So our favourite trial of the year has now been and gone - and as Atilla is determined to chalk up those never ending battle scars, our trialling year has now also been and gone.At least Warrambool trial is usually a good note to end the year on and this year was no exception.
No prizes for guessing what the highlight for both kelpies was ............... here's a clue : it involved a ball and a beach. Just look at the anticipation from both of them.
Atilla waiting patiently for the ball to be thrown - preferably in the direction of the water.
And then trapping the ball between his feet so that Cruz can't get to it at all.
Cruz knows there's a ball around here somewhere, but is not quite sure where it went.
We stayed in different accommodation this time as our 'usual' B & B was sold - this new place was a great find, reasonably priced, only 15 mins drive to the trial ground and the dogs were allowed inside which is always a winner. Atilla had a good day on Saturday with 3 Q's and another clear round in Masters Jumping that was one tenth of a second over time. Although I was really happy with his work and especially his focus I was disappointed with his lack of speed. Every now and then we have a day like this, but usually I can tell before he goes into the ring that he's distracted for some reason or other and our speed will probably suffer as a result. Although it's disappointing, especially compared to the speed he gives me at home and at training, I have learned not to worry about it too much and certainly not to dwell on it. But this time he was so revved up before he went in that it didn't make sense. I asked a couple of people to look at him in case he was carrying an injury, but both seemed to think that he was jumping fine and moving well - he just looked slower than usual between obstacles for some reason.
We had 2 Open Jumping passes, one with a nice 3rd place, and a Masters Agility pass with a 5th place out of 8 behind some pretty speedy dogs. I was especially happy with the distance work he did on the Open courses but still mystified as to why he wasn't working at his usual pace - we're not super speedy by any means but we don't usually struggle for time in Masters, even when he gets into one of his 'go slow' runs.
On Sunday morning L. went to lift him out of the car as he had parked in a spot where there was some broken glass and when he picked him up he let out a yelp. We looked all over and couldn't find anything until we turned him over and discovered that his grass allergy was back - but under his front legs this time (do dogs have armpits cos this is where it was) and it was back with a vengeance. Poor thing - it must have been absolutely killing him to run as he was red raw, no wonder he was slower than usual. So he got scratched (no pun intended!) for Sunday much to his disgust as he was still wanting to go into the ring.
By the time we got home late Sunday evening it had spread down his legs and on Monday it had gone all over his face. Although he often suffers from patches of grass allergy around this time of year, we think that there was some plant in the yard at the B & B we stayed at that may have set it off - both kelpies were out there for a bit on Friday when we first arrived and of course they stuck their noses into everything. Poor thing was so swollen he looked like a red balloon with slits for eyes. So he has spent close to the last 3 weeks as an indoor dog due to the unseasonal heat we have had - he would have burnt to a frazzle outside. Although he's all healed now, he still has no hair around his eyes and he looks like a panda. The hair is starting to grow back a bit more around his mouth and on his legs and paws but he's still a bit of a hideous sight at the moment, poor thing. So no more trialling for him for the rest of the year - which is nearly over anyway I might add.
Cruz once again exceeded my expectations - poor dog, do I have no faith in him as I always seem to be saying he has exceeded my expectations - note to self : get some higher expectations for Cruz ! He's a good boy.
I only ran him in jumping as I thought the overcrowding at Warrnambool might be a bit stressy for him. He ended up being first dog in the ring for every run so I didn't get to warm him up and get him focussed on me to the extent that I would have liked. Surprisingly enough, it didn't seem to bother him as much as I thought it would. We ended up with 2 more Excellent Jumping passes - only one more leg and he's in Masters with his big brother. Again I was very happy with his runs, although he's still got some juice in the tank and is not opening up and running as fast as he can consistently. There were some sections on each course where he sped up and we managed a 3rd place and a 4th place - he had his 600 butt well and truly kicked by manic border collies each time - they put down some cracking times so I wasn't too disappointed. Suddenly agility here has become inundated with a ton of 400 BC's - and they are proving very hard to beat. And on they march towards Masters - eek !
As I didn't run Atilla on Sunday, I decided to pull Cruz out too and go to the beach.
I have also decided not to enter Warringal with Cruz - may as well make it the end of the season with both dogs. On the one hand I would like to try to finish the last leg of Cruz's AD title - especially as he is now so close to JDX - but I don't want to fall into the trap of thinking of agility in terms of titles and I'm quite happy to take the long way round. He will finish it when he finishes it.
So now for training talk - stop reading at this point if you're not another mad agility tragic as it will bore you silly. I have made the decision that I am no longer going to ask for a stopped contact on the dogwalk for Atilla. I honestly think he was happier (and faster) last year when we were running them - I only cracked it and went back to 2on 2off after he happened to blow 2 contacts on 2 good runs at Nationals. If I am honest with myself I think that if it had been a 'lesser' trial it wouldn't have bothered me all that much - I would most likely have just pulled him out of trialling for a bit and worked more on getting a more reliable running contact. I hunted out my old touchboard and he's hitting it every time, although his speed has been compromised from stopping - probably cos I'm a crap trainer and haven't been able to make the criteria clear enough for him although lord knows I've certainly tried. Now that he has finished his Masters titles and I'm not interested in qualifying for Top Dog run off with him - I am realistic enough to know we don't enter anywhere enough trials to get anywhere near the top ten point scorers- I am going to try a few different things with him. I don't intend to compromise my handling system or cut corners with his criteria, but there's still some room there for a bit of experimentation.
Cruz's 2 on 2 off on the dogwalk is lovely most of the time - I did a way better job with him. But our A Frame is a disaster. After competing with the variance there is in A Frame height here, he has totally lost his confidence. He was almost sliding into position for a bit until he scraped his pads so now he's creeping down to position and I don't seem to be able to speed him up. Last week at training I started early releasing him (yes I know, bad trainer) and I couldn't believe how happy he was not to be stopping - on the other hand I would have trouble getting him not to stop on the dogwalk as the position is really ingrained. So I have decided to go with it and will play around with going back to a running A Frame for him over the break. I videod his performance and he's currently averaging 1.9 seconds without a stop - but his up side is pretty fast and the down side is where all the time is taken. Plus he's a '3 hit dog' and I want him to be able to get down in 2 considering his long legs. I am going to give Rachel Sander's box method a go this time as it's a way of regulating stride on the ground that makes a lot more sense to me than stride regulators on the actual A Frame do at this point.
I made my box (yes, PVC really is a girl's best friend) and have had 3 sessions on the ground so far, trying to teach him to jump into the box with all 4 feet touching. We are up to 60% accuracy so still have a bit to go. When he makes an error, so far it's the same one each time, which is totally jumping over the box when he's revved up for a toy.
Pretty typical for kelpies - all or nothing !
The thought of all the training (or retraining, which is worse) this is going to take scares me a bit, but I really want to give it a go so I will keep our results posted. Plus I figure that whatever I learn along the way with Cruz will also benefit Ivy when I make the decision as to what behaviour I will teach her on the A Frame. I have come to the conclusion that I suck at A Frame training and don't seem to be able to train a really good one no matter what the method. So far, 4 dogs out of 4 all have , or have had, sucky A Frames.
Cruz is also going back to circle running over the break - when you have a 5 month old puppy that runs way better (and I mean way better!) circles than your 3 year old kelpie... something needs to be done.
