Rain and Running Contacts

I can’t believe how good it feels for summer to be over! Suddenly we can go outside any time we want, I have energy to actually do things – including training my dogs! And we got bonus September RAIN – apparently the first ‘significant rain’ since JANUARY. I thought that must not be true, but I guess it’s the first rain storm with over an inch in 24 hours since January – totally nuts, I had no idea it had been that dry. But, yes, it’s been a LONG time since it last really rained – so it feels really good to see it again.

Agility is on again! I entered Asher in TWO days of an AKC trial in October, don’t have many other options to do any trials while the weather is nice. At least right now they’re letting you run without a mask, so I certainly hope that remains true for this trial. The rules are, as always, ever changing. So entered him in FOUR runs a day, TWO days in a row – we’re going to go for it. Though, naturally, since we haven’t actually DONE any agility for months, he doesn’t remember how do anything. Sigh.

So, yeah, couldn’t weave, couldn’t do his dogwalk consistently, couldn’t keep the bars up, couldn’t get through a course – and most definitely couldn’t collect. Asher is definitely the sort of dog that needs to work on things consistently to keep them functional. The good news, by the end of the week we had gone back and at least started to fix a lot of those issues. The answer is always the same with him, go ALL the way back to the beginning and start again, and no point in getting frustrated – it will come back … eventually.

Still, without ever trialing I don’t have a lot of motivation to actually train, so this will give us something to shoot for. I also considered that he had run out of his ‘calming care’ probiotics a while back, it’s possible they really did help with the overarousal issues in agility. He was really happy to be back at it though, he absolutely loves it, even if he doesn’t seem to have a thought in his little brain. Still very much a baby, he does not have at all the same level experience that my other dogs did at this age – and I need to remember that.

Meanwhile, Bryn seems to be getting easier, which is novel! While Asher never seems to remember anything, Bryn seems to retain her skills well. Super pleased with her dogwalk, which has been ridiculously easy to train … so far. Not sure if it’s a fluke or what, I do think being smaller helps – and I think she has a very comfortable five strided dogwalk. But even then, if she does have a miss or a hit I don’t like, if I ask again she nails it – I actually think she knows what her job is. We have done VERY little actual work on the dogwalk, so I remain skeptical – but she continues to just nail it, so, hey, I’ll take it. If this is what the raised platform does for dogwalks, I’m a fan.

We added speed to the dogwalk, first coming out of a tunnel to the dogwalk, and then going from the dogwalk into the tunnel. The latter was actually harder, she really was thinking about the reward and getting her to drive straight took a bit and going back to the platform. But, again, once she figured it out she was pretty much flawless. I have a feeling someday I’ll look back on this and laugh about how I thought she’d be easy, but for now I’m just going to assume she’s going to be.

I do think I’ll go ahead and play around with adding the raised platform with Asher, since he needs to be retrained on things anyway, we’ll see what it does for him, if anything. He’s never been as confident with his RC as Navarre.

Lots to work on with both Asher and Bryn, and they’re making Navarre look quite easy, which is amusing. He was happy to be back running with Dot this week, and I played with him too. His skills looked good though, he’s also entered in the AKC trial in October, the plan is for Dot to run him. They haven’t run together since they’ve had more practice, and while they’re not perfect in class, they are getting more comfortable with one another. Hopefully they’ll have fun, Dot worries entirely too much about qualifying.

Meanwhile, in the world of herding Asher is feeling more balanced, at least in practice. Seems like his outruns are mostly fixed, his lifts are better, his driving remains fairly confident (though still not his strongest behavior). Worked a single this week, which is always tough for him, but he’s doing much better – he backed her across the entire field, and was doing well at stopping her when she made a break for it. Tried working on some issues he had the other day stalling out with the cluns, but he didn’t replicate the issue. Did do a bit of shedding, just for kicks. Trying to keep all the skills well rounded, though nothing is perfect.

For kicks I let Bryn work some of the flighty sheep, and, yes, that definitely kept her a lot more honest. She started out doing some cheap shots and chasing, but quickly found that to be pretty exhausting. She settled down into staying nice and far off of them and really covering – I was pleased. We obviously didn’t get to work on our downs and self control, but at least before we started working she will call off and lie down no problem.

Back in the world of agility, Bryn is definitely going through a bratty teenage stage. I have great plans to work on things with her, but she keeps pushing boundaries and getting ejected from the arena. One day it was suddenly not being able to stay on the table when it wasn’t her turn, another day was just barking at me when I was talking to someone and not playing with her – and she wouldn’t knock it off. Then it’s been back to not wanting to walk next to me when asked, not waiting while I release the other dogs from their crates … yes, all these things are important. And more important than agility, so she hasn’t gotten to play. She HAS gotten to run around with the ball while I’m setting up, which is making Haku SO HAPPY. He loves chasing her around mindlessly, they are a great pair.

