. We did a sequence with a serpentine and Miley did it correct . But she wasn't as fast as she could be and she seemed unsure. Well that's because I was running next to her. When running the serpentine, I needed to get ahead of her , so she can see my arms. I ran it again, making sure I was about a jump ahead of her in the serpentine and she was much faster and more confident.

Off the to the lecture. WooHoo!

AKC Nationals

Its been raining for the last 4 days. Saturday it wasn't raining first thing in the morning ,but we were suppose to have a down pour all day. So first I took the dogs to the State Park for a nice long walk. Right when I got back to the car it started raining. My timing was just right. Then I decided to go watch some nationals on Saturday because what else could I do with all the rain. Stephanie decided to go with me and we left around 10am. It rained all the way up but not so bad you couldn't see out the window. We got there about 12:30. They had signs up that said parking was 3 dollars but no one was taking money when we got there. We sat in the main arena, but I couldn't see the weaves from where I was, but I didn't want to move. Stephanie was excited because the dog, or one of the dogs, from "Marley and Me" was there and you could meet him. She is obsessed with fame. Marley is famous and of course he was touched by Jennifer Aniston and Owen Williams. That made me laugh. I told her there was someone more famous then Marley walking the course right now. She said who. I told her Greg Luganis. She said, "Who's that". So then I told her, she wasn't to impressed. You know the dog was touched by famous people. Hard to compete with that. The picture above is her with Marley, which I'm sure you guessed.

Anyway , I got to see a lot of runs. Its so fun to watch people's dogs who are smoking the course. I wish I had tape some of the runs so I could analyze them when I got home. Like Marcus Topps run. He makes it look like he isn't even working hard. Yet he dogs gets such a fast time. I love how his dog reads him so well. I wonder if its all body language or if he is giving verbal cues too when he is running a jumpers course. I also saw this lady run a golden retriever that was awesome. She had some type of disability and couldn't run. Her dog had such distance. They were running to the final jump and the dog couldn't see the handler and stop right before the last jump ( which was a double or a triple), then he must have seen here coming and jump over and didn't even drop the bars. And to top if off had a fast time too. One thing that I saw happen a lot which was concerning was dogs going for their leashes. AKC has this new rule about the leashed not being on the ground for the dog to get. Most clubs have gone to putting the leashes in a bucket and then on a chair. But at nationals, the leash was sitting on the seat of a metal folding chair. So the dog would run to the chair to get his leash and would clothes line itself. I hope none of the dogs got hurt. It really seemed dangerous to me. The other thing I saw a lot of was running backward into a front cross. I can barely do it running forward. I'll kill myself if I have to learn that. But it seemed to work really well for the people using it.

We stayed there about 3-4 hours and then left to go eat dinner and go to that outlet mall to shop. We ate at a place called "Razzoo", I think that's how you spell it. It was Cajun food and I was worried Stephanie wouldn't like it. But I wanted to try something new , at a place we had never been before. The food turned out to be good and the restaurant had cool decor. We did do a little shopping but finally I told Stephanie we needed to go home so I stop spending money. It was still pouring down rain when we left at 7pm. We got to the other side of Charlotte and it had stopped raining and the sun was out. The buildings from the city looked wild with the sun reflecting off of the windows. We tried to get a shot of it. This is the best we could get.

So today (Sunday)is sunny. Yea. Also on a high note, Miley has not broken her start line stay since last Tuesday when I posted about it. First I relaxed about it. Second, I started making her stay when we go out the gate to the front part of the house. And before we go in to see the ferrets. She is always very excited about both of those things. So I'm not sure what it is, but it is better. Yea!!

Im a worrier!

You think? On Wednesday I took Miley to the underwater treadmill and she did terrible. She walked really slow. And then after 13 minutes she refused to walk anymore. But while in the UWTM ( underwater treadmill ) her gait was normal. I had brought Natural Balance Rolls dog food. We use that a lot when training agility. She usually likes it. But not when doing the UWTM. She wouldn't come to me. It was so weird. The vet had a piece of chicken that seem to work somewhat. But then when I had to go back to my stuff, she (Miley) made a terrible face like I gave her tar to eat. So we took her out of the UWTM and called it a day. When waiting to pay, I saw blood on the floor. I didn't think it was Mileys blood but she did stop in the treadmill a few seconds before it was turned off. The building also does orthopedic surgery , so blood on the floor wouldn't be unheard of. I checked Miley's foot. There was nothing there. But then the vet saw me checking her and got concerned and came out and asked if she was limping. I said ,"no, I'm just a worrier". But when I got home I was freaked out. Did she refuse to walk because it was hurting her? Did I run her through agility to hard the day before? I gave her 1/2 a Rimadyl and didn't let her do anything that night. Then next morning I walked her and didn't see anything wrong. Then the real test. I took her to the park. The one with the steps that are wide and will show a problem , if there was one.

Side story: I had this cat when I was a kid. After she would eat, she would go around her bowl , scratching the floor like she was covering up her food. She would make a complete circle and then turn around and look at the bowl. Well, of course the food wasn't covered up. So she would start again. She would do this about 4 to 5 times. Each time turning around to see that the bowl wasn't covered. So the final time she would work, scratching the floor all the way around the bowl and just wouldn't look back. She probably thought, "If I don't look back, it must be covered".

That's how I wanted to feel about Miley's leg. If I don't take her for a walk and I don't do the steps with her, I wont know if anything is wrong. Like the cat. But I'm not the cat and if I don't know what is wrong I cant fix it. So I took her to the park and everything was fine. No weird gait down those steps. No skips on the walk. Everything seems fine.

