Back to Basics

Ooof, okay, the next time I get a puppy I’m going to make sure I actually do all the foundation. Asher and Bryn came in weird times of my life (and during COVID), and while I know they didn’t get an ideal start in many ways, I didn’t think they were THAT bad. But, yeah, at the trial – it was THAT bad. And what can I say, it comes back to their training, or lack thereof. They both have their challenges, but every dog has their challenges. I feel like I have worked on those issues, but clearly not enough. And, yeah, it’s much easier to do it right the FIRST time.

Let it be said, both dogs felt that even though this was at our arena, this was a TRIAL, and all the complications that come with that. Asher was high as a kite and Bryn was ridiculously flanky while at the same time not commiting to ANYTHING – and even did her infamous disconnect at the end of runs and mostly wanted food as a reward. So, yeah, I thought this would be a great stepping stone to trialing for Bryn, but she was actually WORSE here than she was at her last trial (which, admittedly, was a long time ago – last year?). These courses were simple, straightforward, flowing, extremely doable even with Bryn’s level of skill. We could not do a damn thing, and it was SO FRUSTRATING. So much running around EVERYTHING, pulling off everything, just zero skills. It’s like we hadn’t even worked on the flanking and commitment. All that serpentine and backside work that we did, yeah, no, nothing.

It must be said though, both dogs had a lot of good too, in the obstacle department they both did very well. Contacts were all great (dogwalk/aframe exits were all straight ahead, no brainer exits), though Bryn didn’t stop on her teeter, but that’s on me, so I’m not faulting her (I’ve been letting her run her teeters – I’m sure this will bite me in the ass, much like everything else). Asher did NOT fly off any teeters this time! Weavepoles were good, both had one little bobble pulling out near the entry, but they got all their entrances and exits (which, once again, very straightforward, nothing weird). Asher’s jumping was actually very good for him, there were minimal backsides, he struggled on one backside blind, but was mostly comfortable backsides and front sides. He actually READ backside cues, Bryn, in true trial fashion, acted like she’d never seen one for the most part and mostly just flanked around the jump at every push, ignored every threadle. No issues with startlines (which amused me, with Lil Miss Naughty Startline in practice). Bryn had more knocked bars, because, once again, she wasn’t really thinking about what she was doing, and it was obvious. Let it be said she collected lovely though! Asher I think knocked two bars? One at a backside, one a random front side. Bryn also was doing lots of offered tugging on her leash ringside, which was good to see her comfortable. She also enjoyed visiting with everyone and giving them hugs – she’s so adorable.

Yeah, Bryn – I came out cocky that at least I’d have a dog working with me – and I did not. So for our second run I brought out a toy and lots of tight turns to keep her into me, and she did better. I kept thinking we’d get better, and we had some improvement the second day, but by the end of the trial I had to just take her off, she ran around so many things it wasn’t even agility at that point. I thought I didn’t have expectations, but I guess I didn’t have expectations to qualify, I did have expectations she was ready to team up – but she wasn’t.

So okay, Bryn is fired from trialing and fired from classes, we need to take a new approach. When in doubt, go all the way back to foundation. And we’re going to get rid of the toys and just work for food until she really tells me she understands what her job is supposed to be – because clearly she does not know at this point, especially in more exciting environments. And that was her big hole when she was young, was working on things without the excitement of motion, because she thought it was dumb. I think her obstacle work is good, but her handling is just not there, and it’s too hard to run her trying to manage her. She needs to commit, she needs to come in, we will focus purely on trained skills until she truly understands what she’s supposed to be doing.

Now, Asher had a lot of nice things, I felt much more confident running him, I thought the majority of what we did was actually nice. Collection, not so much – including doing that stupid backjumping thing on wraps again MULTIPLE TIMES throughout the weekend – which he even did TWICE even after I reset the sequence after giving him the incredulous, “SERIOUSLY?” We have spent SO MUCH TIME working through that issue a few months ago, where he was DETERMINED to backjump every wrap (I mean, like he thought that’s what I wanted him to do). Then what have we been almost EXCLUSIVELY working on with collection. OMG, I was about ready to strangle him. So, no, we have not solved the collection issue. At all. But, let it be said, we did, finally, get him to come in for a nose touch before a collection jump after blowing me off multiple times and jumping into the universe on other courses. It was pretty much his shining moment of the weekend, it gives me hope. Otherwise there was a lot of him doing crazy things like, once again, spinning the wrong direction out of the weavepoles when I was right there mostly definitely not pushing in that direction (another thing he only seems to do in trials, it’s a stupid way to NQ). Lot of him NOT wrapping and NOT turning the correct direction when I asked him to do so.

