Happy Birthday Bryn!

Gah, I can’t believe itty bitty Bryn is already a year old – that just FLEW by! To be fair, it’s been a BUSY year all around, she definitely had to share my attention with everything else going on this year. I think that worked out just fine though, she needed time to grow up and mature, and a lot of the confidence issues she had when she was younger are much better these days. I think it will continue to improve as she grows, as one year old is definitely not grown up!

So what can you say about Bryn? I just adore her to a ridiculous degree, and not because of any reason other than she’s cute and just charming as hell. I just love living with her and the boys most definitely agree. She’s an INDEPENDENT little thing, she doesn’t need me, but she very much loves me. When we hike I still never see her, she has to stay WAY up in front of everyone the whole time. She’s definitely the only dog of mine I worry about sneaking off the property – she’s a free spirit! Knock on wood, we have not had an issue since her one time when she got under the fence and went to visit the neighbors.

Bryn is also serious, she’s not a goober like the boys. She’s definitely very fun and cute and playful, but she’s a mature and serious girl – which we very much needed. She’s very self confident, and certainly pushy. She’s not shy about making it clear what she wants. Not many things bother her, she certainly has no lack of courage and curiosity – and definitely not a sissy! She can be sensitive in training, which is such a funny side of her considering how self confident she is everywhere else.

Bryn is ridiculously spoiled, and I find it so hard to stop doing that. We definitely have more boundaries than we used to, but there is something about that charming little thing that just makes me want to give her anything she wants. I just love to see her happy and all her naughty, pushy behaviors are so damn CUTE! The boys let her walk all over them too, it’s just entirely possible she will always be the special little princess of the family that gets whatever she wants.

What a fun little dog she is, I love working her in both agility and herding. Every dog is a new adventure, and she’s my first dog ‘action trained’ instead of ‘trick trained’. For whatever reason, trick training has always been more stressful for her – but if it’s action based she’ll train forever. So she knows a LOT of agility and action behaviors, and very little thoughtful and stationary behaviors. Bryn does know more thoughtful behaviors than she used to though, and she’s getting so much better at training thoughtful behaviors with confidence and joy. Time fixes most training issues, and I think that was the case there – whatever insecurity training with food seemed to cause her when she was little, it has really faded the older she’s gotten.

I feel so damn lucky that my complete gamble puppy turned out so perfect for me, there are so many border collies that are very difficult – to live with or work with. Not Bryn, she’s just been a dream to live with and so much fun to train – so happy the universe conspired to bring her into our lives. Happy birthday to my itty bitty Bin-Bin, I’m so excited for the future with her in our lives.

We went to an agility trial! For two days! And EVERYBODY ran, including Bryn and Haku in the b-match on Saturday after the trial. Haku was actually ridiculously happy just to be there, he came in tugging on his leash and barking incessantly – ah, the memories. He was so happy to go and bark at everyone he knew and I figured he would enjoy doing a few ‘real agility’ things. So we took a toy and did some senior safe agility at 8 inches. He still does it! Still can’t jump, so we mostly stuck to contacts, weaves and tunnels. And he was a happy boy.

And Bryn was a happy girl! It is always funny to see Bryn around other breeds of dogs, she thinks they’re all very suspicious unless they’re a border collie. And even if they are a border collie, they had better behave – Bryn is all girl. Oh, and she does NOT like german shepherds, she was getting her bitch face on. Which is so hard to correct because it’s SO CUTE. Mostly she’s just fine with everything and enjoys giving hugs to all the people. Everything she does is cute! And she’s still under 18 inches, not by much, but I’ll take it. Hopefully she doesn’t have any growth spurts, but I don’t think she’s grown for quite a while.

Very much a different dog than the last time she was at a trial (pre-summer?), I didn’t trust her off leash AT ALL at that point – now I had no issue going to play at the practice jump and felt totally confident she’d stay with me even with another dog playing on a jump. One thing about herding, once you can get self control with that level of arousal and distraction around livestock, mere agility is nothing. She was very comfortable doing her tricks for food, playing at the practice jump and also playing in the ring. My goal was just to get her playing around the equipment, but that was not an issue. Did mostly jumps and tunnels in the standard ring, attempted the end of the teeter but she didn’t seem to recognize it. In the jumpers ring we actually attempted to sequencing and she was trying really hard, sending out and going fast – wheee! Maybe not in the direction I had intended, but, hey. Definitely did NOT have a ‘go-on’ for the long line at the end, so something to work on. Stays were great, did some crosses, no flanking or running around things – super proud! So, yeah, no issues playing in the trial environment, she had a lot of fun.

As for Asher, my expectations were VERY low for the trial. I had thought we could get our skills back relatively easily after taking the summer off since our last trial – but, no. In practice he still couldn’t do the dogwalk, and we had tried going ALL the way back to a plank on the ground – but no. And getting through things, forget it. So I figured I knew what I had going into the trial and no point expecting otherwise. But he was actually quite focused and professional at the trial! And acted like he knew what all the equipment was! First day he went 3 for 4, hitting his weaves EVERY time, no issues with not recognizing the aframe and actually went out of his way to hit the dogwalk! I was so shocked I completely didn’t handle the jump afterwards, even though I wasn’t going to stop no matter what he did on the dogwalk – so he ran by it. And ALMOST stuck the table, until he fell off (maybe someday I will actually train the table …). And ran past the teeter the first time, for whatever reason. But his teeter contacts were solid as well.