Today, back to the UWTM. This time I took a hot dog. Miley loves hot dogs. I told the vet about seeing the blood on the floor on Wednesday and that is why I was checking Miley's foot. She felt better. I told you, I think I made her worry too. So maybe Miley is bored or just doesn't like the UWTM. The vet decided to vary the treadmill speed a lot more. So she would go a few minutes at 1.2 mph and the one minute at 1.6 and then back down again. Miley did great. I'm not sure if it was the hot dogs or the varying of the speed. Miley has definitely build up her thigh muscles. I always thought she was in shape, but man her thighs are awesome now. Of course you cant see it because of all the hair , but you can feel it. Even the vet said, "wow, huge thigh muscles" today.

Breaking her start line

So, Little Miss Miley has bee breaking her start line a lot. Is she just so excited to be running the course she cant control herself? Is it something I'm doing? Ive been really trying to reward heavily when she stays. I try to be mindful of walking back to her when she does stay. I'm sure the dogs learn that the farther out you go, the less likely the reward. Ive been just doing a two jump lead out , at the most. So yesterday she broke several times even with rewarding when staying. I finally started throwing the chicken to her, which seem to help. I could tell her body relaxed when she leaned over to find the chicken. The only problem is that if your throw isn't great, your dog may move. One time she did have to stand up to get the treat but did stay in the same spot. Is that ok? I really don't want this to become an issue. And me worrying about it, makes it an issue. Maybe she isn't trusting me because I'm not trusting her. Ive been reading through Clean Run looking for something to jump out at me as the problem, but nothing yet. I do make her wait in her crate to be released and sometimes we practice waiting at doors , but all the time. Any suggetions?

Miley handling

This was a set up I did today with Miley. Keep in mind we really haven't practice for a couple of months. She did pretty good. My handling needs help. I don't like the arm flinging thing I'm doing. Its very choppy looking. Its probably confusing to the dog. She did drop some bars, but the were all on crosses. I did more than what is on the video. I first did the set up that is from clean run March of 09. Its the Power Paws Drills, Seminar Sets by Nancy Gyes, set number 3. In the end I change the bottom of the sequence to be a pinwheel. ( not on video) One thing I noticed that I did was try to rear cross after the jump to turn her into the pinwheel. You wouldn't rear cross in front of the jump the dog just took. So I let the dog go by and then rear crossed. I don't know why I did that. I didn't even realize that is what I did until I watched the video. I know I also did that at the trial in January , with the same results. The dog didn't understand the cue. Ugh! I will have to watch that.

My computer is still having problems. The audio device keeps deleting its self. Plus other problems. I may have to send it in to be fixed. I probably wont get much practice in the next 5 days, its suppose to rain everyday. I hope they are wrong. On Sunday I may go up to North Carolina and watch the AKC agility nationals. It wont be that close again for a long time.

Dogwalk success

So I took Miley to the training field on Sunday. I ran her across the dogwalk 4 times. The first time I was so busy watching her gait that I forgot to say "touch" and she ran off the end of the dogwalk. I was thinking,"crap, what happened?" But then I remembered that I didn't tell her anything. She was so proud of herself too. So we repeated it. The next three times she stopped. I didn't see anything abnormal in her gait. The only thing I may have noticed was she didn't run as fast as she use to. But that could just be from not running it in such a long time. Plus it probably didn't help that I messed up the first time and that made her slow down the rest of the times. I did do some sequencing with her. She did very well. She only dropped one bar and I think that was my fault, I was late. We are very rusty and I was way late on many of my calls. She ran by the weave poles the first time but then did them all the second time. We were only there a total of 15 minutes and she wasn't working the whole 15 min. It was definitely the longest she had worked in a long time. The rest of the day she seem much more a peace with her life then she has since this started. She did break her start line stay several times. Ugh! The only other thing that I thought looked weird was her gait at the end. I'm trying to post it here. We will see if it up loads. I tried all day to up load the video and it just wouldn't work. The first video is of her gait at normal speed. ( I know she is circling but I wanted my husband to be able to get it on video with her gaiting naturally) If I can I will up load the slower gait video too. But the video will be much shorter because blogger cant handle the video. I couldn't up load the video of the slow gait. I watched the above video frame by frame. I didn't see anything unusual. She was using her foot/leg normally. Both extending and contracting completely normal. I don't know why it looks so weird. I will show it to the vet today and see what she thinks.

I took Guiness to freestyle class last night. He did really well. Only two of us showed up. She kinda tested us. We had to go out into the ring and she told us what we had to do. Guiness did really well. He did most things with only a verbal command. It really makes me realize how much in agility your dog is going with your body language. It takes a lot of work to make the dog just do something by verbal. Things I need to work on are having the dog side step. We cant do that at all. The other is having the dog turn and then back between you legs. He can back between my legs if I set him up but I need it to look more fluid. So if you make them half circle and the back up , it looks better.

More a-frame work

First I would like to say I'm going to have to fire the house elfs. They didn't come last night and clean my kitchen. What is up with that!

Next here is some a-frame ground work I did last night. The first run her back leg wasn't inside the box but I rewarded because I didn't notice it until I watched the video. The next run I started adding equipment. I added a tunnel. She jumps over the box. WooHoo, cant slow down. But after that she seems to get it together.

Today I took the dogs for a long walk at the park. It was freezing when I first got there but then got better once we go moving. Later in the afternoon I worked Miley for a short session. Just some weave poles and once through the a-frame ground work. Here is that video.

Do anyone know if its ok if you dog is just getting into the box. Should she be jumping right in the middle of the box? Anyway, tomorrow is D day. I'm going to take her to the training field and have her get on the dogwalk and see if she does that weird gait.