We did work a little one jump extension work, seeing how she was looking with a bit higher jumps. She’s such a funny little thing, I’m worried she won’t be able to jump well with more height – but she hasn’t struggled at all when I’ve tried a bit higher jumps. We went up to 14 inches with this little exercise, and, knock on wood, no issues. Except, maybe, waiting until I ASKED her to do the jump … When I put her next to an 18 inch jump she still looks under it – so fingers crossed she hasn’t gone over.

Did some sequencing, the first since the break, took a bit to get her to stop Super Flanking, but she did pretty good. Tried it at 10 inches as well, no issues. Baby dogs are fun! Even put her dogwalk into a sequence, and other than running past it the first time (Super Flanking Powers – Activate!), she thought that was great fun.

Asher is getting to do his first ever group class! Maddy is doing a conditioning class at the arena, so we’ve been enjoying that. It’s actually quite amusing how serious and earnest he gets with this kind of thing. I did finally realize what he thought was happening though, we work a lot on self control games before playing agility, and he thought this was just a really long warm up. He throws on the breaks and refuses to leave the arena at the end of class until I take him in and give him his agility for being a good boy with the conditioning stuff. He’s so adorable. We definitely have lots of skills to work on with him for his conditioning skills, and trying to do it with everyone at home. I forget that Haku is so good at this kind of thing!

Bryn though, she thinks this is very suspicious of this stuff indeed. She definitely doesn’t have these skills, and isn’t sure she would like to learn them. She’s such a funny little thing! But she’s doing better. I actually brought her into the class last week and, oh, so much girl drama – she could only hug for like 5 minutes. Finally she decided she didn’t need to be that dramatic and did a few things, but, yeah – still struggles with ‘thinking’ behaviors. LOVES her agility and herding though!

We had a Fall ‘Sheep Camp’ up at Maddy’s with Ron and Heidi, which was three days, one baby dog day with Bryn and two days with Asher. Turned out to be just a series of private lessons, which is fine, I enjoy doing that and it’s helpful – but I was hoping for more of a plan and discussions about concepts. Bryn was good, did some gripping with pressure in the pen, which she hadn’t done before. The sheep had learned to shove themselves up against a fence and that the dogs couldn’t move them then – Bryn was having none of that, she moved them. Worked on some self control and Heidi and Ron both worked her. By the end of the weekend I was pleased with her progress.

Asher, on the other hand, just likes to keep acting like we haven’t been working on things at all. The first thing we did was a little ‘mock trial’, in a field he knows, with sheep he knows and in a set up he’s familiar with and has worked on recently successfully. Shitty out run, sliced in and blew them up and sheep everywhere – really? What happened to all that work we did on outruns and lifts? Hmph. So then the weekend became about really getting on him about all his sloppy behaviors, which was less than fun. By the end of the weekend he was much more thoughtful about everything, which hopefully will continue on.

So at least he got some work before sending him off with Carol for the three day AKC herding trial. This was quite the adventure for Carol, taking TWO border collies for five days – that’s a lot! I got Demi and Pixel, and they’re so easy – I definitely got the easier side of the trade. Sounds like the boys behaved themselves though, ironically more than Haku did when she traveled with him. Navarre and Asher didn’t do anything naughty at all, go figure. It sounded like it was GREAT vacation for the boys, with forest runs three times a day, herding and all sorts of adventures. Meanwhile, Pixel and Demi got to hang out while I cleaned the garage and did yardwork, I think they felt cheated.

Carol did a great job with the boys, ended up qualifying 11 out of 12 runs – and the NQ was because she tried Navarre in Advanced B course and they didn’t get the shed. So both boys finished their Intermediate B course titles, and Advanced Arena titles as well. They also got some championship points. Now, I know really nothing about AKC herding, but if Carol is ever feeling ambitious to finish those Championships, they have a start. So things went well, they were happy to work with Carol and she did a great job with them, I think she needs a border collie! It’s possible she may take them again next Spring, and maybe they’ll know how to shed by then … we can only hope.

Meanwhile, getting Asher ready for his big agility trial this weekend has not gone well. Still has no clue what the dogwalk is for and almost everything requires three tries to get through two obstacles. So, yeah, that will be interesting. Navarre and Dot didn’t have a great practice in class either this week, so this weekend may be a total disaster! Hopefully the boys will still have fun, and may put Bryn in the B-Match afterwards …