This weekend we have a 2 day ASCA agility trial. Should be fun. Chase and I are ready, since we had fun at DOCNA and the courses are similar. Nice and wide open with lots of room for Chase to stretch out and extend over jumps. It’s what he’s good at. Maybe we’ll be lucky and get some ATCh points while we are at it. I even forgot if he’s got all his Elite titles in ASCA. I don’t think… Continue reading
Well we had fun at DOCNA Championships in Grand Junction, Colorado! Chase was a good boy and did good. I only got made at him… err… I think once. LOL that is pretty good for me. He can really push my buttons, that boy. And he’s so fast, if he blows me off it can really irk me. But he did good, even though he dropped a couple of bars. And there was some serious competition in the 20″ class.… Continue reading
Well, tomorrow I’m headed off with Chase to the DOCNA Agility Championships! I’m pretty excited that he qualified this year. We’ve never been to a Championships before so I think it’ll be fun. It’s going to be in Grand Junction, Colorado, which is pretty close. It’s only 5 hours from us. And we’ll be stopping in Richfield to pick up my friend Marie and her dog Zoe. As they qualified too and we’re gonna have a fun trip! This pictures… Continue reading
Chase Resting
Well, my goofy Border Collie boy, Chase, got a new U-FLI flyball title last weekend. He reached is 9,500 points mark and now he has his Top Flight Premier Title. Woo! This is much happier to think about than Angel, like my last post… however, thinking of Angel kinda makes me happy too, since I am so grateful she was part of my life. Dang there’s those darn tears again.
So anyway Chase loves flyball. He even held a Stand Stay in the lanes when I had to go talk to the box loader. LOL he’s a goof. It was hard for him and I didn’t make him wait long. Flyball is Chase’s favorite sport by far. Not much thinking, just flat our running in super high drive. I don’t think he’d do very well in medical assistant school even though he’s a Border Collie and is probably smart enough for it. 
So flyball was fun. The weekend of the 24-27th we’ll be in Grand Junction, Colorado, for the DOCNA agility championships. That’ll be fun too. Then in October we are going to the Jumps N Jackpots Flyball Tournament held by Touch N Go. That will also be fun. No obedience for a while, much to Chase’s happiness!
Four Pups
I’ve been looking at old pictures lately… I have my Macbook set up to use my photo folders as my screen saver. It’s a dangerous thing… because I can just sit and watch it for hours. 
Well maybe not hours, but for a good long time that’s for sure.
Makes me think about term life insurance and getting old and stuff. Especially since many of the pictures have Angel in them. And yeah I still cry quite often because she’s gone and I’ll never see her in this life again. It still makes me sad. Though I know she’s not in pain anymore. And I have to remember her when she was alive and happy and full of life.
Anyway, so this picture is of me and my husband and the four we had at the time… Lucy, Levi, Angel and Chase. Boy did Chase look out of place with the three smooth blue collies. LOL. Now we have more different breeds so he fits in a bit better. 
This weekend I tried Chase in an AKC agility trial. It’s the first one I’ve put him in, probably in about 10 months. We have a really hard time qualifying in AKC because of the tight courses. I wanted to test my handling since we’ve been going to a lot of Stacy Workshops over the last few months, to see if I’d gotten any better. The good news, yes I’ve gotten a lot better. The bad news, I haven’t gotten… Continue reading
Jet in Idaho Falls
I was at an ASCA Obedience trial this morning… and yesterday morning. And I got to thinking. Everyone else in the world probably already knows this, but I’m a softy when it comes to giving my dogs treats, and I may just treat too much. I was thinking that the dogs really need to love the training. They need to love the exercises and have a good time doing them. And the treats are just there to reinforce what they do right… what we want them to do. If the dog doesn’t like the exercises… doesn’t like obedience, then they are not going to have fun in the ring, where there are no treats. So making the exercises themselves reinforcing is a huge key to obedience.
Agility comes more easily, the obstacles are a lot more self-reinforcing than in obedience. In obedience it’s all about the person and the dog. And although I will never believe that I can be more interesting than some things in the world (smells, other dogs, etc), I think I can work at it and come pretty close. Close enough for good work, anyway.
