Under Construction

I have been dreaming about extending my agility area for some time now and this part of the yard was first on the agenda. So one final look - and goodbye stunted apple tree that never gives fruit.

You can never have enough areas to train agility in - well that's my excuse anyway. This is going to become an area for contact equipment so I can get it out of my other area and have more space for setting up jumping drills - the current space I have is around 13 metres by 30 metres, plenty long enough but a bit short in the width department when it is cluttered up with A Frame and dogwalk.

We hired the digger and enlisted the help of a friend to operate it. The kelpies were a bit indignant at being locked up for the day but they barked encouragement from the dog run anyway.

OH pretending that he was actually useful even if he didn't operate the digger. Who needs a digger when you've got a big stick with a sharp digging thingy on the end.

Cruz is delighted with the progress so far as he thinks he has a dirt racetrack. Every time I look out the window he is self exercising by running from one end to the other repeatedly. Atilla likes the big pile of dirt and has already used it for secret activities involving bone hiding.

Next stage will be laying sleepers on the side we cut away plus putting in the fence posts. I am planning on 4 really high posts in the corners in the hope of one day having lights - but that's just on the wish list at the moment. (Along with the swimming pool for the dogs, another dog run, a hydrobath, an outdoor shower, a big vegetable garden, my own sheep, some geese, a wood fired pizza oven, an industrial sewing machine, a new bathroom and the sensitive man from the perfect cheese commercial.)

What's a Bit of Leg Humping between Friends ?

Oh the shame of it all ! I have just discovered that I am identifiable to other agility participants who don't train with me and don't know me all that well as 'the one with the kelpie that humps her leg sometimes.'

And as this remark was made at this month's Nationals (or so I am told by the person who actually made it - just checking with me that he did indeed have the right person) then that may very well become my agility claim to fame nationwide.

To be fair, Atilla does indeed hump my leg on occasion. At 3 years of age, I had a kelpie that was crazy about food but not interested in tugging with me in the slightest so I worked long and hard to try and do something about this - we're talking 18 months of chicken-neck-in-sock-stinking-in-the-sun-at-trials-gradually-progressing-to-sock-alone-and-then-to-furry-tug-with- annoying-squeak- kind of working and it paid off. Now I have a kelpie who enjoys tugging with me for the most part, but his toy enthusiasm came with the side effect of leg humping when I decide the game has finished and he decides he wants to keep going.

As this only ever happens when I bring out the tug toy and I only bring it out at agility trials or training, then I guess leg humping has become an agility related behaviour. In fact I use it as a 'yardstick' for what kind of run we are going to have. If I have put the toy away and I am waiting in line and he is hanging off my leg then we usually have a pretty good run. If I put the toy away and he is waiting nicely beside me then we usually have an 'off the normal pace' kind of run , so you can see why I don't really have a problem with the leg humping bit. I also have the added advantage of being able to take the leg in question into the ring with me - bonus ! So take that agility rules that ban toys from the ring and stupid state that doesn't have 'not for competition' runs. Thankfullly I haven't had to drag him in still hanging off my leg, not yet anyway.

So in a nutshell, the leg humping doesn't really bother me - or at least it didn't until I found out it is rapidly becoming something that other people talk about. Why are they even noticing what my dog does when they should be too busy focusing on their own dogs you may ask? And if leg humping has become the pre-cursor to having a good run then what's so bad about it anyway - apart from the socially unacceptable aspect of course. And I do make a token effort to pry him off each time - even though inside I might be thinking 'leg humping = faster run coming up - yay!'

So I guess my choices are :

1. not accept the leg humping any more and take the risk of losing the tug drive with it. (yeah, OK, guess I'm being slightly paranoid on this one but as someone who worships at the temple of 'don't fix what aint broken' quite a bit, don't know if I want to take the chance)

2. try to camouflage the leg humping outside the ring by throwing a coat or blanket over him and pretending I'm just doing some kind of weird warm up dance.

3. stuff what everyone else thinks and let him continue doing it.

Hmm... lock in number 3 Eddie.

The Innocent Leg Humper in Question looking beyond reproach on a recent day out at Anglesea.

Where Did My Kelpie Go and Who Is This Faster Version?

