The Shelties and I spent the past weekend at the Lethbridge CKC agility trial. This was my first time attending this event and I am so happy that I did. The venue was great, the trial ran smoothly, the organizers did a wonderful job keeping the trial flowing and the judges had some wonderful courses.
The Shelties did very well. Strider ran 6/8 clean. He kept sliding off the table so we kept getting faulted for that. And Spryte ran 4/8 clean and finished her Agility Excellent title. It was a very successful trial.
Cricket and Snap were also there to watch and cheer on dogs. So we took advantage of all the open space and had a couple of play times with mommy Spryte and her two daughters. Cricket hadn't seen Spryte in probably 6 months and she came unglued when she realized who Spryte was. She kept following her around, kissing her, wiggling her bum at her and would then take off and do some crazy zoomies around the park. It was adorable.
Snap had a great time with her mom too. They have seen each other a lot more often, so the play is more intense. Lots of jumping on each other, wrestling and body checking.
Below are some pictures of the dogs playing and some of our agility runs from the weekend.
I haven't had much to write about lately. Or maybe I would just rather be outside than on the computer! So no blog posts for me. But I did want to post a few recent pics of the Ace/Spryte puppies. Now almost 11 months old. I can't believe it has been almost a year since they were born. Wow how time flies!
Here is a picture of Snap taken about a month ago. The next two pictures are of Spryte and daughters Snap and Izzy, taken two nights ago after agility class.
Well first off I AM EXHAUSTED!!! It's Wednesday and I still feel like a zombie. The long days, crazy weather and stress of the competition has taken it's toll on me. I have spent the majority of the last few days in bed. Good thing I have nothing planned this coming weekend. It will be a weekend of relaxation.
So now onto the standings. I couldn't be more pleased with my two shelties. Strider gave me an exceptional weekend. He ran all six rounds in regionals clean and 3/4 clean in the warm up trial. Strider had a "senior" moment in the steeplechase run on Friday, running past the chute. If I had of just thought enough to bring him back, that round would have been clean too. Guess I also had a "senior" moment!
It's amazing how consistent the little guy is. He is that "comfortable pair of old shoes". We know each other and we know what to expect. I can walk into the ring with him and just focus on having fun. We have nothing to prove and we have reached all our goals together. Now each run is about having fun and enjoying the time together.
Strider accumulated 685.97 points, qualified for nationals and placed 2nd overall in the 10" vets class.
Spryte also had a great weekend. The highlight for me was our jumpers run in the Friday warm up trial. It was tough! Back sides, threadles, serps. Everyone was complaining about how hard it was and how this didn't bode well for the courses to come in the actual regional event. I kept telling myself that we can do it! We've run equally hard courses at home and we were ready for the challenge. And sure enough Spryte gave me her best run of the weekend. We ran it clean and with 6.17 yards per second. We were one of the only teams to have Q'd that run. I felt connected with her and my timing was bang on. It was one of those rare moments in agility where you feel like one with your dog. It's a great feeling and one I won't forget soon.
Spryte ended up running three runs clean in the regional event. She had an amazing gamble run were she racked up 71 opening points, completing both mini's twice and the main gamble. It was another highlight to the weekend. Spryte ended up with 525.36 points, qualified for Nationals and took 3rd place overall in the 16" specials class.
The most important thing after a big event is to reflect on what went right and what we can improve on. The 2 weeks before regionals I purchased the book "With Winning in Mind". A book on the psychology of winning. The biggest message in the book being to picture a great performance, and not allow negative thoughts to creep into your mind. I spent several minutes before each run getting into my "Zen" state. I focused on calm breathing, a great run and enjoying my dogs. It also talks about having a ritual statement before starting that promotes the positive thinking and doesn't give you a chance to think negatively. So as I approached my start line I would think to myself "I love my dog, I love agility and I am ready". I have to say I have never felt so calm and in control at a big event. It helped me focus and stay in the game. I highly recommend the book and plan on implementing the steps in the future.
The other thing I took away from the event was to "handle each obstacle!" Something stated again in this months Clean Run magazine. In one of the standard runs with Spryte I took for granted a tire after a tunnel, assuming she would take it. I was focused two obstacles down the line were there was a bit of a discrimination. The lack of handling cost me a clean run. She blasted out of the tunnel right past the tire, earning us a refusal fault. If I had of been handling each obstacle I would have called out the tire and she probably would have taken it.
I have started Justine Davenports foundation program for her handling system in agility. One of the things she does is name every obstacle on course. Right up until this weekend I thought it was a bit funny. I come from the training that you only talk to your dog when you need to get it's attention. Yelling out each obstacle sounded very basic and beginner like. So I admit I have not adopted this part of the handling system. I did not see the point in the behaviour.
