I Confess - It's a Shameless Brag !

Although I never wanted this blog to represent a blow by blow description of every trial result - I can't resist posting this one. (And I will make more of an effort to get back to documenting my training after this, I promise!)

Last week at Moorabbin Atilla finally got the last pass we needed for ADM - he also managed a Masters Jumping pass and an Open Jumping pass just for good measure. On the weekend just gone we had our Club trial and he clocked up another Masters Jumping pass so we are now almost there in regard to that title too.

It might not seem all that special - many dogs gain Masters titles - but for a dog that suffered a major injury 3 years ago - to the point where it did not seem he would ever return to agility - then missed a year of trialling, then put up with my overprotective handling for the whole of the next year until I learned to relax again, and still runs with minimal flexion in one wrist joint (which inhibits his turns in one direction quite a lot) well, it is very special to me.... and something that I thought may never happen. So I am very proud of my 'heart dog' at the moment.

And of course Cruz did not want to be outdone. On his second ever Novice Jumping run at Moorabbin he won the ring in the morning - he also had a lovely run in the afternoon where I deliberately ran wrong course as I didn't want him out of Novice all that quick.
That run was probably our fastest one so far. Moorabbin is a nice ground with very few distractions for an ADHD kelpie. (Look at that! What was that?, Who is that and why is he in the ring? etc.)

He then gained his last pass for his Jumping Dog title at our club trial on the weekend - although he didn't give me anywhere near full speed as L. and Atilla were standing right outside the ring for a distraction, which they certainly were.
But a giraffe like kelpie can run with one eye on me, one eye on them, and still come in 4th place on a course with 11 passes - and of course now that I know how much of a distraction L. is - he is banned from all future trials !

So I couldn't resist having a little brag and posting their photo - what smug looking kelpies don't you think ? And after getting rump steak, they should be very pleased about their respective titles too.

And unfortunately, as much as I am allowing myself a brag - well I still have a long list of things to be worked on over the next few months with both of them - not to mention my handling as well.

Some Valuable Agility Lessons - From a Kelpie

I couldn't wait to get back to trialling again after the Summer break.
So much so that I drove 3 and a half hours to Warrnambool for 2 half day trials - 3 runs on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.
As I had a devil of a time trying to get accommodation (Warrnambool was obviously where it was all happening over the long weekend!) I didn't enter Cruz. At one stage it looked as if I may have been sharing accommodation with a number of other people and dogs and I didn't think it was fair to rock up with more than one dog. Anyway, we ended up getting a tent site for Saturday evening only - 2 people and 2 kelpies only just fit into a 6 person tent by the way. Obviously to get 6 people in you have to sleep in 2 layers. Luckily my 'old boys' are happy sleeping in the car.

I'm not sure if it was the long drive or the warm afternoon, but on Saturday I just couldn't get connected with Atilla. Our first run in Open Jumping wasn't too bad but thanks to another 'blonde moment' I ended up doing an extra circle of a pinwheel before the run home. (3 extra obstacles and we still made time!) I haven't forgotten a course in quite a while so that should have served as a warning for what was to come - two of the worst Masters runs we have had in a long time. I can't even remember agility, and Atilla got so fed up with me in jumping that eventually he took off and made up his own course. (Very frustrated 'kelpie-like' and rightly so!)

Sunday was a lot better, the connection returned and we had two good runs in Masters (on two beautiful courses that were very kelpie friendly) with just one small error each time. Later on when talking to a friend, he commented on what a wasted weekend it must have been to travel all that way without a pass.
Well if that was what I measured a successful agility weekend on, I would be disappointed a lot of the time!

There were so many things that I learned over the weekend that I have decided to list them here in the hope that recounting them makes me truly learn these lessons and benefit from them.

Firstly, this was the trial weekend for my new lead out procedure - no more looking back and running to position instead. It has been working well at training with both dogs but this was the first time I have done it in a trial situation. 5 runs, 5 lead outs held and none of the stress signs that I was sometimes seeing before - even when I went out to the 5th jump in Open Jumping and 'arm changed' to handle the serpentine in the distance test, which was at the start of the course. So a big tick for this one and I will definitely keep on doing it. Not sure why running to position appears to work compared to walking, just happy that so far it is!