So anyway, about the title of this post, I think the treats should only be there to reinforce the training. The dog has got to love the training, and the exercises, and working with the handler, in order to do good happy exuberant work in obedience. Otherwise you’ll have a dog that’s a dud. He may even qualify as a dud, but I personally don’t want a dud dog. I want a happy enthusiastic dog!
With the treats there to reinforce the fun of the training… the treats being about the training, I think I’ll have more success in the obedience ring. I want Jet to have awesome heeling. I want him to love to heel. I want him to think it’s one of the coolest things ever. Haha, that’s funny, because I don’t think it’s really that cool. But I love to watch great heeling. Great heeling is so impressive, it’s a team of dog and person, it’s beautiful and it’s really exhilarating. And for me to get that with Jet, then it’s gotta be super fun. And the treats will merely be there to reinforce the heeling itself. And eventually, the treats will be there rarely.
So hopefully this idea of mine will stick, and it’ll work to get some great heeling. So far, so good. I should get more heeling video of him. I want him to love it! So we won’t need any best eye cream for wrinkles because we’ll have happy, smiling faces!
Oh… and no, Chase didn’t qualify today. He laid down on his sit 18 seconds before we were done. Bleh. I guess it’s something I’ll have to work really hard to maintain. I’m even wondering if I should try to get his ASCA CDX. I only want it so that I can do ASCA Utility with him in the future. He’s got his AKC CDX now… I just really love the ASCA shows. They are so fun, well run, and the people are great. We have maybe 6 a year so it’d be great to show Chase in ASCA Utility. But we have to get through the dumb sit stays again. Chase didn’t qualify yesterday, either. He did a drop on recall but… with the dumbbell in his mouth on the retrieve on the flat. LOL dork. He’s so creative.
Spirit Chasers Spice CDX
Chase got his CDX!!!! I am thrilled! I almost thought it would never happen. He started laying down on his sit stays back in March. After the pigeon incidence and he got to do a 9.5 minute down stay in the ring. After that, I thought we were pretty much screwed. But with lots of training and persistence, he held his sit stay today! Wooo Hooo!
It’s my first CDX ever on a dog. Levi had one leg toward a CDX before I retired him. He just wouldn’t hold the out of site stays. So that’s okay. But Chase always had the potential. He has the potential for a UD, too, so now that his CDX is done we are going to work the UD exercises. That’ll be fun. I do want to get his ASCA CDX too, though, but hopefully that sit stay will hold for those legs too.
Today was an adventerous day… last night driving up to Idaho Falls Chase pooped in his crate, which is really rare. He’s usually really good about letting me know when he has to go out. But he didn’t give me even a peep. Then this morning his poop was solid again. But last night Tatum didn’t settle at all and kept me awake most of the night. She’s usually really good in the hotel rooms so I don’t know what was up with her. Hopefully tonight she’ll be good and tired so she’ll sleep. She also Q’d in Rally Novice B, yay! I’ll post more about that later. I was so nervous about Chase and that CDX leg that I didn’t spend as much mental energy on Tatum as I should have. But she did good, she got a 91 out of 100 so I was very proud of her!
So after we were done at the trial we came back to the hotel room and I took a nap. It felt good, I was exhausted. The stress of the CDX was such that I felt like I was going to throw up after it was over. I was so relieved. So I took a nap and when I woke up I couldn’t find my smart phone. I looked in the hotel and the van and couldn’t find it. So then I remembered that I’d thrown some stuff away at the trial site and though oh no, maybe the phone was with all that stuff.
So we went back to the trial site and they garbage collectors had come only an hour before! I thought I was screwed! So we did some training with the puppies and some friends and that was fun. Jet did some go-outs and some heeling and some dumbbell and had a great time.
When we were done I figured I’d walk the path once again from the van to the tent set up to see if I could find my phone.. and as I got closer to the tent site I realized that I had never taken my chair down, and maybe it was in my drink holder. And it was! I was so relieved! I don’t want to buy a new phone, I can’t afford it! And I really like my smart phone. :)
We then went to Cafe Rio for dinner, and then we went back to the hotel. Chase is again runny so I’m not sure what’s up with him. It’s not affecting his performance, though. But since he now has his CDX I’m not going to put him back in the ring Saturday or Sunday. There is no reason to waste energy on those stays when he doesn’t have to. So now I get to concentrate on Tatum’s Rally for the next couple of days and I hope she will get her Rally Novice title!
It’s time for bed, good night! ;)
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