Well let me tell you I get it now!!! If you call out each obstacle it means you are HANDLING each obstacle. It's really hard to brush past or ignore an obstacle if you have to cue your dog to take it. It forces the handler to stay in the game and stay focused through the whole course. Right down to the last obstacle. A lesson well learnt and now I will make more of an effort to adopt this new practise in my training.
As a side note, the social side of regionals was a blast. I enjoyed chatting with people I haven't seen in a while. Sitting around our portable campfire at night with friends talking and laughing about everything dog and some non doggie topics too. I also really enjoyed watching my students compete in the events. Many of them it was their first regional event. They all made me proud and stayed positive even when things didn't go as planned. They handled like pros and their dogs were having a great time. You all did a wonderful job this past weekend!
I've been planning on breeding Spryte to the very handsome and highly driven Flash (aka Heartstrings Rhythm and Blues AGDC AADC) for some time now. The only thing we have been waiting on are the health tests. A little while back Flash was xrayed for hips and this weekend he had his eyes CERF tested. I am happy to report his eyes came back normal and OFA rates his hips as "good". He is cleared by parentage for Von Willebrand's disease. So now he is ready to be a father :)
I haven't had a chance to post recent pics from Spryte's first litter with Ace. Here are a few photos of the puppies around 7 & 8 months of age.
Breeanne with "Izzy", and "Izzy" at Easter. Bree and Izzy are such a wonderful team already. Izzy is a little spitfire with tons of attitude. She just wants to go FAST! Forget those start line stays, it's way more fun to just RUN! This little dog cracks me up every time I see her. She wants to do things her way and she has no problem telling Bree what she thinks. She is one feisty little dog!
Cricket at 8 months. I haven't seen her in months, but she looks beautiful in her pictures. I will get a chance to see her this month at our agility trial. Her owners tell me she is doing great and just loving all her training and play time. I've seen several videos of her out walking in the coulees in Lethbridge . She is a lucky girl to have so many walks out with her buddies, and plenty of time learning fun things like agility too. I'm looking forward to seeing her in a few weeks.
Quinn at 8 months. This guy is a total lover! Every time I see him he wants to give me a big hug. He is cuddly and outgoing and he just wants to have fun. I don't think Quinn has a serious bone in his body. He is all about playing and socialising and loving life. He is busy too. With multiple classes a week in agility and obedience. Which is great for him because he has energy to burn.
My most recent pics of Snap are the ones in an earlier post from the Camrose Dog show. Snap is so much like her mother its scary. She looks the most like her and her personality is all Spryte. She is very serious and loves to work. She has great focus and drive. She is also a bit talkative like her mother. She likes to bark with glee during her rally runs. She takes direction really well in agility and loves the work. She will be out there tearing up the rings in no time.
I took the dogs out to the Sandy McNabb area of the Kananaskis today. It is just west of Turner Valley and has camping, hiking and day use areas. I haven't been out that way in many years. But today the sun was shining and it just felt like the right thing to do.
Here are some pics of the dogs from our walk:
Yesterday we attended our first sporting detection training workshop with Stacey Shaw and Karin Apfel. The workshop consisted of two groups, beginners who had basically never done any scent work before and then the advanced group who have started their dog on odour and are no longer pairing with food.
The beginner group mostly worked on building the drive to search. Food was placed in open containers and the dogs were encouraged to go "find" it. Once the dog had found the food the owner was to continually feed for several seconds to encourage the dog to stay at the box and to increase drive for the game. Once they had that figured out, odour (wintergreen) was placed in the box along with the food. The big tips for the beginners where to stay behind the dog while they search, feed multiple times and NEVER pull your dog off the box. Pulling the dog off can be interpreted as a correction to the dog, and you never want to correct them for sniffing. Handlers were told to verbally encourage their dog away from the box or use a food lure.
The advanced group worked on container searches with odour only in the box. The searches started with boxes in rows, and moved to scattered boxes, boxes on chairs, under chairs and against the walls. This taught the dog to expand their search area and to really start using their noses, instead of visually spotting the hides. One tip I likes was having two boxes side by side, one with odour and one without. If the dog comes across the blank box first they are likely to skip past the box next to it instead of searching it (probably thinking it is the same box, not two separate boxes). This exercise teaches the dog to be a little more methodical in their searches.
After the workshop the Designated Odour Tests took place. The test is a blind search with 12 boxes set up in rows, with one box containing the odour being tested. The handler takes the dog into the room, past the start line (the time then starts) and then has 3 minutes to find the box with the odour in it. When the handler thinks their dog has found the correct box the handler calls "Alert" and then the tester lets you know if you were right or not.
Wintergreen was done first with 10 teams entered. The DOTs started at 7:30pm and the dogs were obviously tired after a long day at the seminar. Only two teams passed the test. I am happy to say Strider was one of them. The picture to the left was my "wahoo" when the tester said "yes" we were successful! I'm just a little happy ;)
Spryte however did not pass. She was pretty frantic with her searching and ended up jumping over the correct box and indicating on the one beside it.
