Izzy and Cricket

Last weekend both Izzy and Cricket took part in their first outdoor agility trial of the season (and first outdoor trial for the pups).  I believe it was only their second trial for both dogs.  Both dogs did fantastic. Lots of Q's and fast times. I heard so much great feedback about both pups.  Often they would be first and second in their class. The handlers have done a fantastic job with these spitfire dogs!

Here are a few pics taken from that trial.

Izzy

Cricket

Seminar pics and videos

ok so it turns out one of the other participants at last weekend's seminar was also taking pictures and some short slow motion videos. She was nice enough to share her pics and videos with others.
Here they are, enjoy!

Agility Seminar

Spryte and I spent last weekend attending an agility seminar taught by Justine Davenport and Jessica
Patterson and hosted by Agility Addicts.  It was two and a half days of intense agility courses and learning.  The location was wonderful.  It was held at the Kelowna Dog Sport Center with two full rings set up, one inside the arena and one outside on grass. It was great to work on both surfaces during the weekend.
    We also rotated instructors, so whoever we had in the morning we would get the other instructor in the afternoon.  I loved this format. Both Justine and Jessica are amazing handlers and instructors. But their styles of running are a bit different.  Jessica tends to run a bit more and prefers to front cross whenever possible.  Justine will add a lot more threadle rears on course.  Working with both of them allowed us to be exposed to their handling choices and why.  They also explain things a bit differently too. So with two different explanations we were bound to absorb the information more thoroughly.
    There are usually a few big "ah ha!" moments during a seminar for me.  This time that moment came when Justine was explaining running on the backside of tunnels.  Her training tip for us:  If you are going to run along the backside of a tunnel you need to already be on the backside as the dog enters the tunnel. If you are still behind the dog as it enters the dog will assume you are doing a rear cross and will come out the other end of the tunnel turning in the wrong direction.  What fantastic advice! It makes total sense and takes the guesswork out of tunnels for the dog.

   The other "ah ha" moment came from Jessica when she was explaining when to blind cross on jumps.  For her if you need to control the turn, then a regular front cross is best. The dog can see you rotating into them and will cue off your shoulders.  If the dog will be slicing the jump and you are basically heading in a straight line, then a blind cross is fine as long as you can get across the dog's line and out of it's way.  Blind crosses on wraps are great, because the wrap is turning the dog naturally and you are already out of the dogs way.
    So once again it was a fantastic seminar. I feel like I am becoming a Justine and Jessica groupie! I have worked with them pretty much monthly since January, and I still continue to learn a great deal about agility.  They have pushed me to become more aggressive in my handling and to really test the limits of what Spryte and I can do. I just can't get enough :)  So I will be hosting them in Calgary in August.  I can't wait for the chance to work with them again!
    No videos from the weekend, my camera was still packed. However, one of the seminar hosts took a few pictures of the weekend.  The first two pics are Spryte and I.  The one below is of Spark heeling. I was able to bring Spark on Sunday for some exposure. We got to work on some tunnel & jumps skills and rally skills at lunch and at the end of the day.  She worked great. She was fast and crazy during the agility portion. She was so excited to be working. It was her first time doing agility since March! She hadn't forgotten a thing.  The rally skills looked good too. Her heads up heeling is looking very nice but she looses interest after a few minutes of work. So we need to continue to keep sessions short. But I was so impressed with how she could focus around all the distractions of a new location and people.  I absolutely love this picture :)

There where a lot of shelties there! So we got a group picture, small to tall. Spark is a very small sheltie in my mind. I'm sure she is right on 13" now.  And she didn't even come close to the smallest sheltie there. The ones on the extreme left are the tiniest shelties I have ever seen. One is already 5 months old!  It will be fun watching the little guys grow up, and it's great to have so many shelties out here in the Okanagan.

Perfect end to a fantastic weekend, CAKE!

