NADAC Trial 11.2.14

Tessa and I had a FABULOUS time today at the OK Agility trial. Thanks to Ellen Tanne Kurland, June Legg Cole, Kelly Randall, and everyone else involved for making it so fun and friendly! I was pretty much thrilled with everything Tessa did, even though we didn't come home with all that many Qs (two, with various placements in those and other classes). Good things: her contacts were phenomenal. Stuck 'em EVERY TIME. I was THRILLED. Her enthusiasm and drive were fantastic! I loved that she wanted to go back in as we were leaving so she could run again. We ran SIX TIMES today (more than I think I've ever done before) and she wanted to do more. She loved it! Her ground speed was great! I felt like her dogwalk speed was really good when we were out there, but on video, it doesn't look quite as fast as it did when I was hoofing it to catch up. HA! She did some good rear crosses and tandem turns. She stayed focused and remembered her job even though we've had to do much of our practicing in the yard lately. She only knocked one bar all day at 16", so I feel like she understands that she's supposed to leave the bars up, so that's good. She demonstrated some great lateral distance work and some sends that were great.  Tessa also worked on her settle down in the crate skills, and that behavior improved during the day.

Things we need to work on: Hoops, forward sends, and general communication skills. When she's heading toward an off-course, me stopping and calling her doesn't do anything. I need to sort that out.

It was nice to visit with such a lovely group of people today. Fun stuff!

Our two Qs were in Chances (our first there!) and in Tunnelers, where she won first place. In Weavers and Jumpers, she took second without a Q. I don't know how she placed in the two regular runs, but they weren't Qs.

If you want a few details on the runs, check out the descriptions with the videos. Make it full screen - since these are Go Pro videos, they are far away.

These are the runs in order:
Weavers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzIsTStoGh8&feature=youtu.be

Jumpers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFSwWIc_ii0&feature=youtu.be

Chances https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGazl-XyglY&feature=youtu.be

Regular Round 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po_HKu0M-fk&feature=youtu.be

Regular Round 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIslz-v83Zs&feature=youtu.be

9.6.14 Practice

Well, I've shot a lot of video since my last post, but I obviously haven't been sharing it here. So, today I shot a lot to help me evaluate where we are on our contacts and weaves, as well as to look at the bar knocking problem she's got.

Click the box in the lower right hand corner to make the video big enough for you to actually see stuff.

A-frame practice:

Saved the best for last, didn't we?

I'm super happy with this teeter. When we took a break from going to class and training anywhere but our backyard for over a month (due to my shoulder surgery), she was still pretty iffy on the teeter. Not confident, flying off, no end behavior. Now, looky!

Threw in the chute, a jump, and the tire....

Her dogwalk is very solid. This video cuts off mid-second run, so don't bother to keep watching after the first pass :)

At home, I only have 22" poles. At first, I used stick-in-the-grounds at 24" to balance out the training on 22s but that was a pain. After my surgery, I just used the 22s. As you can see, it's caused no problems whatsoever in her performance.  In fact, these performances are better than the ones she does at home. 

Love that I can rear cross the weaves!

Then we tried this jumpers course. She actually knocked fewer bars than I expected, but we still need a lot of jump work. There's a lot of really bad handling in these videos. You have been warned. 

For the next two runs, I moved the bars down to 16" I think she only knocked one or two bars that way, although I only ran the segment shown here. This requires more checking into. If she can keep the bars up at 16", I think that says some things that I had better hear. 

What a great practice! So much fun!

Backyard Practice 4.25.14

The purposes of this practice were to work speedy weave entries, practice my blind cross (found that the front was better in this situation), and to learn to use the Go Pro camera. The remote crapped out not too far into the exercise, which explains why you have to see my face up close and personal in the last videos (plus one goes on way too long, but I didn't feel inclined to edit). I also discovered that if there is anything near the side of your Go Pro, that object will be in your line of view. This is why mounts are necessary, I guess.