I'm usually pretty relaxed running Atilla but when things came unstuck on Saturday I tensed up and handled accordingly. Although I would put verbal cues down near the bottom on the priority list of how I handle, for some reason when I tense up I become a lot more verbal.
I think kelpies really hate this. Not that I see the need to run totally silent (although I think this is an excellent training exercise to really get the focus on your body cues) but maybe shutting up a lot more and letting the kelpie actually get on with his job would have been a better handling strategy.
Something I am going to try and be a lot more aware of from now on.
I also noticed that the more verbals I used, the more he started to ignore me, so maybe being a little quieter would give an improved response to a verbal command when I do give one.

One of my favourite quotes ( can't remember the author or where I read it though) is written in the front of my training diary as a reminder:
'What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.'

This is a hard lesson to live and I don't think I have been able to totally hide my disappointment on other occasions when things haven't gone well, but this time I think I went closer to getting it right. After I left the trial on Saturday, I took Atilla to the beach - we still had 3 hours before L. was due down with the other dogs. This would have been the first time in ages when we got to run on the beach together, just the two of us, and it was a good 're-connecting' experience.
Atilla found a dog toy that had washed up - and of course a 'freebie found' is way better than any toy I could buy him. So for the better part of 2 hours, we ran played 'tug' and 'retrieve' with the toy. When we were both really tired, we walked along the sand for a couple of kms.
A happy kelpie face is a great pick me up so the disappointment of our runs was soon forgotten which I believe went a long way toward the much better performance on Sunday.
In the past I would have probably put him in the car, gone home, and stressed about all the errors I had made which is totally counter productive. Especially when no one else remembers or cares about your runs except you - including your dog!

Other things I learned on the weekend :
*There will always be some fallout as a reformed 'flicker'. (GD handlers know what I'm talking about) Accept it, continue with 'anti flick' training - which in all likelihood will never be 100% effective, and move on. Smile as your kelpie flips you the paw and disappears into the far end of the tunnel- you taught him to do it in the first place.

*I can actually have 2 good runs with L. standing right outside the ring. Apart from some initial head turning on the startline, Atilla didn't look at him once.

*Listen to everyone's advice, even if you don't take 99% of it on board - it's that other 1% that can sometimes make a difference.

*Sometimes very successful weekends, pass wise, mean that you don't learn all that much from your runs. So which weekends are really the most successful in the big picture?

Bed Etiquette - Sleeping with Kelpies

I've just walked into the living room to hear L lecturing Cruz about 'bed etiquette.'

Our rules regarding sleeping arrangements have evolved as the number of dogs has evolved. Their first 12 months were spent crated at night, beginning in the laundry and then progressing to the bedroom.

No more than 2 dogs on the bed at night - this one has actually worked out well. Originally we had Yasser and Bosnich on the bed. By the time Atilla progressed to the crate in the bedroom stage, Yasser was too old and arthritic to get up on the bed any more and preferred his bed at the foot of ours. So Bosnich and Atilla had bed privileges.

Late last year, Bosnich decided that he too was having difficulty jumping up on the bed and would prefer to sleep with Yasser. So now the kelpies have the bed privilege - providing they get off immediately if I tell them to do so, which they both do. Just so they know they share our bed, rather than us sharing theirs !

Bed etiquette has never been raised as an issue with any of the dogs before Cruz - all of them prefer to curl up at your feet and don't move. Cruz on the other hand has no bed etiquette, as L is delighting in telling him.

No end of the bed for him - he's a snuggler through and through, whether the temperature is minus 2 or 35 plus. And he doesn't curl up in a ball like the others, he prefers to stretch his long lanky legs and giraffe like neck as far out as he possibly can, which is usually digging into my back, legs or head. And he doesn't keep still. It's not uncommon to wake up in the middle of the night with his butt on the pillow and his tail across your face. And if you happen to get up in the night you know he's going to be in your spot when you come back, looking up innocently with one eye - you don't really expect me to move do you?

And his reaction to the bed etiquette lecture ?

Victoria Burns - A Black Day

This is the usual view from my verandah - something that I love to sit and look at most evenings with the kelpies by my side, as it gives me a feeling of peace. (Especially after a typical day at work. )This is Mount Disappointment, with Wandong just to the left of the picture and if you continue to travel to the right of the picture and face east instead of north, you can see the mountains of Kinglake in the distance. (You'll have to take my word for it)


The photo below is the view from the same spot last Saturday- one of the most tragic days in Victoria's history. The fire front travelled from Kilmore East, just above Wandong, right across Mount Disappointment to the foothills at Glenvale -only 5 minutes up the road from here. Once the smoke finally cleared in the evening when the cool change moved in, you could actually see the flames. It looked as if the whole of the mountain was on fire, which it probably was. Although I took some photos of the flames visible from our place, I couldn't bear to post them- in fact I ended up deleting them all except for this one, which is defintely the least sensational of the bunch.

