When it’s hot out, and I don’t want to go for a walk after work… and when I just can’t decide what dogs to take with me when all of them want to go, I sometimes will just stay home and train.
Well yesterday at work I was thinking why not work all the dogs at the same time? I can do some stay work and mat work and have them really be good pups!
This is a long video, about 10 minutes, I didn’t edit it much since the in-between treating part is kinda fun to watch too. At least for me. feel free to fast forward. LOL. They all did really well. Tatum was the worst, which means we need more stay work with Tatum. Jet was the second worst, which is bad, since he’ll need stays in obedience! Lucy was also pretty bad but she’s old, 12.5 years old now, and she has a hard time moving. When I pushed her down I put hardly any pressure on her at all. I just touch her and she goes down easily. But still, I might not work her anymore. She loves the treats but it’s too hard for her to move.
Chase and Levi were solid as rocks. Good boys! They have had a lot of obedience training those two.
It was fun, I’m thinking I’ll split them up in pairs of 2 for a while since this is a new thing and I want to reinforce their stationary-ness for a while. And treating one or two dogs, while working one, will be a lot easier than treating four or five. LOL
Oh, Muffit doesn’t have a stay at all. So he didn’t get to work. He’s my husband’s hiking dog.
I was inspired by Mutts and a Klutz blog, where I saw a picture a while ago taken just of her dogs’ nose. I think Jet has a really cute pattern of colors on his nose, and I’ve been wanting to take some pictures of him for a while, and finally got around to it. Yes, I’m slow. The husband is running the sprinkler out back today, so Jet had to sit in one spot that was water free, and… Continue reading »
Well, on Saturday Jet got both his JWW and Standard Qs too, which gave him his AX title. Woo! I’m excited. We had a great weekend. I’m not sure why Blackfoot, Idaho, went so very wrong. LOL. But we made up for it this weekend. I’m thinking in Blackfoot it was a combination of stress, harder courses, and cooler weather making Jet run faster, which I’m not good at handling.
So now he’s officially Stolta Ebbas Einride of Sweden AX AXJ. Wooo! Below is the playlist of all the videos from the weekend. If you want you can scroll through them and watch. Tatum’s are in there, too.
Jet is such an amazing little Danish-Swedish Farmdog doing agility. He is so absolutely perfect for me.. But then, he’s perfect, Qs or no Qs. I just adore him, and I am having fun doing agility with him! And with all the running around I did last weekend, I don’t have to look for Diet pills that work fast, because I’m running fast!
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Well we seem to have recovered from our unfortunate fiasco running agility in Blackfoot Idaho, where we only got 1 Q out of 8 in Jumpers and Standard. Today Jet and I were in a local AKC agility trial and he Q’d in both his runs! That’s his second Excellent A Standard leg, and his third Excellent A Jumpers with Weaves leg for his AXJ, woo hoo!
I’m so excited we got his AXJ today. I was getting a bit down in Blackfoot when we didn’t have a good Q rate at all. So now I’m glad that it’s picked up again. We have two more days of agility and hopefully we’ll get some more Qs. I’d love to get his AX this weekend too!
It was pretty hot today though we were indoors so that was nice. I didn’t need my Ray Bans even unless we went out to walk and potty. The indoor building was rather warm but they had the Swamp Coolers going and the big fans so it wasn’t really too bad. Though I was still sweating when our runs were done.
Tatum did really well too though she didn’t Q. I forgot that in Open each second over course time is actually 2 faults, not one. So she was 12 seconds over course time in Jumpers but she got 24 faults so no Q. I’m really gunna have to see if I can speed her up. But we do have some years yet and she likes it so we are just having fun. Here is her run, I didn’t get her JWW on video, but she moved even better in JWW:
I know I don’t post that much, and I apologize, but maybe I do more quality than quantity…. hmm? Hehe, I can hope so, anyway.
last weekend our local Sighthound club put together their first local Lure Coursing Ability Test. It was a blast! I entered Jet and Chase and they both LOVED it!
If you do not know, the AKC recently set up a new Lure Coursing test for all breeds. Before it was you had to have a Sighthound only to compete in Lure Coursing. Well a zillion people complained about this because not only Sighthounds like to Lure Course and chase stuff! This is even a titling event, and you know me, always wanting more letters on my dogs’ names. Jet and Chase are my only two dogs that care about chasing things. The Collies couldn’t care less about Lure Coursing or chasing things, though they do like to chase sheep around occasionally.
So here’s video of Chase and Jet doing some Lure Coursing. Jet was so funny. On Saturday I take him and we go to watch, and he’s rolling on his back and being a goof, saying hi to everyone, people and dogs. Not really knowing what we are doing. Until we went down to the field and he saw the lure and he FREAKS out and screams at the top of his lungs at that lure. It’s just a dumb plastic bag goof! LOL. Anyway day two… he’s all business, knows where we are and what we are doing. No fooling around for him on day two. He wanted that Lure!
I only got video on Sunday, not Saturday. The guy running the Lure lost both of the dogs on Sunday. I think maybe he needs more practice running the lure.
The grass was really long, some of the dogs may have gotten grasses in their ears and eyes, which isn’t good at all. Ugh. We checked Chase and Jet all over though and I think they are fine. So that’s good. Maybe they needed some toro zero turn lawn mowers to tackle all those weeds. But alas, the dogs pushed the grasses down okay.
The sighthounds raced first, then the other breeds raced after for the CAT. Chase and Jet both got 2 legs towards their CA titles. How fun. I hope they offer this again soon, we had a blast!
