I never thought I would be glad to get a snow day from agility training.  But boy did I do a happy dance this morning!

In thinking back over the past month all I can say is this is the result of an accumulation of too much being too much. 

I started Zoey in a Foundations agility class.  I was really looking forward to starting to teach her the basic skills.  In a good logistical move my instructor scheduled two classes I am in back to back.  So I would bring both dogs with me, work one, then the other in the next class.  And so began the trouble.

You see, neither of my dogs will stay quietly in a crate while they are within earshot of me.  And the training space has no sound-proofed rooms, being a section of warehouse decked out in colors and office partitions.  The first weeks my girls were banished to the bathroom.  Where they continued to make a stink but at least the volume was muffled.  But for the past three weeks I have been working on managing crate behaviour while trying to train the opposite dog.  Whose brain won’t function as her pack-mate is in “obvious” distress in the crate.

Then there was our last trial.  Due to a church fundraiser the night before running fairly late (awesome and very successful fudraiser) by the time I got to sleep I had to get up in four hours.  All I can say is that we had couple of good runs and then the lack of sleep kicked in.  Just in time for the Elite Jumpers classes.  I ended up walking off the last course, just fried.  I most definitely let my teammate down!  Note to self: when you cannot figure out what you are going to do on the walk thru — scratch the run.  At least then I won’t be setting Emma up to lose confidence!

I had been moved into an Advanced Handling class with Emma.  I was barely coming to grips with this when I decided to start a second dog.  Hmm… Maybe not such a brilliant move.

So now I need to re-group.  When agility stops being fun to train and run, well, then something is majorly wrong.

I have been granted a transfer into a slightly lower level class.  This should help me to break down those tricky sequences and get smoother on them.  Then I can just think about moving Emma through a course smoothly and fast.  Something that I have lost due to having to think too hard about my handling.

The schedule change will allow me to drive home between classes. Thus avoiding the crating nightmare.  I will have to work on crating extensively before I attempt both dogs with me at once again. 

Lastly, I will see how Zoey does when actually given my full attention and no (or at least only the usual) distractions.  I may or may not keep her in class.  I very well may pull her and just do work at home on all the things I learned in the last month and haven’t had a chance to really practice.

But for this week, I think we are all grateful for the snow day!

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend an agility seminar put on by my instructor.  This seminar was to address the subject of “distance”.  

Most often the majority of a course can be handled from a distance of 6-10 feet, as long as you boogie.  There are times however, that being able to work at a distance is a great advantage.  There are others where it is an absolute necessity.  Certain types of courses have challenges that require the dog to move out and work away from the handler.  Novice levels might require 10 feet, advanced 15-20 ft and in certain organizations the distance can exceed 30 ft.

Recently I read a most excellent article on the blog View From 4 Inch on the subject of “lines”.  The author is quite eloquent and gives a wonderful perspective on a topic that I now find to be integral to the sport.                                  http://viewfr4inch.blogspot.com/2009/12/love-of-lines.html

Now, it might be that my instructor has just recently started talking about lines and how handling affects them.  It is quite possible that the subject has never come up in the past year.  Because it is for certain that is only recently that I started hearing it!

Interestingly enough distance and lines are very connected.  Annelise gave the connection at the seminar.  She called distance handling “simply “trick agility”".  Meaning correct handling is correct handling.  If you are doing things right your dog “reads” the correct obstacle and path from your position and body language.  Moving out doesn’t change this, it just requires a bit more practice.

The next day in class I mishandled a sequence.  She gave me the directions of what to do telling me that by doing this I would be putting pressure on the line.  Ah ha!  It was a lightbulb moment.  As in, “Oh you mean putting pressure on the line!” 

I started to be able to see the course not only as a single fluid path that the dog runs; but saw that path as plastic, that my push and pull on it is what it really means to handle a course.  A synergy whereby you show the path to your partner and as there is trust that what you show is correct they then move through the course swiftly and smoothly.

Today I was reading the latest post on View From 4 Inch.  Part of a course by Lisa Potts is posted (one of my favorite judges as well!)  I found myself analyzing the course in a much different fashion.  Looking at possiblities that hadn’t occured to me before. I will be mulling over this new way of putting things together for quite awhile I am sure.

