Not much

Wow, I havent bogged since Saturday. Sorry about that. I did it in my head. Does that count?  LOL  Sunday we walked the dogs at the State Park.  I havent been there in several months because its just been to hot.  Its not hot anymore. Now Im complaining its to cool. In the morning it been in the 30's. What's up with that??  We suffer through 100 degree heat all summer just so we dont freeze in the winter.  I guess not this year.  Anyway, I tried to get some good pictures.  Every time I try to get all the dogs in  a picture,  its a disaster.

There were lots of people and bikes at the park, so that always irrigating to me. LOL because you know Im the only one who should be at the park.  All the bikes made it hard to take pictures of the dogs. Plus Java just cant "wait'.  She is doing well at home but any place else , forget it.

Work has been horrible.  So many kids lie and fake all the time. It irritating.  Some kid told her mom I refused to let her call her mom or let her go home. Which wasnt true. The mom came in and had some words with me. I pulled up my note and told mom what the student's complaint was. After resting, I sent her to lunch and told her to come back if that didnt help. She never came back.  It wasnt a pleasant conversation.  I just told her "Im sorry, your student didnt tell you the truth".   So then that student came back again that day that mom came in.  Well guess what. None of the phone numbers or email addresses worked for mom. And the student didnt know her phone numbers.  So how was I suppose to call her. Ugh!!  Then some other little boy acting like was having stroke symptoms.  Im trying to figure out if I should call an ambulance.  I trying to reach a parent. Guess what, there was nothing wrong with him.  OMG, What the heck???  Crap like that takes me over the edge.

Then the toilet in Stephanies bathroom leaked and we didnt know it. We  never use that bathroom.  It wasnt until the ceiling down stairs bubbled, that my husband saw it.  The bathroom baseboards are a mess.  I think we may have to pull up the floor. 

At least it didnt leak onto my china cabinet.  The water hit right in front if it on the  carpet. Yes, the new carpet from a couple of years ago. That area is gated off so no dogs go it there. So much for keeping things nice.

I taught the co-op agility class for the club yesterday. The field is nice and the fence and gates are up. But no locks on the gates yet so I used bungee cords to keep the gates closed. That worked well.  I set up a course but it was pretty hard.  It took me several tries to get it right.  Miley self released herself off the a-frame once and when I gave her an negative marker work, "nope". She big stess circled the field.  It was said harsh or anything. Silly dog. After that, she got it then next two times.  I dont know what to do at a trial. I may not mark it, if its going to stress circle and go crazy.  Java came too.  I worked just playing with her on the field. I worked on using food and changing to a toy. Very hard for her.  She likes food alot.  But I want her to be able to use both.
I also downloaded Sylvia Trkmans video on Cik and Cap.   I really just want to teach my dogs to turn tight.  Miley doesnt turn tight at all.  So Im hoping this will help. Im not sure if Im going to use the verbal with it because when I watch the video of her running, it really seems like her dogs are reading her body motion cues. But I  like how it teaches them to drive out of a turn.

New Plan

So after last weekend and my dog totally loosing her mind in standard, I have a new plan.  I think that I looked confident at the b-match when walking to the line and leading out. But when at the trial, I dont think I look as confident. I dont trust my dog to do her job which is maybe why Im having trouble.
So here is  a video of lead outs from last weekend. I ended with our T2B video. I felt like I was confident in that one and we did well except for the dropped bar.


After this trial I wasnt going to do AKC anymore.  Whats the point if she wont get on the table.   But I have a new plan.  Im going to use my AKC standard runs to work on me.  Im going to work on looking confident when leading out. If she breaks, then we leave.  I will mark a missed contact.  I will take chances that I normally wouldnt take.  AKC standard will be training runs.    The other new thing Im doing is not carry treats with me when I train.  Now if Im training a specific skill , then I will . Or if she struggles with something, I will go get treats to help her learn what I want. But for just running something I think she can do, no treats.   Reward with a "good girl" if she holds her contacts ect.  We'll see what happens.  Miley is a dog who likes everything the same all the time. So I need to make things from training and trialing more the same.