Just little bobbles for the most part, in T2B he didn’t read a rear cross, but just wasted time. In FAST he got all 80 points, but another bobble where he pulled off a jump. His first ever Open jumpers run was lovely and smooth, I was shocked (nice spacing for AKC too!). And his standard run had a couple bobbles from both of us, but overall very connected and trying. SUPER pleased with where his head was at, not too crazy.

Well, okay, MOSTLY super pleased with his headspace – except that he’s STILL obsessed with finding Carol if she’s around. She arrived later in the morning and before he went in for that open jumpers run he caught a whiff of her and was looking EVERYWHERE for her, including on the start line looking BEHIND him. I have no idea where that behavior came from or why, or even what to do about it. He just has a weird thing about Carol at trials (even before she took him herding!). So, huh, we’ll see how that goes …

Second day he started off strong, beating uncle Navarre in T2B by like a second! He knocked a bar at the end, but really lovely weave entrance. Another nice 80 point FAST run for his novice FAST title too. We actually have been enjoying FAST a lot, finding ways to make smooth flowing courses that Asher enjoys and trying out different skills we’d never get to try in AKC otherwise. We’ll stick with it and see how Open FAST goes.

By mid-day on Sunday Asher was getting pretty ‘punchy’ in Open Jumpers, he was getting more frantic and worked up, ended up taking a wrap jump as a backside that I cued just terribly, so, hey. Then Open standard was pretty all over the place too, and by the end even going back and doing fix and go still couldn’t get him to rear cross – he just didn’t have a brain left at that point. That was a lot of agility for the baby boy – more than he’s ever done! Oh, yeah, and another table fault – heh.

Overall I was thrilled with Asher, he tries SO HARD, and he’s so much fun. I felt his jumping was more ‘flingy’, so would like to go back and getting him to make better jumping decisions. His aframe was surprisingly solid, which is a first. We know his dogwalk needs work. Teeter was pretty good though! Weavepoles were GREAT, so many great entries at speed, and never once popped, even when I was doing weird things in FAST – go Asher! His sit-stay has turned into a ridiculous vulture, don’t know how much I care about that. Handling-wise … well, he was trying. He’s definitely faster than Navarre, so I’m always a bit surprised as he’s RIGHT THERE when I’m blind crossing assuming I have plenty of time. He’s reading his blinds without an issue, rear crosses are more marginal. As for collection – ha! He makes Navarre look downright tight. Felt like we were out there together for the most part, and I have no grand ambitions for him to be anything other than a fun, wide turning partner.

Navarre and Dot ran on Saturday, not always in the same direction, but they had a really nice FAST and jumpers runs – no Qs, but close. Dot couldn’t come on Sunday, so I took over and, good lord, Navarre is so EASY after running Asher. Running Asher is sort of like running Navarre on speed, so running wide turning but slightly slower Navarre is a picnic by comparison. He did great, qualified on everything except jumpers, where, once again, I just screwed up my handling, he was a good boy. He also is moving really well, weaving more comfortably, jumping more easily … and no more mohawk. As to why, I have no idea, but it was so nice to see him having a great time. One thing about having Dot run him all the time, he really appreciates it when I run him now – I know all about the little Navarre tricks! One very happy, solid guy – sucks he missed so much of his main competition years. Hopefully he’ll still got at least a couple more in him.

And if you only trial a few times a year it is way more fun, and fun to see all the baby dogs doing well. It was a big party at the trial with folks that I hadn’t seen at a trial in quite some time, made it special. I think I’ll try again in November, when the weather won’t be nearly as nice! Hopefully that will give me some time to work on Asher’s dogwalk, I’d like to get that back …

Bryn is doing a full height teeter now in sequence, along with the dogwalk. So fun to get some things checked off, at least the beginnings of them. Lots of things to do, but it helps that she’s so physically and mentally mature. Oh, and getting so BUFF – both Maddy and the chiropractor commented on her muscles when they worked on her, she’s turning into a tiny body builder. I think that’s just genetics, as she doesn’t get any more exercise than the rest of my crew, but it’s funny to pet her. While she’s doing BETTER with eating, it’s still a bit of a fight, and add in the muscles she’s just muscle and bone at this point. She’s growing up, that’s for sure.

Back at home the arena building is DONE, which is just nuts. Now to work on the interior bits! It’s big and beautiful and hopefully will work out well – I’m kind of just making it up as I go along, so that’s a bit dangerous. Live and learn, I suppose. Not quite ready to make any definite plans, but I have a vague outline of what I think will be happening next year assuming everything goes smoothly with the arena. Life will be changing – and hopefully in a good way!

In the meantime, October is just GORGEOUS, and this was the time of year I came to see the property originally last year – it’s been a BUSY year since then, that’s for sure. Absolutely love my property, love the house, love the area and I am so excited about the arena. Life takes you in funny directions sometimes …