I don't know what's going on with Atilla, but ever since his runs at the Twilight Pairs trial, it's like a switch has flicked in his brain and he's back running like he did in the distant past before he had his accident. At home, at training and the best bit ..... at trials as well, and I'm loving it.

I'm experimenting with 'minimalist trialling' at the moment where I have only been entering a handful of runs in the morning and then taking him off for a long walk or a run in the afternoon to really try and build up our relationship- mostly just some one on one time without Cruz and Ivy in tow. So far I am enjoying this new arrangement and if Atilla's performance is anything to go by, then so is he.

At his last 3 trials with this strategy in place (2 runs, 2 runs, 3 runs - normally I would have close to that many on one day) he has finished his Open Jumping title (finally - for some strange reason this one eluded us, maybe has to do with not bothering to enter it all that much) with a nice 3rd place, 1st place in Excellent Gamblers, a 5th place in Masters Jumping - on a course with a whole ton of passes, and a 2nd place in Masters agility - again on a course with a number of passes. Generally we tend to finish just out of the places in Masters so I was delighted with this one.

Cruz has only had one run since Warrnambool - I am still undecided about what the best course of action is for him. He did manage to get the final pass needed for his Novice agility title which I never thought would happen after the lead up to going into the ring.

It was an incredibly windy day and Novice agility was scheduled for the ring closest to the road, which is quite a busy road. He was freaked from the traffic noise plus everything flapping around on the outside of the ring in the wind so I let the steward know where I was and then took him up the side of the ring where it was a bit calmer to try and focus him.

As the dog before me entered the ring, I started to walk over to the ring entrance and someone's tent blew down as we passed it and the flap hit him on the back. Poor thing was absolutely terrified. He literally lay down on the ground and wouldn't move. So here I am doing the Lynda Orton- Hill 'suck it up buttercup' thing and practically dragging him over to the ring entrance, just as I finally managed to get him to sit and focus on me, the handler of the dog before me decides that the first few obstacles are enough for her dog today and she will quit, so they are asking me to bring Cruz into the ring. Disaster !

I nearly turned tail and didn't bother - it was also a pretty tough course for Novice with a Masters level weave entry to boot - but decided to see what he did and if he totally shut down then we would leave the ring. To my surprise he moved off the start line when I released him, nailed the weave entry at obstacle number 3 and ran clear. Even though he was running nowhere near his normal speed, I was so proud of him. I know I complain about his lack of focus a lot, but this time I actually thought he was really brave considering how totally freaked he was before he went in. And he still gave me enough speed to finish in 2nd place, a couple of seconds behind a fast working collie and more than 8 seconds faster than the 3rd placed dog.

So his agility career will continue, even if we only enter one run per day for a bit, as he seems to be able to cope with this. We are now going to focus on Excellent Agility for a bit before he makes his Masters Jumping debut. If I thought he didn't like running agility then I would retire him, but when the conditions are 'just right' for him, he is loving it and turning in some terrific runs so we will soldier on for now and continue to work on handling his stressors at training and in some different environments.

If I stop obsessing over speed and just relax and let him run at his own pace then I am starting to enjoy running him too, even if he is 'my little challenge' at times.

We Heart Twilight Trials

Did I mention that the heart in the title is a very big heart indeed?

Last weekend we had the State Trial for Strategic Pairs - a new event held as a triple twilight trial. I confess that I'm not the most enthusiastic participant in pairs. Generally I prefer to focus on my other runs and don't usually bother fitting it in. Plus I prefer Gamblers out of the 3 games on offer and if I decide to have a games run on top of my others then that's the one I normally choose.

I haven't run pairs since 2008 Nationals and haven't had a qualifying leg in just on 2 years - as you can see entering is pretty infrequent, plus my regular partner doesn't run Kennel Club trials any more, preferring the lower jump heights of NADAC instead. But when they scheduled a twilight trial soley devoted to pairs we decided to reunite and have some runs for a bit of fun.

Well we had tons of fun, plus someone must have stuck a rocket up the kelpie's butt when I wasn't looking. I don't remember him being this fast in a very long time so of course I was delighted. We Q'd on 2 out of 3 runs, won the ring on the 2nd run and had an even faster run on the 3rd, only to find the judge had DQ'd us for something he seems to have seen that we didn't - but we won't go there.