Today we spent the day out at the clubs new agility field working to get it ready.  We moved the contacts onto the field. We had to take the shed apart because it was missing pieces, moved it inside the fence area and put it back together.  The fence is still being build but the post are in.  Then we moved all the equipment inside the fence too.  Made new jumps, wobble boards and planks.  And painted the pump house for the field. There is a huge pond, river or lake behind the field but there is an alligator in there. So we had a pump put in to pump water up to the field so we can cool dogs off.

This is Britany, she paint the pump house and put the dog paws on it. It turned out cute.

 Here is the new field. Nice and big.
I was the first one to use the field. Here is our run.  Miley self released the first time over the dogwalk, so I made her come back.  I have no treats and the next time I said "good girl" when she got it.

The beach

Dont worry no birds where hurt in the making of these pictures. I guess the alligator wasnt hungry.

This was at sunrise and the lighting was making things pink. Very cool.

Then the  dogs kept running through this stuff.  Its only there during low tide so its not hard, hard but I wouldnt think it would be nice to run through.

I could sit on the beach and take pictures all day. LOL

This is my favorite picture.

I of course have a ton of pictures but I wont post all of them.  LOL  It took me 3 days to figure out why I couldnt post any pictures.  Its was weird but when I saved  the pictures I thought it was in Jpeg.  So when I looked under properties of the pictures, it said jpeg . But then I noticed today that when I was looking at the pictures, windows live photo program has this little information bar at the bottom and it said Tiff.  So that was the whole problem.  I resaved the pictures and now I could load them. I thought I was loosing my mind trying to figure out what the problem was.  I transferred all the photos on the another hard drive. My husband reformatted my computer and updated a bunch of stuff.  Ugh, what a waste.  I so glad its fixed.

Hey Lucy!

Well if you are on facebook you already know how my standard run went on Sunday.   It was our first run. I wasnt nervous.  Im not sure why Miley did what she did.  It started with tire to the dogwalk.   She jumped the dogwalk contact and took the wrong tunnel entrance. OMG , I was so defeated when that happened.  I wasnt expecting her to get on the table but she just acted like I hadnt trained her at all. What the heck???  Then she jumped the a-frame contact, popped out of the weave poles and jumped on and off the table. Did a big circle around the ring and then got on the table.  After that, she was perfect. LOL, the only contact she didnt jump was the teeter. That one was perfect.  So as we were driving home that day I started thinking, running Miley sometimes is like being Charlie Brown and playing football with Lucy.  Sometimes she just pulls the ball out from under you.   And thats exactly what it felt like.  I take what Miley does way to personally.  And I just need to remember that sometimes she is just going to act crazy and just remember that is Miley. 
Both my walk thurs were at the same time.  So I decided to just concentrate on Standard. I only walked jumpers a few times. There were only 6 dogs in open standard so there wasnt much time to worry about jumpers.  It was only a few minutes from standard to jumpers. I just wasnt sure my head was in the game after that crappy standard run.   So here is our run.



I thought maybe I left the poles to early in standard so I  made sure I didnt do that here but she still pulled out.  Ugh. We were so close but yet so far. LOL  I didnt stay for T2B or FAST.  I was just over the whole thing.   Plus my son was with us at the beach and needed to get back to college and I still had to clean the condo.  So leaving wasnt a bad thing. 
So what do I think happened.  With the weave poles, Ive only been practicing 6 poles at home to work entrances.  The last two or three classes we've had its been raining or wet and I didnt want to run weave poles.  So we have done no 12 since our trial 3 weeks ago.  Really I havnt had a full run anywhere except at trials since August.  Most of Sept. she didnt do anything because of the glass in her foot.  Then here its been raining a lot so its been hard to fine dry time to practice expect in my yard.  The new field for the club is suppose to be ready this weekend.  Weve had no place to practice since April.  So maybe she just isnt getting enough practice. Some other things which Im not sure make  a difference or not.  Saturday Miley and Java ran on the beach for a long time.  Im mean a really long time.  I remember thinking that maybe it was to much.  I guess not.  Then Sunday, I had to be at the trial earlier.  The dogs didnt run as much.  Java seemed tired and didnt want to run as much.  She walked weired up the steps.  The night before I checked all her pads because she also walked weird up the steps.  Now it was worse.   When we go to the condo I checked her again. OMG, there was a huge sand spur stuck under her arm.  I dont know how this dog was walking at all. I felt terrible.  I had to hold her down and my husband had to cut it out.  (I was thinking  this would have taken Miley over the edge. Good thing it wasnt her)  She had two more sand spurs . One in her neck and the other over her groin area. Poor dog. Ive never seen sand spurs this big.  I dont know how she got them.  
Anyway maybe Miley needed more "burning off energy" time.  I didnt throw the ball before going in the ring either.  Saturday I also worked Java  before going in the ring with Miley.  The last thing that was different, and I cant imagine this was anything at all. I went next to the ring , before the b-match, the table was right next to the ring gating. I touched the table, said table and when she looked at the table I would say "yes" and give her a cookie.