A change of scenery

Well it has finally happened. Paul and I have made the big move to Kelowna, BC. A dream of ours for several years now and it has finally become a reality.
    We arrived a couple of weeks ago and have been pretty busy settling in to our new life.  The first thing on our agenda when we arrived was to find a place to live.  Our temporary home is a 640 sq ft condo in West Kelowna. The view is nice, it has several amenities including a hot tub and gym, and it is walking distance from several stores.  But it is a bit tight with three dogs and no yard!  Having to leash the dogs and walk them every time they want to potty is getting old very quickly.  So house hunting was a top priority.
     We really wanted an acreage again as we both like the feeling of lots of space and the opportunity to run businesses from home.  The problem with the Okanagan is that it is filled with giant mountains surrounding large lakes. It's beautiful to stare at, but it means flat land is hard to come by. If we are going to have an acreage, we want it to be usable. Owning a five acre parcel with 4.5 acres of it dropping down a cliff is not our idea of acreage living.  We have been looking off and on for a few years now with no luck.  The houses are either very old and in need of a complete renovation or the land doesn't fit what we are looking for. It was pretty discouraging.
   After a week here we started hunting again for a place to live. This time a 6 year old home on 5 acres in south east Kelowna was on the market.  We booked a showing and headed out there that evening.  When we arrived we where instantly blown away.  The property was exactly what we where looking for.  It is a flat property with trees on the perimeter.  It is located on a quiet dead end street with horse properties and acreages surrounding it.  The land has several fenced off horse paddocks that could be used for dogs to run in.  It has the largest riding ring I have ever seen! Perfect for dog agility :)  There is even a small wet land area with colourful birds chirping happily, and a creek running along the edge of the property.

  The house is amazing too.  It's beautifully finished with no expenses spared.  Lots of huge windows, walk out basement, large wrap around deck, amazing kitchen (totally wasted on my mac and cheese cooking abilities), huge on-suite, games room, large garage and more. It has a very warm and welcoming feel to it.
    The combination of land and house was a dream come true.  The decision was made quickly to offer on the house.  After a couple rounds of negotiating the deal was signed and we are now officially Kelowna residents. Well we will be mid June when we move in! We are very excited and have lots of plans for the property.  June can't come quick enough.
     With the house hunting out of the way we now have some idle time on our hands.  This has been filled with lots of outdoor activities that we have been missing out on in Alberta. Boating, hiking, eating on the patio, walking around downtown Kelowna, visiting a floating boat show on the lake. So much to do and it's all so close. We feel so lucky to be able to participate in so many outdoor activities minutes from our door.  Now this is really living.

  Finally our days have also been filled with planning our new businesses. It's amazing how energized we feel with the opportunity to reinvent our livelihoods.  My classes will change to a drop in format., which will allow more flexibility in the lessons.  We are also toying with the idea of running a small boarding kennel on the property.  Paul has also started up a Kelowna vacations business specialising in tours of all sorts.  They will be offering boat tours, mountain biking tours and camps, hiking, wine tours and weekly condo rentals. You can check them out at www.kelownaboattours.ca
    Well that is all for now. I'm off to sit on the patio and soak up some rays :)


 

2013 CKC Agility stats & Scout Out West

The CKC was a bit quicker posting the 2013 stats now that they have a system worked out. 
I was excited to see that Strider made Top Ten in Canada for the third year in a row.  He placed #9 all breed. He also placed #3 Herding Breed and #2 Sheltie.  Spryte also earned herself a Top Ten placement by achieving #8 Herding Breed.

Spryte and I competed at the Scout Out West agility competition a few weeks back a the Shape Up facility in Edmonton. I have never attended a Scout Out competition before and did not know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a very small group and a very laid back and casual atmosphere.  We were told specifically that mistakes happen and not to stress out about it. Mostly they wanted to see how we recovered from a mistake and our attitude at the end of the day.

We ran four courses, one standard, one steeplechase and two jumpers runs.  The first run was very much like a fun match.  You ran it the best you could and it was judged like any other agility run.The twist for the first two rounds (standard and steeplechase), you could run it again as a training round for $5!  How many times have you walked off a course and thought to yourself, "man I wish I could try that one again!"  Well this was our lucky day!  What a great opportunity to work on contacts (SPRYTE!), handling challenges, weaves etc.  They didn't care what you did with your second run, as long as you finished by "x" amount of time.