Interesting fact: I'm much thinner in the center of the Go Pro view. I get fatter when I'm close to the camera and move to the side. It is important to point out that I look like "center me" and not "side me" in real life. Very important fact. Remember it. :)

NADAC Trial 4.6.14

Day two started early and it was almost 20 degrees cooler at the start. Tessa probably had a bit more speed at the start of the day in the cooler weather than she did yesterday in the heat. We started with Weavers. I misunderstood the directions in terms of what equipment we could warm up on and so we had no warm-up on equipment before this run. Tessa has only seen weaves in two locations besides my house, and never in competition. Therefore, I thought this run went darned well! By the third time the poles came up, she NAILED them, at SPEED. I'm very happy with this! If she hadn't have run through the hoop, she would have qualified! I don't know her time or anything because there was a problem with the computer software or something, but I know she didn't Q. 

Tunnelers was next. SHE KILLED IT! She won her class with a time of 17.51 (SCT 28.25), which would have allowed her to Q in Elite! She had the fastest time of all dogs in Novice and Open, but was bested by one in Elite. I was very pleased with the send to tunnel 3/front cross to tunnel 4. I was also glad to get the turn at the end into the last tunnel. It was tricky and, when I saw another handler wipe out there, I was a bit concerned that could happen to me as well.

Next was Jumpers. My videographer had a problem at the beginning of the course, which is unfortunate mostly because we actually ran the first few obstacles clean, ha! Jumpers was kind of a hot mess, but she left up the majority of the bars, which made me very happy. I knew she couldn't pull off the straight run out at the end. We need to work on sends over jumps. We got an astonishing 65 faults on this course in 22.02 seconds. I think we should win something for that!

I wasn't going to stay for Chances. I wasn't signed up for it. I sucked in it yesterday. But there it was, calling my name, so I signed up. It was really hard! Plus Tessa started without me! I don't think she even knew she went through the hoop that started the timer. She just learned hoops this week and still doesn't know to seek them out or avoid them depending on the circumstances. Anyway, I was pleased that she got some of the distance work, and loved the opening after I recovered. 

Chances is pass/fail, I think. We failed, but I had so much fun, I'm counting it as a win!

Overall, I'm really pleased by how Tessa did. She handled the confusion of a trial well, maintained her focus, and handled close by dogs very well for the vast majority of the weekend. At the end of the day on Sunday, she snarked at a dog that came up into her space/crate/water bowl area, and then got very concerned about a fellow who was doing some handyman-type work on the site. She got over her extreme concern of finding him where she didn't expect him (over by the dock diving pool) but when he started hammering on the metal screen door, she got pretty worked up. We were leaving anyway so I just hustled her out of there. She was a little barky in her crate, but only when she could see me working or course walking. She's very mentally tired now.

I'm so proud of her! Now I know some skills I want to work on before we trial again, including more contact performance work and sending skills.

I felt like I really conquered my nerves, and I hope that that will last me for a long time. I was worried about being out of practice and out of my element, and I was both of those, but people were nice and it was OK.

Anyway, Tessa's the best. Thanks Karen Moureaux and Kathy Mocharnuk for my special girl!

First Trial! 4.5.14

My plan was to arrive at the NADAC trial at OK Agility around 11 or so to sign up day-of-show for the last three games classes of the day. I registered in advance for the first three games classes on Sunday. I didn't expect to be free on Saturday but, when I realized I was available, I couldn't let the opportunity to trial today to go to waste.

I was somewhat nervous. After trialing three weekends out of every four from 1996 to 2003, give or take, and then one day a month until 2006, I had done exactly three competitive agility runs since then. Not trials. RUNS. In addition, Tessa is a very green dog and, since we train on excellent/masters level courses, we had never strung together more than seven or eight obstacles. I had some concerns about how the day was going to go. But I packed the kids and the dog and off we went.

The morning started with a snag. The class order had changed. The Touch N Go class that I planned to enter was already running at the Elite level. The folks at OK agility kindly let me dash in and I run two times around the course to get the feel of it. Then, after getting everyone comfortable, I did my best to watch the other dogs. Several competitors mentioned that it was a more complicated Touch N Go course than usual because of multiple uses of the same hoop. Perfect! We went last. Here's how it went:

Pretty damn good, right? Although Tessa had never been at an agility trial, she took everything in stride.OH, and while it looks like I was holding her at the contact because she skipped off the bottom rather than doing her two on/two off, I was actually trying to remember where to go next. HA! It was her first qualifying score in anything! She got first place, but no one else was in her class, so there you go. I took the blue ribbon anyway, as I felt like she deserved it. 

