Blog

This is our third agility trial in a row.  Or should I say trials, since each trial is officially one day.  The weather is better this week, still cold but a few degrees warmer and much drier.  We had a steady light falling of snow last Sunday.  And I did see some sunshine in Dallas, but not in McKinney.

Open Jumpers came up first.  Vast improvement over last week, all the bars were up when we got done.  However, she got caught by a smell at the beginning of the course, and I think we got two refusals.  I’ll have to look at the scores.   One refusal because she just wasn’t with it, the second probably at the weaves.  She was really distracted there too.  When I finished I felt like I had pulled her over every obstacle and the horn went off for time.  Still much better than last Saturday which was 5 refusals and an E for a bar.  Today was three refusals in Open.

Novice Standard sucked.  She got distracted on the first long line, took the A-Frame instead of the dog walk, took forever to down, and was whistled off before she finished the last four obstacles due to time.  She’s obviously done better.

But I’m pleased to see that she hasn’t knocked any bars. 

Hopefully tomorrow is warmer.

We did our last agility class at Dog City Training Center – probably do some facility rentals from time to time but we don’t really need to do two agility classes a week and I need less to spend the extra money.  Once I get past the spring expenses we’ll see but I might have the second dog by then.

Both our classes went well, but she was still very sniffy.  Got a lot of good work done.

Rally is also going well, but haven’t been making a lot of progress on staying.   That’s so hard for her – and yes, she’s four years old and has an agility title (NAJ).

My Rally instructor tried handling her and got no where, which in a way is gratifying because she does do a reasonable job on it with me.  I still have food in my hand, and I am not going to try Rally until the fall.  It does seem to help with attention in agility though and gives us more stuff to do before we go into the ring.

Macy competed in Open JWW's for the first time this weekend.  Saturday she had 5 refusals and one crashed jump and Sunday she had 2 refusals and a crashed jump.  In fact, she also crashed a jump in Standard on Saturday and wouldn't down, but I didn't blame her much on the down.   It was cold.

Though the response I've gotten on the crashed jumps were — Macy, crash a jump?  Yeah, she never does in class, but here's what she was doing:

Head down, sniffing the dirt, but going the same direction.  Hey, there's the jump, whoops took off to late and "crash".  In fact, that's how we got the refusals.

Sunday I figured out that if I talked to her incessantly, she did better and put her head up, which is why jumpers results were better.

Standard was better on Sunday too, I scooped her up and went to the car and didn't bother to check scores, but she did everything and looked good up until and after the teeter.  She went up it, but couldn't bring herself to go all the way.

Both days, afterwards, we went over to Dog City Training Center to fix things.  They do a facility rental for students at $8.00 and I'm taking more and more advantage of that.  They had a fun match on Saturday so they left the course up for me and I used it after.  That was great, and we're doing a lot of work on the table.  At home too.

By the way, there is a nice looking little beagle up in Utah that might make someone a good agility dog, say something in the comments if you want to know more.

Looked at Macy's first Q ribbons and as I suspected, all blues!  Very cool

Yesterday looked good but no Q's.

For some reason, I kept pushing or pulling Macy off of the jumps in jumpers.  I think I did it three or four times.  Not sure what I was doing, but got refusals.

Standard was the best we'd done in a LONG time.  She did every obstacle but did a huge leap off the dog run.

TODAY was FABULOUS!

Two Q's, two first places.

Jumpers was clean with 4 time faults.  That was ALL in the weaves.  We're doing Open next week so I'll get to see how 12 poles looks.  I'm thinking she doesn't know how to do six poles. 

That means she has completed her NAJ title and is now Tesoro's Heald Square NAJ.

Standard had two refusals.  That happened either in the weaves or at the teeter or dog chute.  Not sure which but she ducked way from both the teeter and the chute but got her on the obstacles quick, so it was a judges call.  Also had time faults, so we squeaked into the Q with an 85.

I've requested that she be moved to Jumpers for our next trial.  I also need to contact the other trial secretaries.

Macy likes Rally and seems to be teaching herself the necessary skills.  I would like a class the focuses more on practicing the individual skills, this seems more like a fun match, but that's okay too.

We need to learn the following better to be successful (a reminder for myself):

• heeling on left turns — she tends to forge
• fronts
• left finish
• right finish
• sits
• downs — especially when mother is walking around her.

We're training at Dog City Training Center in Dallas (off of BeltLine), and it's a great place to train.  Tell them I sent you.

I just recently turned my Facebook notification for Dog City Training Center to SMS so I get their updates on my phone as text messages (unlimited text).

Sunday, I was on my way to do some light shopping and got a text message that the first person to reply would get a facility rental at 5:00 pm, so after a brief moments of thought, decided to reply.

I snagged it and it was GREAT!  It's $8.00 for students,more for non students (if you sign up tell them I sent you).

Paula changed most of the jump heights for me and volunteered to move equipment.  It gave me a chance to try some of the weave entries that EE showed us in class Wednesday night — basically positioning at the second pole and that REALLY helps Macy.

We also did some table work, some teeter work and played with pieces of our Wednesday night in sections.

It was really good for both of us and I think I'll do some more.

Sometimes she is almost like a border collie. She has always been able to learn by watching other dogs which is not always good. she learned almost all of marcie’s tricks by watching marcie doing them. i dont want her learning much of maggie’s stuff

i took her to a rally fun match last friday but have been too busy to post much about it. we got there real early so i hung out and watched and visited with the trainers.

i ended up doing open and did a reasonable approximation which wasnt bad since we had trained for it. we also did a better approximation of the novice course.

hers the wild part. she loves rally. i think she likes any opportunity for positive reinfocement.

marcie hated it and especially learning to heel. anything that had to be repeated bothered her but not macy. she’ll do it over and over.

so i might have a rally dog.