So our first round was Standard.  We had a good run but Spryte crashed the double jump. She is having a REALLY hard time with the FCI double. Her jump height is 18", two inches above her normal AAC jump height. This doesn't bother her at all. She hasn't knocked any bars. What she is struggling with is the width of the double jump. The double jump is also 18" wide. This is HUGE!  She consistently misjudges the distance and crashes the far jump.  She hits it so hard she does a summersault and lands on her face. It looks awful and I worry about how it will affect her long term.
So she did her classic crash in our first run. The judge let me redo my run with the same result. It took a few attempts before she cleared it. As soon as she got it I ran off the course to jackpot her with hotdogs. This resulted in a pretty crappy score for my first run.

After that we did much better.  Round two was the Steeplechase course. We would have had a clean run except for a jumped Aframe contact. *sigh* I have a lot of work to do on contacts. I need to enter a trial and fix it in competition. 

Round 3 was a jumpers run. A very TOUGH jumpers run. The spacing was tight and your handling had to be bang on.  We came oh so close to having a clean run. We got through all the tough spots and all the traps, then four obstacles from the end we had to push the dog past the first tunnel mouth to the second one.  I watched countless dogs take the first mouth and had decided to give Spryte an "out" command to push her past.  Well that was my downfall!  She was driving hard to the correct mouth and I over handled her and gave the "out" command. Well in my training "out" usually means to move laterally away from me.  And that is exactly what Spryte did. She moved laterally away and took the off course jump.  How heartbreaking for me, up until that point it was a run that made your heart sing. It was pure magic!  I have included the video and you can see clearly when I say out and Spryte suddenly veers off course.  Good Dog!!! Shame about the handler!

Our last run was another jumpers run and it was perfect! A clean run, perfect handling, the type of run that had me grinning for days after.  We even took a second place in this run, just slightly slower than Justine Davenport and "Preston".  This run is also below too.

So now we wait to find out who will represent Canada at this year's FCI World Championships in Luxembourg. I was really hoping we would all know by now, but I guess it's a tough process. Hopefully they will let us know soon, I'm sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation.

Jumper round 2, clean run!

Jumper round 1, off course

Catching Up

Wow I haven't posted in a while!  Been busy with life.  I have some catching up to do, and here is the first update:  After nearly 16 years in Alberta, Paul and I have decided to move to British Columbia. It's something we have been talking about for the last three years, but the timing just never seemed right.  But this year is different.  Paul isn't tied down to a business, the housing market is hot right now so it will be easy to sell our acreage, no puppies to raise and the winter has been so awful that we both can't wait to get away!  We are thinking of Kelowna.  Lots of outdoor activities for us, the lake, mountains, ski hill and there seems to be a lot of dog stuff there too. April 22 is our big move day.  I'm excited! I'm ready for a change :)

 My second update is that I have decided to try out for the CKC
Agility World Team.  I have been humming and hawing over it for a year. I feel really lucky to have Spryte. She's fast, athletic, loves to work and gives it 110% each time we step to the line. I kept feeling like if I didn't do anything with her I would be wasting her.  I was worried that years from now I would regret not trying out. I would never know what we are capable of achieving. So even though this is outside my comfort zone I have decided to go for it.  I will never improve if we don't take our training and competing to the next level.

To try out for the team there is a 3 step process. First is the application.  They wanted to know what we have achieved so far.  This was tough for me.  We  have the required CKC agility excellent titles, but don't have much to show in the way of big events. Unfortunately the last two years of nationals (AAC and UKI) we have missed due to heats and pregnancies.  We did make regionals, but they wanted big events and I had none to show for it.  I will be more prepared for this in the future.