The take away, Asher gets to work on collection … shocking. But, really, overall it could have been worse. He turns 4 the end of this month – let the Magic Age commence. He SHOULD be able to do these courses, they were not complex. It’s frustrating that he still can’t get through easy things, but at least he’s not boring – and there is never any lack of try. He WILL do things, not all the things, but I think we will get our shit together this year. Maybe. Or next year. Or some year.

As for Navarre, him and Martine looked great! They had some really stellar runs, a few little bobbles here and there, but considering she’s only run him for a few weeks in classes, they were amazing. And Martine really seemed to enjoy running him, so I offered to send him off with her if she was going to a trial with Jack. We’ll see if she takes me up on it, he had SO MUCH FUN. I tell you, he was meant to be French, what with his name and all. He ran really well all weekend, and no brain exploding over there! Though he did run around the last jump with one course, in true Navarre style. He’s still got it! He’ll be 8 this month, so now is the time to get out there.

Overall, I was disappointed with the teamwork with my young dogs. I don’t want to enter them in anything until our teamwork feels better. The obstacle skills are there, our handling is not. And that’s what we didn’t work on with their foundation, we did herding, we worked on obstacles, but we did not focus on the handling other than simple things, that’s obvious. I keep trying to go back to shapeup stuff, as that has been such a thorough way to really solidify handling in a systematic fashion – but I find it just isn’t the right approach for Bryn and Asher, and we always end up falling by the wayside. I’m going to have to give my own homework, which is a funny thing to say.

This week, we’re looking at commitment to jumps and tunnels, using targets if need be to help them out. Simple, but obviously needed. Fridays the arena is empty, so we’ll look at basic skills before setting up the course. I left up the final UKI course to run in classes this week, and Asher had no problems with it without the trial excitement (including no backjumping at all). With Bryn we broke it down with food only, and she eventually did mostly well, except she really was convinced one of the jumps was a backside. She is slower with food, but, oddly, WAY sassier. It’s possible she’s swearing at me about the lack of toys, but she seemed genuinely excited about the food, way more than I had anticipated. But, yeah, lots of her just barking at me. Taking the toy out was a good choice, her commitment was WAY better, she wasn’t pulling off of things, her turns were tighter and less flanking overall. That may be because she was also slower. Still, I did end up running her in a class though the course we had worked on, and she actually acted like, yes, we HAD worked on those things (except that one damn jump she was certain was a backside). Once again, I was working on being quieter and making sure she was reading natural motion cues without just pointlessly yelling her name.

We did do a bit of work on sheep this week, but I always feel like I have zero plan or direction with our practice. We always work a bit on lifts, we drive randomly around the field, today I attempted with very little success some shedding. I mean, it feels fine in the moment (except the shedding), but I’m never really actually attempting to DO anything. Sometimes we drive through some of the panels, which we can kind of do, but I usually overflank. I was actually very pleased on our drives today Asher was covering the draw and really moving on his own to hold the line … to a point. It’s not his best skill, but he’s getting better.

Bryn did some nice stuff today, she looked like she was going to panic on her first outrun but laid down nicely on her lift instead. We looked at verbal flanks and adding whistles, which is always an awkward stage. I imagine she’ll pick it up quickly. She did some nice driving, still need to stay on her from trying to sneak around, but did some nice distance. Attempted to set up some sheds, but she’s too damn good at keeping sheep together. I’d start to get some stringing out and she would just neatly tuck everyone back in with barely a little nudge. Which is impressive. She was waiting really patiently and was definitely happy to dive in like a maniac when I called her, but she definitely has no idea what the point of this exercise is. Asher seemed similarly confused, so we need to work on that.

Not entering the dogs in anything in herding, we just haven’t had the practice and there’s not a lot of point. Bryn is refusing to go into season, and I was thinking of going out to Idaho for a novice trialing thing they do out there that is supposed to be helpful. But I don’t want to commit until I know about Bryn, so my window for that is probably over. To be fair, it’s not really a clinic for Bryn, but I don’t want to leave her behind, especially if she’s in season. So we’ll see.

Spring continues to slowly creep up on us, but it remains cold and wet, and usually windy. But I finally went hiking in just a fleece, though the ants haven’t woken up yet. Soon enough it will be summer, and I want my four months of spring!