So now that we only need one more pass for SPDX we may be making a pairs comeback after all.

Plus it was really nice running in the evening, cool, not so crowded around the rings and lots of space up the back for the kelpies to have a run around off lead together between runs.

Here's Atilla with his partner Jack. This photo is around 4 years old now - it was actually taken the day before Atilla had his accident and broke his leg, a day I'll never forget - but it's the only photo I can find with them both together.

Did Warrnambool earlier in the month but my runs weren't all that memorable. The weather was disgusting - wet, hot and extremely humid. Plus the grass had just been mowed and not raked up and the rings were stinky to high heaven with wet grass aroma.

Cruz got the last pass he needed for JDX with a first place - he really wasn't all that into it given the conditions and although it was a nice clean run it wasn't at his usual pace. We were first in the ring and I remember thinking that the time we put down would certainly be beaten. The strange thing was that every dog in the ring seemed to be affected by the conditions and on a go slow, so at 11 seconds under SCT we were actually the fastest- on a course that would usually see close to 20 seconds under as the norm from some of the fastest dogs.

So my baby is now in Masters Jumping with his big brother - he is so not ready and won't be making an appearance for some time while we 'embrace our holes' in preparation.

Atilla didn't run anywhere near his usual pace - we ran a very technical Masters Jumping course that had threadles, wrap arounds, serps - you name it-we managed to go around clear but were .2 second over time. Every other run had just one little thing each time, although I was really disappointed with his speed on most runs. I think I have the only working dog that goes on strike if the temperature rises over 25 degrees - bring on Winter trialling. Or better yet, more twilight trials.

Did I mention how much kelpies heart twilight trials? Bring 'em on !

Five Things I Like About Summer

1. We have two little Summer visitors who have taken up residence outside our front door. They are such beautiful creatures I can almost forgive having to clean their poo off the bell every five minutes or so.

2. Gotta love wearing crocs. Even though mine are a size too big as they don't seem to make them for little feet (and mine are that weird cross over size in no man's land between childrens and adults) they are still the most comfortable things in the world. My goal is to get a pair in every colour. Haven't worn these girlie ones in public yet but I'm building up to it. Maybe next step will be crocs with socks.


3. We inherited a couple of mature oak trees when we bought this place and they really look their best over Summer. A great spot to relax and read a book when it' s hot and the kelpies like their pool under there as well. Best place to be on an unbearably hot day.
4. Which brings me to not having to go to work for most of January and actually being able to spend time under the oak trees and even in the pool with the dogs if I feel like it.

5. The garden looks its best over Summer. Even though I like gardening I am pretty crap at it and don't really know what I am doing but over Summer I actually have flowers to look at, even if they are mainly agapanthus and succulents and plants from a 'gardening for dummies' list.

And now for a ton of things that I HATE about Summer.

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Firstly it's hot ! Yes I know that's the whole point of it but I hate the heat. And any time we get money put aside for air con. we seem to end up spending it on dog related things instead.

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I hate the fact that we're in bushfire season - especially after last year. Way too close for comfort. I hate that it makes me on edge and constantly looking outside for any signs of smoke and keeping the computer on the CFA website when I'm at work.

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I hate going back to work - okay a point each way on that one. But I still spend more Summer at work than at home.

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I hate having no agility training to go to. And no trials on the horizon for me until March, and even then only one before April.

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I hate the way the paddocks brown off so quickly once we get a couple of hot days. It looks so pretty around here for most of the year but it's not so nice around this time.

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Dust, dust, dust and more dust. No more words necessary really.

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I hate being too hot to work outside with the dogs most of the time and only being able to sneak in a few minutes in the early mornings or late evenings.

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I hate snakes and the thought of them coming out around this time and going anywhere near my dogs.

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I hate the way I always decide I'm going to retrain something when I have some time on my hands over Summer - my brain just seems to be wired this way and I can't help it. Retraining sucks and is to avoided if at all possible but for me it doesn't seem to be genetically possible.

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I hate the way even blogger seems to have gone mental and for some reason won't let me put spaces between what I write, which is why these stupid asterisk thingys are here.