Here's her scoring info. I covered the identifying info for all other dogs listed for privacy reasons. The Standard Course Time was 51.08 and she did it in 37.73 which I think was the 3rd fastest time across the heights. I should have checked to see what the Elite time was on the same course. If the sheets are there tomorrow, I'll check.

I'm kind of proud of myself because, pre-children, I would not have handled the last-minuteness of the whole thing so well. I was a big time planner and I disliked disruptions. Funny how having two kids changes that :)

Because of the order change, Chances was next. I didn't particularly want to enter that class because I didn't think Tessa was really ready for the distance portion. I was told that it was most often just jumps or hoops or tunnels in the distance area so I thought, "What the Hell. I'm here!" So I decided to give it a go.

And then the distance element required a huge send to the dogwalk!

The course also included a barrel, which I didn't see in the rules and therefore I wasn't aware would be on the course. I've never trained that before! We went out back and I sent her around trees. It wasn't smooth, but we got through it.  The send to the dogwalk? Not so much.

Yes, I called the hoop a tunnel at the end.

I was pleased with her send over the jump and to the tunnel, and for the bars that she kept up. Plus, she was so game! For some reason, her time wasn't recorded, so I don't know how fast she was going, but I probably couldn't tell anything anyway on account of the time we spent staring at each other over by the dogwalk. Haha! I think she got no score since she didn't do the distance part.

Then it was time for Jumpers. The opening stumped me. I should have led out past two and sent her to three off my left, but I know she sometimes knocks bars coming at me, so I opted for the conservative approach.... which caused her to knock down two bars. Ah, well. I was super happy with the rest of the run, even with the run by later in the run. Did I layer a jump at the end of the course? YES I DID! I was a bit concerned about the rear cross toward the end but it went well (of course, the bar was already down). Watch for how she looks for her ball at the end of the run. Bless her heart! :)

We got 40 points worth of faults on that run. 10 per bar (for 20), then 20 for the run-by that I didn't correct. I'm super pleased that she left up as many bars as she did, especially at the portions of the course in which she was running in extension.

So then I went and looked at her time:




Just over 16 seconds!

Fastest time in all novice! Now, I realize that CLEARING the jumps and JUMPING ALL OF THEM are important and can increase your time, but I'm still pleased that she's moving at these speeds!

Overall, today was great. It was also hot, about 80 degrees, if not more (in the port-o-lets it was an oven, let me tell you). Tessa's rarely worked in such heat. That plus perhaps the unusual environment decreased her speed. It also made her more responsive than usual. For example, I was sure she was going to go for the off-course tunnel in TNG after the A-frame and hoop, but she didn't even consider it.

I wore loose shorts so I could put a ball in my pocket to reward her worth if everything went to Hell in an handbasket and I needed to go into training mode. Unfortunately, then I was told that my toy had to be invisible, not all bulgy. So much for that. I'll need a different plan for the future. 

I did reward her after her runs with her ball but not very much and it was a bit delayed. I'm nervous that not having a good reward after a run will decrease her enthusiasm, although I've never owned a BC and maybe it just doesn't matter like it has for my previous dogs. I think tomorrow, though, I'll run off and get a ball and really chuck it for her so she has a longer reward session.

I'm going out in the morning tomorrow for Weavers, Jumpers, and Tunnelers (hopefully there won't be changes as I'd prefer not to do Chances again for a while). It'll be MUCH cooler, so we'll see what that does.

Overall, it was a great day! I'm grateful to have such a good dog.

4/3/14 Class

This video is five minutes long and includes a lot of me getting instruction, interspersed with Tessa running very fast and doing lots of obstacles, some of which are the right ones. It will be boring for all but the diehard, but for me, it's great instruction to see it all.

And yes, the very opening video includes the ending of a story which includes the words "proofing for bunny guts," or something like that. Enjoy!

