Category: Blog

Knew the course, but at the last second decided I was wrong.   She had it, was on the AFrame and I called her off.  4 paw rule and I put her back on the a-frame so the judge whistled us off.  Wasn’t sure how to fix it either, and still aren’t.

Bummer.

But we had 2 clean runs for the weekend, 1 Q with a 2nd place, a vast improvement over the dog that would run out of the ring.

As EE, my agility instructor calls her.  Marcie, Bettner’s Byte O Magic, AX OAJ AXP AJP was pretty close to perfect. We had trouble making time, which is why we switched to Preferred and might be doing that with Macy but not until we have some Open Q’s under our belt.

(for the non-North Dallas agility people – EE standards for Elizabeth Evans, not to be confused with the two other Elizabeths that teach agility EA and EH – I think, we might not dare call her that).

She wasn’t at the beginning.  She wasn’t as bad as Macy – I honestly don’t remember her running out of the ring, but she had her moments.  Happily I’m in better physical shape running Macy than I was Marcie.

It took a lot of work, a lot of training, but she became a rock solid, I do exactly what my mother says and I run exactly as fast as she does.

And I miss her every agility weekend.

However, U-CDX Weaver’s Peppermint Patty UD was a bit of a better dog, though never did agility, they didn’t have good heights for beagles back then, and she was a little beagle.

I’ve been feeling guilty about the fact that I have to crate Dulce to keep her from making a mess and from getting “with puppy”, so I went to Petsmart and bought their largest crate.  People kept looking at me putting it into the truck (fit fine).

There is enough room for three beagles in there and be able to move around.  I’m actually kicking around the idea of putting it in the truck instead of separate cages.

I dreamed she was coming into heat earlier this week, and looks like I was right.  The plan right now is to go look for panties.   (Main reason for the post is for me to remember when it happened.

I think we were BOTH exhausted.  Also, that site is so stimulating, it wears her out.  We had a nice clean run in JWW, but she stopped and scratched and there isn’t time for that in JWW.  I couldn’t get her to move in Standard and asked the judge if we could be excused.  He said, yes, take that tired dog home, and I scratched her from Fast.

Good time though and we have pretty green ribbons and a gorgeous Title Ribbon.

After 2 years and three months of trialing, Macy is now out of Novice.  Thank dog!  We haven’t shown every show in the area in those two years.

She did okay her first trial.  At her second trial, she developed a fear of teeters.  This was to add to an already mistrust of the chute – she got caught in it once.

I gained a huge amount of weight and both she and Maggie started running out of the ring.  We took quite a few breaks from showing and I even had lap band surgery.

We also Qed in Open JWW today.  So we had a good one.  No luck in Fast, but that’s not really our game yet.

I will give you that I have not put Dulce in many (or any, I think) situations where she had to think in deep dirt, but still I was dismayed and appalled at her behavior. 

Now, she actually did recalls better at EE’s and she did a nice table.  However, she had no sits, but did have downs, but no down stays.  Had no intention of every looking at my eyes, and decided that burying her head in the dirt was a better idea than walking on a leash.  And when I finally figured out I had no control over her head and decided to switch to her show leash we were done.

Being able to shape all kinds of behaviors is all fine and good.  BUT you need to get stays, walking on a leash, etc. there.  Training with a self-proclaimed ADD person is also not a good idea, because guess what, you don’t get stays, walking on a leash, etc.

Sigh. 

At least I’m in a decent class, with an organized instructor with clear ideas.

I can sit down at the computer with her in an open crate.  She did ask if I were serious about it twice at the beginning.  10 minutes.  Though my getting her treats out was too much of a temptation.

She did pretty good at the down stay with some problems at the beginning and end.

Her sit stay was the best and her stand stay the worst, but that’s a behavior we’re just working on it.

Dulce is quite a bit behind Macy, but she’s improving too.

This is fun. The results from Macy’s JWW Open run.

Macy can stay in an open crate for 10 minutes if the distractions are low.  She can also do a down for most of the 5 minutes.

Dulce can do neither yet.

I plan to get in at least 2 more sessions today, since during my normal schedule getting this much work in is hard.