Okay since we had some weave issues at the last AKC agility trial I really wanted to participate in Kathy’s Weave Poll Challenge! So here it is!
First I did Jet… he did really well, it’ll be interesting as the time goes by and we move the jump around to see how his entries are.
Then I thought what the heck, why not to Tatum too? She doesn’t really send to anything.. she has no interest in toys, and I haven’t worked a toss/treat bag but I really should. So anyway I did it with her too and she did better than I expected, especially on the call through and the send!
This will be fun. I might be doing it more than once a week to catch up since I’m kinda behind, everyone else started 10 days ago!
I learned a lot about running Jet in Excellent A Agility last weekend in Blackfoot, Idaho. We cruised through Novice and Open so fast that I forgot how extremely difficult it is to run clean in Excellent. We only got 1 Q out of 8 runs in Excellent A. (He got his Novice FAST title and a leg in Open FAST but since my goal with Jet is a MACH, I’m not really counting FAST runs in my calculations.)
The good news is that Jet is running extremely nicely. He’s having good forward focus. He’s spotting and taking obstacles. He’s moving quickly and consistently. His contacts are holding a nice 2o2o and he didn’t blow one all weekend. He’s jumping smoothly. He’s weaving nicely for the most part, though I need to drive him a bit more. And, most important of all, he’s having a really good time.
I have a goal for Excellent Agility, and it might be a really lofty one, but after 8 years of struggling with my first two dogs, I think Jet and I can achieve my goal. I want at least a 50% Q rate in Excellent. And if we are not getting it, then it’s time to analyze and train.
I watched the videos from the weekend and I made a list of the things we are having problems with. Here is my list.
Weaves:
- Two Missed Entires.
- One skitter where he missed a couple poles.
Front Crosses:
- Once I rotated too much and sent him to the wrong obstacle.
- Once I rotated too little and sent him to the wrong obstacle.
Rear Crosses:
- In two runs I opted to NOT do rear crosses because I don’t think Jet has strong enough rear crosses, and either missed an obstacle or got an off course obstacle. (Not once did a rear cross cause us an NQ… but I do avoid them when I can.)
Wrong End of Tunnel:
- This only happened once for an off course. However, I know I have to train discriminations better and this is a weakness we have.
270:
- Jet missed the second jump of a 270 once. I also know this is a weakness in our training as I haven’t trained 270s with him much… or, okay, at all.
Out of 8 runs, that about sums up our errors. I think I can fix these things. They are training issues. And I do need to see improvements so I’ll be videoing our training sessions and will attack these problems. Jet doesn’t understand. Once he does, he’ll do what I ask him to do.
I also know that I have a lean-over problem… and I want Jet to understand that when I call him verbally, that will out-weight the body signals I may give him incorrectly. One run I didn’t rear cross him and he took an off course tunnel. I yelled at him to come HARD but he still got into the tunnel before he turned around back to me. I’ll need to reward him for coming to me off tunnels, and other obstacles, even if I’m bending over. After 8 years of agility I think I’m never going to stop bending over, and so I just need to train my dog to respond to me better. Since he’s much easier to train that I am. LOL
Here’s our one Q run:
So now back to work, programming, not doing electrosurgery, though maybe that’d be more fun. I have a couple weeks before our next trial. I hope to get a few of these things worked out before our next trial, so I can increase our Q rate!
Well I just haven’t had the gumption to come update my blog with last week’s trial results. I’m not sure why, because Jet did really well! I messed up a couple of times, so out of 4 runs he only got 2 Qs. But we are in Excellent A now, and so we have to run clean. No more mistakes allowed. So it’s a bit harder.
Jet Qualified in Exc A JWW on Saturday, and Exc A Standard on Sunday. The Sunday’s JWW run he took the wrong end of the tunnel.. so that’s tripped us up twice now. Once in open, and now once in Excellent A. But I haven’t had time to get out and work it… and we have a 4 day trial this weekend. So I’ll just have to see how it goes. I’ve been feeling a bit sick this week too so haven’t really had the gumption to go out and train agility like I should.
Those are his two Sunday runs. The STD Q and the JWW NQ. I am happy with our runs anyway. For him to be doing so well and it’s only his 4th AKC trial… I cannot complain.
We have a chance to get into Excellent B this weekend, and I’m trying not to stress about it. LOL. If Jet gets into Excellent B and earns a speed point, that’ll be my very first AKC Speed point ever. After 8 years of agility, to finally get my firs speed point… I’ll have to frame the darn thing in gold. LOL It either means I’m a dunce to keep trying for so long, or I’m just good and persistent. I’ll interpret it that second way.
Gotta go to Blackfoot Idaho this weekend for four days of AKC agility. Maybe I’ll look at which motorcycle gps would be best, but then I have one for my car, which seems to work just fine. But that reminds me I want to print some maps so I know where I’m going!
Tip Tail is about two Smooth Collies, two Border Collies, and one Danish/Swedish Farmdog. Our adventures include dog training for obedience, agility, and flyball, and anything else we can fit in! We also love to just play and have fun. We all live in Salt Lake City, Utah. The human behind it all is me, Cynthia!
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The Dog Pack
Levi - CH Pembroke Faded Glory
Chase - Spirit Chasers Spice
Tatum - Tatum Tot Spice
Muffit - Spicy Love Muffit
Jet - Stolta Ebbas Einride of Sweden
In Loving Memory... Kip R. Dog Angel - Angel Pumpkin Spice Lady
Lucy - Elsinore Lucilla Aurelius
