Asher AX AXJ

Whew, Trialmania is over – that was a lot of trialing! Well, maybe not for a lot of people, but it was for me. I must say, it is way more fun when the trial is close to your house. It’s too bad they don’t have more trials at Salem – but I made the most of them.

So it really shows that I never actually get to practice whole courses with Asher. Well, that’s not really the issue, the issue is that we never get to work full courses because in practice we ALWAYS have to stop and fix all the pieces, so we just don’t have much experience putting it together – or keeping it together. And that even our pieces aren’t that good! So we’re always working on little chunks.

There has always been the theory out there that you never actually need to practice full courses in agility, that as long as the dog knows the skills, you only need to practice small bits and then they magically string together without any effort at all. Now, I most definitely break things down when training, but I’ve always thought the test is actually putting those skills into a ‘real life’ sequence situation (and before a trial!). With a dog like Asher that ramps up with excitement and motion, all the pieces can look great by themselves, try to put them together and KABOOOOM – total chaos.

Anyway, the point being, this is more actual running courses than we EVER practice – and it didn’t always go well. But it didn’t always go wrong either. There was some thought happening out there. Less so towards the end of this weekend, but more than we were able to do before.

Asher is my main project at the moment, Navarre being as finished as he’s going to get (I always say at seven years, run the dog you have – you had seven years to fix it, it’s not likely to change now!), and Bryn is still just figuring out what trialing is.

Asher is definitely not where I’d like him to be. Spacing is definitely an issue, I swear when I watch videos of other parts of the country their AKC spacing looks so much BIGGER. I get to trials and I feel like I’m running Asher on a teacup agility course. Bigger spacing might have it’s own separate issues, but when he’s trying to squish just one stride in between every obstacle, it’s hard – because he doesn’t collect. It’s actually hilarious how much easier Navarre is to run because he does adjust his stride – he DRIFTS, but he actually does collect. Asher does not, and the more the weekend wore on, the less he even ATTEMPTED to put in any sort of effort in that regard. Saturday I lead out and was completely rotated at him to do a true collection turn and he took that jump in FULL EXTENSION at JUMP TWO. That was the run I fired him. He was just throwing his body around and took out, not just knocked, but TOOK OUT like 5 jumps. One with his FACE.

So this is his biggest issue, and what makes running him so difficult – and somewhat comical. It’s always interesting to see that Navarre will usually beat Asher, even though Asher is going SO MUCH FASTER – but always in the wrong direction. I do think our concentrated jumping work DID help. Mostly for the first weekend. By the end of this weekend I think he had reverted to just flinging. I wonder if I had, a-hem, trained him right from the start, he’d still be this bad. I definitely didn’t have a roadmap in mind when I started out with him. I have my doubts about whether it would have or will make any difference. Lots of bars and flinging this weekend, back to his remedial jumping homework.

I also wonder if I actually handled him more aggressively instead of trying to manage the fling and stand there to make sure he actually comes back in on the lines I set that he didn’t respond to – would he change his behavior if I stopped babysitting him and fixing his messes? Now, I was not running much at all this weekend. It was HOT, but the spacing was also usually so tiny I felt doing anything other than showing lots of deceleration was unfair to him. Unless it was those huge sprints across the arena – there were a few of those these weekend. Heather has not, uh, been running like that.

Finally, we’re going to hopefully have more UKI and ISC opportunities locally. I haven’t been in a big rush to teach more international skills for a variety of reasons, including where the hell would I even use them? But all those more technical jumping and handling skills WOULD be good for Asher, I think. So I’m going to try to actually focus on getting those international skills trained so we could enter a trial with good spacing. Novel thought.

Anyway, I’m not unhappy with Asher – we have had progress, he did have some nice stuff out there. I don’t think he had single weave or contact fault. So we will work on the jumping and the teamwork and Heather actually handling like he’s not a baby dog. Even though he still is. Asher even got a HIT for Excellent on Saturday – ha! It made me laugh, I took him off the course for the jumpers run that day, but I guess the competition was slim in the Excellent classes. So big pretty ribbon for him. That was his ONLY Q all weekend, which is kind of sad. That got him into all Masters though, so he can now not qualify like a big dog (qualify – ha!).