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I could go on but I'm sure you get the point - I just hate Summer really and wish it would go far away.

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On another note, Cruz's running A Frame is coming along very nicely and I have been pleasantly surprised at how he seems to have taken to it. I have some video but for some reason I couldn't get it to load on here - maybe something to do with being out in the sticks and having very slow dial up - so you will have to make do with a photo instead - the blue crosses show approximately where he is hitting every time on the down side.

After I complained about him not 'getting it' last time and giving me three strides coming down he suddenly seemed to gain confidence which took care of the problem. He is now consistently giving me 2 hits both up and down and his speed has increased heaps.

I am going to try something different to fade the box and instead of taking off a piece at a time I am now working on doing 3 or 4 reps a training session where I take the box away totally for one of them and then put it back, so he never knows if the box will be there or not.
So far this has been successful - L. has watched a few times and doesn't believe he is even noticing the box any more but I'm not so sure.

Going back to training and running a different A Frame will be the next test.

Sheep Stalker

My neighbour has sheep on his land and the kelpies are pretty excited about it - especially Atilla who thinks they were a Christmas present just for him.

We put some ugly bamboo screening on our south side fence a couple of months back, not because we like the look of it (eeek!) but to try and cut down the force of the wind that constantly rips down the hill so we can actually plant some more natural screening and give it a chance of surviving. The wind has destroyed everything we've planted up 'til now. Before the sheep appeared the fence looked like this :

Within a couple of days of the sheep appearing the fence now looks like this in several places :

Any explanation Atilla ? Well of course it wasn't him, he says. How could you accuse this face?

Maybe it's time to go back to some more sheepwork next year..............

We are having a sort of 'semi break' from training at the moment. I want to keep working on fitness with both the kelpies, especially Atilla. We did a 10 kilometre walk along the beach last weekend with a friend and her dogs and it was a lot of fun. I really want to do a lot more hiking this summer but it's so dependent on the weather - nothing is fun in extreme heat.

We're going to have 2 weeks off jumping totally and have gone back to running a plank on the ground to try and build more speed for the dogwalk. Plus I am doing a lot of 'single repetition' weave poles and really rewarding highly for speed. He enjoys both these 'games.'

This year Atilla has almost become a 'comfortable shoe' in regarding to working with him as a team. I think this is both good and bad - good in that I feel he responds easily to my handling and all the errors (and there are plenty) are totally mine. Bad in that I don't want to become complacent running him as I know that at just turned 7 he still has a few more years trialling in him (hopefully) and there are still things that I know I could improve on with him.

Posing with his club sashes awarded for Masters Agility and Masters Jumping - he's so serious !

Cruz on the other hand has not got anywhere the comfortable shoe stage yet. But I'm working on it and going back to some more foundation work (ie: circle running and a lot more playing) can't hurt. Groundwork for his running A Frame has gone pretty well - we have the box on the ground as part of a jump grid with a board under the box to simulate the A Frame contact.

Yesterday I tried the box on a lowered A Frame just to see where we were. He did a great job of hitting the box, but the problem is coming over the A Frame. I want him to be a 2 hits up and down dog, but at the moment he is hitting 2 on the way up, then doing this little shuffle as he comes over the top, which is creating 3 hits on the down side. I tried a stride regulator near the top but it's freaking him out for some reason. As my main goal for him at the moment is reinforcement and keeping him happy, I have decided just to let him run the lowered A Frame for a bit to see if it builds his confidence at all. At the moment I am leaving the box there as he is well and truly hitting it each time, but I'm not commanding him to do so. I think the little shuffle came about when I changed his training to 2 on 2 off a while back - for some reason he has never been as comfortable doing this as he is on the dogwalk and it has changed his striding coming down. Again I'm sure it's my fault but the A Frame is truly my nemesis when it comes to training equipment. So we'll see how it goes just letting him run for a couple of weeks and then I'll reassess the training. (That's the plan anyway)

Cruz looks pretty happy about it and wishes everyone a belated Merry Christmas. As does Atilla ...... And old man Yasser who is about to turn 15 next week. And not forgetting the mad Cattle Dog Bosnich. (Puppy Ivy can do it on her own blog !)

Great To Be Back Trialling - See You In 2010 !

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.