From Glenvale, the fire moved across the back of Whittlesea to Humevale, eventually joining up with the fire at Kinglake - and judging by the number of international phone calls we've had the past couple of days, I think the whole world knows what happened after that.

My grandmother always used to say 'there but for the grace of God go I' and it pretty much sums up how I feel at the moment. We were put on ember alert mid afternoon and then upgraded to urgent threat later in the afternoon, but the direction that the wind was blowing meant that the fire front narrowly missed us for which we are thankful but also terrified that this was probably due only to chance.

Two former work colleagues lost their homes, and one also lost her favourite kelpie which I can't even bear to think about what that must be like. Another evacuated and returned home to find hers was the only home on the road standing - another instance of Russian roulette fire style.

Many dog breeders have lost properties and dogs - one lost every single one of their dogs which is so heartbreaking to hear about.

Such is the enormity of this tragedy that six degrees of separation goes out the window - I think just about everyone in Victoria knows someone who lost either property or family.

It makes me wonder how many of us living in semi rural areas actually have a realistic fire plan? Or think that we actually need one ? Coming as close as it did terrified me and we were never in any real danger - I can only imagine the horror of seeing a fire like that literally on your doorstep. Thoughts that I'm trying to push out of my mind now.
Our so called plan was originally to stay and fight if the fire got any closer, then when L came home from work he decided that I should go and take the dogs while he stayed. (Don't know if I could have lived with that or not?) The next day, after the relief turned to disbelief and shock from the amount of devastation and lives lost, we realised that if we had lost power, which is pretty likely in a bushfire, then we wouldn't have had any water to fight fire with anyway as the pump wouldn't have worked. So what dumb bunnies are we!
I think a generator is going on the latest 'wish list'. Plus a more serious attitude to actually developing a plan that is a bit more realistic. Most of us only think of the CFA once a year when making our annual resident's donation. An attitude that is probably going to change for a lot of people now.

My case was packed and ready to go at one stage and when I unpacked it later, I realised that just about every single thing in it was agility related. (What a tragic am I! )

So tonight I am thankful that I have still have my home (even though it's only property in the scheme of things), that my beautiful dogs and horse are safe - even the cranky goat, and all my friends and neighbours are also safe - we were a bit worried about one of them for a while.
I am so sad for all the lives lost that I am still numb all over- and I don't think I will ever feel the same about looking out over the mountains again.

And that makes me feel cheated, as selfish as that might seem - something that I loved has now lost the peaceful feeling that I always associated with it and I don't know if I will ever get that back again.

Time To Get Back to Training

Atilla has finished his treatment for a strained hamstring - diagnosed during his muscle therapy session - we've had a month off jumping, well, pretty much a month off everything, so time to get back to work.


We're going to run very short sequences for the next couple of weeks, training no more than 4 times a week, and then start building up from there. I still want to continue with some shaping plus work on his fitness - and mine- on the days we're not specifically doing agilty training.


Today I chose a sequence from the new Greg Derrett DVD - which was actually taken from the middle of a course diagram, but I wanted to focus on something that incorporated the cloth tunnel/chute. The training exercise on the DVD focused on which way to turn your dog after the jump before the tunnel, so we worked it with a front cross and also with various lead outs.

I worked it with a diagonal front cross between 2 and 3, then a threadle from 4 to 5. Also worked it with a lead out pivot on the close side of 4, then a push through at 4, plus with a lead out pivot on the far side of 4, turning around the opposite side of the jump than before.

Also tried it running from the start and a rear cross between 2 and 3 which actually worked a lot better than I thought it would with Atilla. Didn't try that one with Cruz as our rear crosses still need a lot more work driving down a diagonal line. My fault entirely as I haven't devoted a lot of training time to rear cross work, something that I will rectify this year - in between the hundred other things I want to do with him.

I have really missed training, even though I think it has been good for both kelpies to have some time off.