Practice 3/31/14

SO PROUD of the distance work into the weaves! She's the best girl :)

Pratice 3/30/14

Today's practice was our best ever! Even though she was a bit tired getting into the car to go to train, she was pumped up, fast, and focused at practice (in other words, her usual self). Her teeter still needs work, but she learned the NADAC hoop in a very short period of time. She had some issues with handling the weaves at speed so we'll continue to work on that. The A-frame was shorter than regulation height and I didn't change it, but her contact was perfect. And her dogwalk is getting so fast with a fantastic stop at the end. She also handled at a distance really well. The best distance send didn't get recorded, of course.

I learned that I'm far from with-it handling her. I kept forgetting how I wanted to do one portion of the unnumbered course and there is no time for forgetting at warp speed.

I'm so proud of Tess! We are having such fun together!

These videos are pretty awful. My videographer had to pee and pretty much didn't want to be my videographer at all, so there you go. Hope you can spot the brilliance in the mess!

Practice 3/26/14

Today Tessa and I were working on collecting and wrapping around a jump on a verbal cue versus extending and running forward on cue. Also, we were working on marking dropped bars and trying to get her to jump cleanly.

My videographer pretty much did a terrible job, but she's so intensely involved with the whole exercise that I'm posting the videos anyway :)

Yard Practice 3/25/14

I learned a few things from today's practice.

1. My hard is really crowded full of stuff, which might make it a challenge for my dog to know what I'm pointing to. I suppose this might have an advantage when we get to trials where things aren't a mess.

2. Trees can cause you to set up things that your dog can't really do.

3. Stick in the ground weave poles can mess up a good weaver.

4. I need to work on my weave pole sends again. She needs to be able to finish the set while I go elsewhere.

I rearranged the course as I went along to make it more doable. I thought she kept the bars up pretty well and did OK considering the conditions. I was trying to prepare a bit for NADAC weavers but for the future, this is just too much stuff for my little yard. It wasn't conducive to a good practice.

I reset the weaves so they'd be straighter. During that time, The Girl/videographer did a course walk.

Here's the reset weaves.

All in all, not too bad, but I wasn't too happy with it. My faults, not hers.

Teeter 2/25/14

This is an unedited video. My apologies. It starts with a couple of turns without me doing anything - so just her natural teeter, and then with me trying to get her to lie down on it.

This was a smaller-than-normal teeter. She's normally a bit more out-of-control on the taller one.

I'm kind of thinking I might just leave it alone as long as it is a safe performance. I don't own a teeter and am limited in my teeter practice/number of props or adjustments I can do on the teeter.

Also, I called her a stinker because she likes to put her ball under things, like the ring gate, making it harder for me to pick it up and throw it. :)

Practice 2.20.14

There are a couple of firsts at today's practice:

20" jumps
12 poles away from home
Daddy came to class

She knocked down as many poles at 20" as she does at 16", so that's something. She's not yet ready to do straight poles at speed. She's not yet ready to do most things at the speed she'd like to do them :) My only real concern, though, is her teeter, which is still not up to par. We'll get it eventually!

Also, if the camera puts on 10 pounds, why does it put them all in my butt?

Weaves! 2/19/14

Tessa is doing 12 in-line weaves! It's a miracle! Border Collies are amazing. (I have a history of muffing up weave poles with other dogs, hence my disbelief.)

Did you see me roll my ankle? I'm so athletic.

Tessa Practice 2.18.14

My phone camera kept crapping out and nothing is in focus. However, today, Tessa did her first straight weaves AND her first layer. So I am not complaining!

I had so many really great things happen that I didn't get on video. BOO on that! At least you can kind of see the weaves.

In other news, I apparently talk to myself a lot while training.

Last Night of Intro to Contacts and Weaves

It's dark and unfocused, plus I was so tired that my cues wouldn't come out right. Still, she did well. I'm very proud of her!

My videographer may or may not be singing in part of this video. :)

Practice 2.9.14

Today I spent about an hour training Tessa out at Courteous Canine. The weather was finally warm and sunny!

I tried to edit this together into one training video but I couldn't figure out how to edit out all the down time. So I made lots of short little videos and cut the downtime off the ends. It took forever. You're welcome.