I’m trying to think what got us, Friday standard was me, it was an extension dogwalk, which was one of his big issues this year when he started leaving out a stride with a lot of speed. So I was so busy supporting that I didn’t tell him to drive on to the jump and he took a logical offcourse (my fault!). Friday jumpers was this just terrible awkward line that I did not get up ahead enough and he took a logical off course (my fault!). Saturday he got standard and his AX (with me lying him down mid course to get him back on course), jumpers was bars galore so I took him off. Sunday standard multiple bars in the opening, but I WAS actually trying to get out of there to handle a long line from the dogwalk, had him lie down and then went on. Another bar after the aframe, but I may not have cued it, lied him down and continued on. Flew off the teeter, but the dogwalk was in that exact place the day before and he tried really hard to stop. Sunday jumpers, only ONE bar (on a funky line)! It was a nicer note to end on. Only one run was a TOTAL loss, the others still had nice bits.

Anyway, I now remember why Navarre doesn’t have a MACH, he had the opportunity to get SIX QQs over the last two weekends – he got ONE. So that makes me laugh. This weekend he missed two double Qs because he knocked a bar in one run or the other, that was it. His times were good, everything was smooth and easy as it should be with a seven year old relatively steady dog. But, yeah, at my rate of trialing, if it takes SIX TRIES to get one double Q, that MACH is never going to happen (I don’t trial that often!). And it’s funny, I always think of him as having a lot of trialing experience, but he really doesn’t when I look at his past results. It’s not like he’s dripping in speed points and other Qs, he just hasn’t done that much. He doesn’t even have a T2B title (and probably never will!)!

If you want to be successful in AKC agility, it definitely helps to have a moderate speed dog that sticks with you and certainly never knocks bars. Which is a lot of dogs, and they’re having a great time! My dogs … not exactly made for AKC (and it’s not like they’re super fast!). Still, I’m holding out hope for Bryn as my AKC dog. It’s so different running her, now she has her own set of issues, but after running the Goober Twins, I think, ‘Is it me, did I inadvertently train them to run like this?” And then Bryn COLLECTS and it’s like MAGIC. Truly, when I see Bryn just effortlessly put in extra strides like it’s NO BIG DEAL I’m just floored. It seems like something that SHOULD NOT HAPPEN because it hasn’t happened for TWO DOGS IN A ROW. Then suddenly we have Bryn who acts like it’s a completely normal thing to do. Huh, novel.

I’m thrilled with the progress Bryn made over the weekend. We really worked on reining in the flankiness before this trial and it made a big difference. She still did SOME, but my favorite moment of the weekend is when I led out and released her and she flanked out around the first jump – I told her to lie down and she was just like, “Oh oh oh, this is where we TAKE the jumps!” and she PUT HERSELF BACK in front of the jump immediately! And then took ALL the (obvious) jumps after that! Compared to last weekend, it was like night and day – she was trying really hard with the jumps.

Our teamwork … well, it wasn’t smooth. If I could trust her to take things I think I could have given her more information, but it’s a VERY tenuous connection we have on course. We fumbled our way through most of the courses, but had some nice pieces on every run. She got three Qs, none of them clean, none of them pretty – but we hung on there. I don’t know why I’m even trying to get her out of Open, she’s CLEARLY not ready for excellent! She had two standard runs she ALMOST got, one she ran past the last jump (90 degree turn off the dogwalk I didn’t cue enough), and the other she flew off the teeter where the dogwalk was the day before. In both cases she’d had a refusal before then at the weaves.

So, yeah, still running past the weavepoles. Bring her back, lie her down, and she takes them – getting more confident and speedy in that regard. But the entries, not so much. So we stayed for the fun match after the trial on Saturday and went out with a secret ball and rewarded the weaves in a middle of a normal course like situation (which, of course, she ran past the first time!). That helped! On Sunday she nailed her weaves the FIRST time in jumpers, and then while she missed her entry in standard, it wasn’t because she was just running past it. So fingers crossed that continues to improve.

In general, she’s more reserved in trials, and that’s true on the contacts as well. She didn’t miss any aframes or dogwalks, but they were not the nice deep hits she can have at home when she’s really driving. I’m just ignoring them and hoping once she does gain confidence they will improve as well. I am happy that she is driving ahead on the dogwalk and looking for the next obstacle in general even if it is half speed. Her teeter actually looks really nice! Go figure. She didn’t knock any bars that I’m aware of either, which is novel. When she’s really driving at home she does actually knock more bars than the boys!