Incidently, Emma and I had hit a wall in our distance skills.  We had been pegged at 10 ft as a working range for quite some time. 20 was out of the question and obstacles 15 ft away took so much convincing on my part that we went over time and disqualified when I finally could convince her to take them.  At the seminar, by the last practice course Emma was going out to a tunnel 15 ft away with speed and confidence.  Hooray! 

And just in time.  This Sunday we are entered in the January “Freeze Pup” trail put on by Upper Midwest Australian Shepard Club of America (UMASCA).  Wish us luck!

Every year through January and February I long for warmer weather.  Or at least a sunny day!

So this past summer I took some photos of my beautiful summer skies.  Carefully wrapped and stored.  To be taken out and enjoyed when the leaden pall of winter got to be too much.

I caught this photo on my drive home the day before my birthday.  Not the prettiest scenery but the skies are still breathtaking.

Back to class!  Thank goodness, since Emma was ready to climb the walls out of boredom and the enforced inactivity that sub-freezing temperatures bring this time of year.

I have Zoey in a class for the first time in over a year.  I have been leary of starting her in agility for several reasons.  Firstly, the cost.  Running one dog is expensive enough.  Two… yikes!  Secondly, her build.  She is not a very tall dog, around 12″ and longer than she is tall. And with the way one of her front legs is put together I just haven’t been sure if she can physically handle it.  And lastly, her tempermant.  She is a very sweet, laid-back dog.  The penultimate lap dog actually.  She loves to play and cuddle.  She enjoys a good romp, loves to go on walks.  But doesn’t go stir-crazy if we can’t get out.  She also is terrible if I leave her alone in a crate while I train Emma.  So I haven’t seen it as possible to bring both to a trial.

Nevertheless, I decided to take her to a Foundations class.  This should be all really basic material.  Almost totally groundwork, no obstacles.  I figure that working these types of excercises with her could be fun and benefit our relationship.  And it will give me a chance to see if she seems to enjoy agility-type work. 

If I do end up running her I could stick exclusively to Teacup.  The smaller A-frame, dogwalk and teeter seem much more suited to her size and build.  Teacup equipment and courses look downright cute next to their bigger cousins.  Right up until you start running in competition, then they look a bit more challenging!  http://www.k9tdaa.com/

Having Zoey in class has an additional benefit.  Annelise gave us “homework” (!) and expects us to be working the basic exercises in between classes.  Mostly this is simple target work.  Strangely enough though, some of it I have never taught to Emma.  I mostly had other, more pressing, issues that I was working on with her. (Little things like getting her to not go ballistic on another dog running in class.)  So this gives me the opportunity to fill in some gaps, working both dogs through the foundation steps. 

After all, it’s not like we can play in the yard right now!

Gosh, it’s 2010 already.  I remember being an kid and being wowed that I would live through the turn of the century.  Then the whole hoopla with the new millenium.  Now it’s old-hat to say ‘09 or “back in ‘06″.  What are we going to call this past decade I wonder?  The Ninety’s are followed by the… O’es?

If I were me, starting back where I started in my agility training, what would I have done differently?  A lot of things actually.  But that would be with the benefit of hindsight and is cheating.  So what would be the one thing that would have made the biggest change in how smoothly we progressed?  Ah, much better question.

I believe the biggest single difference would have been the trainer under which I started out.  For anyone brand new to the sport there is going to be a lot to learn.  In fact, it can be downright overwhelming.  Your trainer is your doorway into this world.  They are your mentor and hopefully a friend to you and your dog.  Someone who will give you the groundwork that will set you up for a succesful agility “career” whether you decide to go all-out or just enjoy yourself here and there.

My agility training started out with learning the obstacles.  One by one, Emma and I learned the tunnels and jumps and ramps.  All pieces of an agility course.  Concurrent to this we started learning some of the various “moves”: here, get out, go/get it.  Today we run in Open Level competition.  And only recently has my inadequate foundation become terribly obvious. 

You see, the obstacles are the “easy” part of agility.  But running a course is not just a series of single obstacles.  A course has a flow.  It is a sequence through which you and the dog move together.  It is a team sport.  Your dog relies on you to know where to go next.  You have to lead the dance.  And how does one do this?