I am so looking forward to the Greg Derrett seminar next week - although the very high temperatures forecast make me glad I didn't apply for a working spot this time.

Another Year .....for Training and the 'Old Man'

Another year for Yasser, my lovely old man and honorary kelpie ! (We think there is a little bit of kelpie in there somewhere, along with the BC and ACD. ) This is his 14th Birthday portrait.

To celebrate I made the boys ice cream cone cakes - a doggy muffin jammed into the cone then covered with low fat cream cheese frosting, tiny bacon pieces and a blueberry on top, covered with finely planed doggy chocolate - gotta get those antioxidants. No complaints from the canine customers so I guess it was a winner. Plus I'm addicted to the microplaner grater thingy since I saw it on 'Jamie' - although I don't know what he would say about using it for doggy chocs.

Atilla is having a break from training at the moment, much to his disgust.

The end of trial season visit from the muscle therapist is happening next week. Since the end of the trialling year he has already had a few weeks off , so hopefully we will be able to ease back into training after that. I still feel that something is not quite right with him, so we will see.

We have been working inside with the clicker to sharpen up some of his tricks - now that I am doing this with both Tilla and Cruz at the same time, I can see a difference in their progress with both freeshaping and working through the clicker. (eg: the click does not end the behaviour- wait for your release cue) Cruz is way better at both these things which really makes me feel as if I didn't really use it to its best effect with Tilla in the beginning.

So nothing like a refresher course - for him and for me. And I think the clicker was almost invented for kelpies - they love the independence it gives them in trying out behaviours for themselves ........ plus the rewards for getting it right! Yes, another lightbulb moment.

I have also started retraining Cruz's weaves with Susan Garrett's 2X2 method - not that I wasn't happy with Cruz's weaves, but one thing that I have neglected with him is really working those difficult entries, so since this method is meant to train these I thought I would give it a go.

Day 6 so far and I am blown away by the results. We are on 4 poles, still slightly open even though I know he can weave straight poles - but the entries he is making are amazing. I know that a week ago he would have needed so much assistance from me to get them, but now he is doing it all by himself. I'm sure he thinks I'm losing my mind (I know L does!) as I am so excited by this that I am yelling 'yes, yes, yes' as he goes through the poles - note to self : Be silent next time. I am also impressed with his new found perserverance when he gets it wrong. I never used to let him fail at anything more than twice, and once we had two 'failures' I made the exercise easier. But this is one thing that Garrett now cautions against when teaching this method - let the dog work it out for himself without making it easier for him.

We had 5 'failures' in a row the other day - and it killed me not to help him out, but I didn't..... and then he got it right! As Elicia would say, 'Yeeeeee Harrrrr!!!!!!! ' Plus this is now also paying off in both his work and also his attitude. No shutting down and refusing to work, no frustration barking - which is also carrying over into the work we are doing inside using the clicker.

We should probably move to a location outside the yard now for a bit of proofing, so that may be a weekend project.

I have decided that once I get to the 'challenge' exercises, if he can still make the entries (eg: I've actually trained it properly!) then I will also retrain Atilla - who I thought had really good entries until I tried some of these with him.

One thing that I really wanted to do with Atilla over Summer was work on the cloth tunnel. He has never had any difficulty performing this before, although it's not my favourite piece of equipment. Personally I think it's an accident waiting to happen, especially with the design of many being used in Australia including those awful heavy canvas ones. Atilla got tangled in one on a Masters Agility run at Warrnambool in November. He has been tangled in chutes before and this has never caused him any problems, but in the following Masters Jumping run I got 3 refusals at it before he decided he would go in. That's never happened before, even back in Novice. Got it out at training the next week and he wouldn't go in either. So I brought one home from club for the summer break as it's the one piece of equipment that I don't own. Put it out on my agility area and as soon as I brought him in, he took off away from me and made straight for it, running through no problems and then looking at me like 'that was fun, let's do it again'. Several repetitions later, all fast and confident....... where was the problem again?

So after all the effort I made to get it home, it's now sitting in the bungalow gathering dust!

It will come out again in a couple of weeks so that I can design some sequences to run incorporating it for both dogs, just to make sure.

And I would still like to see it disappear from trials in the near future.

Merry Christmas

From my kelpies to yours .............

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and lots of training success in 2009, whatever your training goals happen to be.

And do you really think either of them would wear a Christmas hat for me? Not on your life - thank goodness for photo editing programs !