I took lots of pictures but Im running out of time. So Ill have to post them later.

Success

Went to a trial this weekend.  We had a great day.   I would love to load some of the pictures I took of the dogs on the beach but the Internet is acting weird and I cant.  Sad.   Anyway, I only entered Exc JWW and T2B.   I also wanted to do the b-match to work on Miley's table.   We didnt Q in JWW or T2B.  In T2B we were the fastest but she dropped a bar. Ugh.  In JWW I again worried about sending her off course and over handled it. I caused a refusal.  She was coming out of the tunnel and there was a discrimination between the weaves and a jump. I called her to me after the tunnel and then got a refusal into the weaves because she was unsure and came back to me. But otherwise great run.    So here is the exciting news.   We did the b-match and she got on the table all 4 times without a single problem.  I wanted to reward her , so I petted her.  You can see in the video how much she enjoyed the touching. LOL silly dog. 



Anyway, how exciting is that.  So she gets on the first time, and I almost fainted.  So I thought, put her thur the tunnel and try it again. See what happens.  She got on again. Whoohoo!!  The second run we made mistakes going to the table and she still got on. WOW!!!  Im so excited to see  if it continues tomorrow. So why do I think she got on? I have not idea.  I have been running Java to the table at home and making Miley sit in a crate an watch.  But Ive tried doing that with Guiness and it made no effect. But Guiness didnt come to trials. 

Wordless Wednesday

Wonderful day!

Today I woke up and felt soooo much better.  The pain is almost completely gone.  Just some left in my ankles,feet and toes.  I can deal with that.  So because I felt so much better I didnt want to waste 4 hours in the car driving to a trial.  So I didnt. LOL  I just want to say that Im not mad at the club who's trial I was suppose to go to.  I realize what happened, the dirt being sand and to thick to run in,  wasnt their fault.  And having to move the rings and set up all over again must have been over whelming. I probably would have had a nervous breakdown if that was my club.  My only complaint, and Im sure they got tons, was communication.  For anyone not at the trial on Friday, we  had no idea what was going on.  I do think they should have sent out an email of apology and reasons for why they did what they did. It would have only taken a few minutes.  And I still dont understand why they moved FAST from the beginning of the day , to the end of the day. I even sent an email  on Friday asking why the change in the running order. I got no reply.  But it is what it is.  Live and learn.
Instead we went on the boat. Good thing to.  The tarp on the boat had fallen in and a lot of water was pulling on the boat cover. All the carpet was wet and now green from not getting any sun to dry it out.  Its now drying out.
We went to the beach that you cant park your car at but you call pull your boat up to.  We had a nice quiet spot all to ourselves.  Well at first.  Then a bunch of people came and started setting up easy-ups and  playing loud music.  So we left.  But I got some great pictures.

My teeth  hurt so I have to chew on all wood I find.

"La la la la la, I cant hear you calling my name."

I love this pictures. She isnt high up like the picture makes it look.

Guiness is running by and that why Java is looking that way.  Guiness isnt in may pictures because he was to distracted chasing waves.