Pine was next with 6 teams entered. 4 dogs passed Pine, both Strider and Spryte were among the dogs who passed.
I then tested Strider and Spryte on Thyme. Strider passed and Spryte did not.
I came away with a few insights into my dogs. First off that Strider is way better at this game than I thought. I almost quite it with him because he seemed to be struggling. I thought he might be too old and his scenting ability diminished. He sure proved me wrong! I will definitely continue this game with him.
Spryte was a bit of a mystery at first. She is usually the dog who excels at it in training, and she had been doing really well at the workshop. But she just got more frantic by the end and was really not sniffing all that much during the DOTs. She was over aroused and it really impeded her scenting ability. On the drive home I was trying to figure out what had happened. After some thought my conclusion was she was just too hungry and could not focus on the task at hand.
She is the type of dog who needs to eat her meals on time. Sometimes we will wake up to Spryte dry heaving in the morning because she is hungry. She normally eats supper at 5pm but that was right in the middle of the workshop. So she didn't get supper. She had lots of treats, it's not like she had an empty stomach. But I think the anticipation of supper was getting her more and more anxious as the night went on. And by the time we did the DOT's she could no longer focus.
I know plenty of people who withhold meals before trials to build a bit of food drive before their runs. The idea being if the dog is hungry it will try harder. And sure that works for lots of dogs. But it does not work for Spryte. I've learnt that if it is meal time, it doesn't matter how many runs we might have left or if we are going into the ring soon, she needs to be fed. The food calms her down and lets her focus on her work. The lack of food makes her anxious, barky and more frantic. It's something I've noticed before in her, but it only just solidified for me after yesterday's workshop. I will not make this mistake again,
I am so thrilled to announce that Spryte finished her Companion Dog Excellent (CDX) title on Friday at the Red Deer Show. She finished with a score of 196. We lost a point for barking, which knocked us out of the ribbons. Oh well, the perils of running a Sheltie in Obedience!
I'm just happy to have it done. There were so many times over the winter were I thought it would never happen. Her dumbbell issues always seemed to be getting in the way. She didn't want to hold it, she would throw her head back, roll it around in her mouth while slinking back on her hind end, or she would just stand over it and not pick it up. We had a whole plethora of dumbbell issues. And it's not that she has ever had a bad experience with the dumbbell, I have used positive methods from day one with her. It's just she is not a natural retriever and the whole idea of fetching and HOLDING something in her mouth was her idea of sheltie torture.
We slowly worked through the issues with tons and tons of positive reinforcement for dumbbell work. The two biggest training tools I used to improve the exercise (I can't really say fixed, because it is not perfect and will take a lifetime of work to maintain it) was resistance work and placement of reinforcement.
The resistance work involved trying to gently pull the dumbbell out of her mouth, if I could pull it out then no reward for Spryte. If she held on to it and resisted my pressure then she got a "yes" and a cookie. This taught her to hold it tighter in her mouth and not roll it, otherwise I could pop it out and Spryte would miss out on a reward. Very upsetting for a dog that loves food so much!
The other tool I used was to always pull the dumbbell low and towards me, so that she was holding it almost against my leg and then I would reward in the same position. This taught her to keep her head forward and low, which directly interfered with her natural preference to hold her head up and back to roll the dumbbell around in her mouth. Simple training theory: Teach a desired behaviour that directly conflicts with the unwanted behaviour and suddenly the problem is fixed! (ie teach the dog to sit for petting and you no longer have a jumping on people problem).
So now we can get back to training multiple skills again without the stress of an upcoming trial. We will get back to training for Utility, definitely continue with our Nosework training, but mostly we can focus on agility again. I really haven't done too much agility this winter with my obedience goals taking center stage. I enjoyed the break from the sport and now I'm feeling refreshed and excited to get back at it.
Infact we had our first serious agility practise this morning, working on the skills from the Justine Davenport foundation course. It went well and I got some great work from Spryte. Backsides of jumps with me leaving, multiple wraps around jumps, threadles and some really nice flappy tappy (running dog past obstacles). I'll have to record one of our training sessions soon and post it on here.
Now off to do some nosework!
The Shelties and I spent the past weekend at the Lethbridge CKC agility trial. This was my first time attending this event and I am so happy that I did. The venue was great, the trial ran smoothly, the organizers did a wonderful job keeping the trial flowing and the judges had some wonderful courses.
Cricket and Snap were also there to watch and cheer on dogs. So we took advantage of all the open space and had a couple of play times with mommy Spryte and her two daughters. Cricket hadn't seen Spryte in probably 6 months and she came unglued when she realized who Spryte was. She kept following her around, kissing her, wiggling her bum at her and would then take off and do some crazy zoomies around the park. It was adorable.