Therein lies the heart of the matter.  This is the proper place to start agility, on the ground.  How do you teach your dog to move away from you, veer in to you, go on straight ahead when you lag behind?  How do you teach them the difference between a tight turn and a wide arc?  This is groundwork, this is foundations.  This is where I would start my next dog.

And there is not just one way to do it.  There are different handling methods and styles. Different ways to train the obstacles.  So just reading books or articles at random can start to look very confusing.  One book has you doing “X” and tomorrow you “find out” that you “should” be doing “Y”.

As a side note, when I first started I wondered why the dogs were not simply trained to take a course on cue with the handler stationary at some point.  Turns out that some dogs can do this.  Most of the agility organizations have some sort class where this sort of challenge is part of the course (part of, not all).  So the training is not the issue.  I believe the bottom line is that running the course with your dog is fun.  A really smooth fast run is a complete thrill, a real rush. The rhythm and flow become a thing of beauty.

So where to start?  If it were me, starting over, I would start by going out to the local trials in my area.  Start by watching the competitors.  You will begin to notice that certain handlers work in a way that you find pleasing.  Not only in how they work their way through a course, but in how they deal with problems both on and off course.  Do they have a style of handling that you would like to imitate?

Take your time.  Look for good sportsmanship.  Shy away from “it’s the dog’s fault because _____.” Watch how the handler interacts with his/her dog. Do they give a lot of harsh corrections?  Do they scream at the dog?  When something goes wrong do they get bent out of shape or shrug and set to work figuring out what happened?

Ask around. Find out where people are training, who their instructor is or if they train at a certain club.  You will pretty quickly find out which trainers to look into and which to stay away from.  Take it from there, go meet the trainers.  Ask to sit in on the classes to get a feel for the instructor’s teaching style.  Not everyone who can do agility can successfully teach it.  This is an additional skill.

This is how I would start over and is my sincerest recommendation for anyone interested in the sport.  Any investment in finding a good trainer and in working foundation skills will pay rich dividends down the road.  It might seem like the unimportant part but will give you the bedrock on which to build a solid future performance. 

Best of luck!

I took Emma to an agility run-thru today.  It was held at the club where we started our agility training.  Emma was thrilled. 

The agility arena has rubber matting over concrete.  When the dogs run on it it makes a very loud and distinctive pattering sound as their feet hit.   Now for the last year or so we haven’t run on anything except grass, dirt and sawdust. So today Emma was particularly hysterical, she hit the matting and turned into a complete goofball.  Patter-ta-patter-ta-pat!  She was having a grand old time listening to her own footfalls. She even exaggerated her gait to make it louder!  

We did a couple of runs and I made some wonderful handling errors.   But it gave Emma a chance to shake the kinks out and kept us working so it was well worth the time.

Galumph!

No class for Emma and I until 4th of January.  Tonite the temps drop to -10 degrees with a -19 degree wind chill.  Ugh.  Too cold for little paws to be outside for long.  Methinks Emma is going to be bouncing off of the walls pretty soon!

Shetlie Rat Terrier Girls

Not very likely!  But pretty darn close.  I ran into this gal while making a deposit at my local bank. 

I would love to know if anyone has any info on who might be breeding this cross in the Twin Cities Metro area in Minnesota.  Both of these dogs were rescues.  Both are obviously the same cross.  But not the same parents.  Emma (on the right) is a much finer-boned dog and is about two inches smaller.  About a year after I got Emma from the shelter, I found what could have been her sister there. I didn’t take her home.  Two barking dogs was a bit much for me at the time.

Please post in a comment if you have any info on this cross!

My little Zoey girl.

Here is my Zoey.  She is a shelter dog, so is of indeterminate breeding.  I have only the word of the owner-surrender papers.  Would anyone care to take a guess at her lineage?

She is quite that character.  When I first saw her I thought I had never seen a more comical looking dog.  We took her home because she seemed to have a very sweet nature.  She does.  She is also crafty as all get-out and has a wicked sense of humor. I’ve had people tell me she looked “elegant”.  I could never understand this until I saw her in the photos from this day.  And yes, that is her on the header as well.