The channel weaves were set 2.5 inches apart, which is a half-an-inch narrower than the stick-in-the-grounds I worked her on yesterday. (There's some downtime in this video because I didn't think of breaking it down into smaller pieces and editing. My apologies.)

Then we went and worked the Jumpers course that we tried in class on Thursday. I really liked the pinwheel without the front cross, even though I know the front cross should be better. All jumps were at 16 inches.

We worked the dogwalk. At first, we did it without a target.

The second try, I put a target down because she stopped with all four on and wouldn't go all the way down.

Then I put targets on each end and worked it. It went much better with the targets. Clearly, I need to work to fade them.

We are working on having her gain confidence on the teeter. I hope this technique is working. I don't feel super comfortable with it because I know she isn't either, but she seems to be handling it well so far.

Then we did some A-frame practice. She didn't stop on the contact without the targets. She kind of skipped off and downed way at the end. With the targets, she did much better.

Then we worked on the standard course. We broke it into parts. Here are the center two sections.

After this, we went and played on the Jumpers course again, but the camera ran out of charge! I kind of did too, but Tessa was still plenty charged up :)

My plan for the contacts is to fade them by putting more and more dirt and leaves on them to slowly  cover them up. I did that a little bit today.

Video courtesy of Clean Run.

Weaving Practice 2/8/2014

This is our first time through a channel that is about 3 inches wide. She had some trouble completing the set at first because she was distracted by her ball near the end of the poles. You would think she would drive to the ball but if a ball is stationary, Tessa often has to run a bit away from it so she can, you know, watch it with great intensity. Border Collies are weird.

The loud mouth in the background is Payton the Wonder Whippet. She was protesting having to stay outside in less-than-pleasant weather while Tessa trained. When we did let her inside while I continued to work with Tessa oudoors, Payton ransacked my purse and various bags in an attempt to find all potential snacks. This is why I was making her stay outside in the first place, of course.

Practice 2/6/14

My camera had some issues but here's some of the standard course, which was our second run this morning. We skipped the teeter and the weaves so we did the course in three sections. The first one is not on video. 

This was our first run of the day. We had a little wait and she got really high. I'm slightly concerned with all the bar knocking... that's not happening at home so I hope it's just excitement. I'm only jumping her at 16" during courses because she really just can't coordinate the handling AND the jumping high yet. This was part of our actual lesson so again, fast forward through the parts where Angelica's coaching me and I'm huffing and puffing. (I can't seem to "uncenter" this and I'm tired of trying. My apologies.)

I've been taking a slow approach to Tessa's training. I think, for 16 months old, she's doing pretty great! Even though I'm concerned about some parts (BARS! TEETER!) and she's still got a ways to go on some things (PERFECT STOPPED CONTACTS! WEAVES!), I'm really just having so much fun it doesn't matter!

January 16, 2014 Weave Practice

I started Tessa on four weaves today and she was pretty baffled. Suddenly she had trouble with the first three too! We kind of struggled our way through it and she was getting it slowly but it clearly was stressful for her.

And then I had an idea.

I borrowed one of the concepts from 2x2 weaves and set up three poles, about five feet of space, and then three more poles. In no time, this happened.

I bet I'll be able to move these closer and closer and I'll have 6 poles much faster than I expected. I'm wondering if I'm going to need to continue with the channel weaves that we are working on?

If this works, I'm going to publicize it as my own weave method. Brenna Weaves, anyone? Fender Poles, perhaps?

January 13, 2014 - Weave Macaroni

January 11, 2014 - Agility Practice

One quick Tunnelers run....

And some weave channel practice.

January 11, 2014 - Disc Practice

The Boy will (hopefully) be taking over disc work with Tessa while my shoulder mends. Here's a bit of their practice together today. It was quite windy, making things a challenge.

January 6, 2014 Practice

We had a very nice early afternoon practice in which she was nailing the weave macaroni like nobody's business. A couple hours later and 10 degrees cooler and it went like this:

Someone was less serious about this training session than the rest of us:

This is Spark, doing nothing:

And here's some contact training:

Videos courtesy of Cleanrun.com.