Overall she was just more relaxed this weekend, happy to hang out and watch, visit with people and seemed to have a better idea of what we were there for. More excited for her turns, more focused on the startline (and on course!). What we continue to struggle with is an end of run routine. We have worked on playing with her fleece leash, and she has a grand time tugging and retrieving her leash at the practice jump – but has zero interest in it in the ring at the end of the run. In fact, I don’t know WHAT she wants at the end of the run, she disconnects from me and will start looking around after the last obstacle. Doesn’t want her toy afterwards, but will take treats. She seems to understand we will go get treats after the run, as I asked her if she wanted to go get treats and she threw herself through the fencing towards the treat table on one run (oops).

So this has been an issue from her first trial, and we haven’t figured out the end routine yet. She likes getting READY to run, but afterwards I just don’t know what she wants! So we sit on the ground right outside the ring and she comes into my lap and we do lots of cuddling and treats and telling her how amazing she is. She liked going off and playing with the toy away from the building, but I don’t know if she connected that to the run at all. What I do with the boys is go take the toy and run out of the building and go play. With this trial being so hot we just go a little bit to play to stay in the shade. When the weather is better I can practice with Bryn running out together and trying it that way. And we need to work more on the leash aspect. It’s weird, she loves to retrieve it and tug with it, so I’m not sure why after a run has no interest in it. Girls, such mysteries.

No trials coming up soon, maybe looking at October. Navarre will have happy practices where we try fun things, but we don’t really have anything to fix, just practice so we’re in sync. Asher will be looking at JUMPING, of course – as well as starting back with our international practice, and just plain coursework. Hopefully coursework that is longer than 4 obstacles before it goes to shit. Bryn will continue to work through her Justine homework (it’s been so helpful and fun!), she also gets to do the jumping exercises that Asher does, we will keep working on sequencing and go back to more international introductions as well.

In the meantime, did a bit of herding practice. I liked the exercises we got from Kristin’s clinic, they give us something very specific and concrete to work on. We worked on Asher not overflanking (always to the away side!), not slicing and trying to eventually move those nice flanks to the lift. We are currently experimenting with letting him get up whenever he feels the time is right after I lie him down. We shall see how that goes. He’s doing well with small up close stuff, if he gets panicked at all it all flies out the window. He’s got AKC herding with Carol on the calendar, so that will be his next test.

Working also on Bryn not panicking, slicing and causing a mess when you ask her to flank away from the draw. Trying to keep her off the sheep and slow her down on her fetch. Seems like she lost her outrun in Idaho, so we’ve been trying to get that back where she doesn’t panic on the lift. Her driving looks good (for where it’s at) and she’s just SO CUTE when she’s all stylish and even shorter than normal. Love that little girl.

We’ve been diligently seeing the chiropractor monthly, which I think is a good thing. We have had a lot of action this summer with hiking, herding, agility and swimming (mostly all the jumping into the pool with Haku!) all the dogs seemed a bit tight on the front at their last adjustment. Knock on wood, Navarre’s back continues to be doing well, and Asher is not self destructing. Haku even has a bit of swagger going on. We use the galiprant when he’s been really active, but we’ve also been using the Yu-move supplement, which I’m skeptical about, but he HAS been very spunky, it’s been about 2 months now. We’re going to stick with it for now, I’ll probably try taking him off of it and see if I notice a difference. He remains on the Myos, which I definitely feel makes a difference for him. I have an old dog again, it’s been a long time. He’s happy though. All of my old dogs have been so happy, that makes it easier – he doesn’t seem to mind he can’t do all things he used to.

Very excited to meet new kitten who arrives next week! He is recovering from his neuter, which went smoothly. My only worry about him is how cats love to exchange sicknesses to one another (URIs and herpes and such) – but I don’t really think there is much I can do about that. I haven’t had four cats in a long time – does anyone really need four cats? Probably not. I think I’ve been chasing my Ernest and Neko for a long time, they were just incredibly special cats. What I SHOULD do is just get a stray mature tom cat, as that’s what they both were! They were hardcore cats though, I don’t think my current crew could handle that. Miss them. I’ve had so many awesome animals in my life, so very fortunate.

Haru looking cute (and so big!):

I don’t know if I really needed to get a purebred cat from Ohio, but I’m hopeful I’m making the best choice for everyone in the household.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for Summer, about 4 weeks to go! We have had some nice days, which makes it easier. The property has been just lovely this summer, I am forever grateful we ended up here. Hard to believe we’re closing in on TWO years since we moved, it’s just been such a whirlwind!