Second was the CKC Try Out trial. This was the first time the committee has held an actual Try Out event. It was held at the fabulous McCann Facility in Flambourough, Ontario last weekend.  So myself and a friend flew down to the event to compete. Friday was a CKC agility trial fundraiser. We entered all 4 events and ran clean in all four. Spryte even earned her Master Excellent Jumpers with Weaves title.

Saturday and Sunday was the actual event with international courses designed and judged by an international judge from Finland. This way we could all try our skills on true international courses.  The courses were tight and tricky. I was shocked at how little space there was between some of the jumps. If the dog wasn't paying attention or the handling was late the dog would be off course in a second!  The other thing that shocked me was how tough the judge was on contacts. She was calling up contacts, teeter contacts that would normally be fine in AAC, down contacts that would probably have been ok.  I was experimenting with a running Aframe the last few months.  It was going well in practise but this judge called every single one of my Aframe contacts. So back to stopped contacts for Spryte and I.

In the end we did pretty well, we probably finished up middle of the pack (aggregates aren't up
yet).  I wish I could say we had a clean run but we didn't. I had one course where it would have been clean except for the contacts. Otherwise we had off courses or refusals.  I really had to change my mindset going into this competition. I'm used to running well, lots of clean runs. But I am not used to this style of course.  We are newbies and it will take time before we can run clean and consistent. But what I am thrilled with was Spryte's skills. All the stuff we have been training we had a chance to execute on multiple courses. We did threadles, threadle rears, flappy tappys, backsides of tunnels, backsides of jumps, backsides with serpes over jumps, weave entries with harsh rear crosses, blind crosses. It was amazing! I was so proud of Spryte. She did everything I asked her to do. She showed me that she has the skills to compete at this level, we just need the experience.  So despite what on paper may not look like a great weekend, I couldn't have been happier with our performance. (3 videos below)

Step three of the process is a Scout Out in Edmonton on April 19.  More international courses and
challenges.  After that the team will be announced.  If we don't make it this year I will try again next year. It may take a few years before we have the experience to have a strong application. But either way I am so happy I decided to go through with applying. It's been good for me ;)

Spark update:  Spark will be 6 months old tomorrow.  She is a ton of fun! She has tons of personality, always wants to play and tug on something (generally our clothing), she loves to work and is very social.  Right now our training is focusing on rally skills (video below), handling for agility (wraps, serps, threadles, all on jumps with the bar on the ground), and body awareness and balance exercises. I admit the body awareness stuff is the most fun for me. Spark is learning to do a handstand (she can do it on a cushion but can't do it on a wall yet) and to climb the stairs with her back end first.  I have videos below. She is also learning to sit pretty for core strength, and to get all four paws inside a small box (hard for her).  As well as the balance disc and perch work from before.  I am having a ball with this puppy and love her so much! 
(pictures are from today).

CKC 2012 Agility Stats

The Canadian Kennel Club just released their agility statistics for 2012.  They had to rework the points system, so it was a little behind schedule.  I was very excited when I checked out the page and realized Strider placed 5th in Canada!  He also was the #2 Herding breed and #1 Sheltie in Canada as well.  What a nice surprise! (stats can be found at http://www.dogsincanada.com/wordpress/wp-content/TSD/2012_TAD_Stats.pdf )

Spark and I continue to work on her skills. We have started a two on two off behaviour on a travel plank with a nose touch to a plastic lid. I will use this for my teeter. I would like a running Aframe and Dogwalk. But the two on two off will be a back up for the contacts if the running doesn't work. Plus I just like teaching new things at home.
 Spark can weave between my legs. Balance on a disc on top of four pods.  We continue to work multiple wraps, send to a table with an automatic down. We have started some heads up heeling, but right now I am keeping it to a few steps at a time.

I have also started the basic skills for handling.  Wraps, threadles, backsides of jumps (jump bar on the ground), start line stay, flappy tappy past obstacles, etc.  The nice thing is I can teach her all these skills in my basement with no equipment or just my little Ikea tunnel and/or one jump with the bar on the ground. The tunnel is my favourite to play with.  Spark is crazy about it and constantly wants to run into it. So we can work on listening for the tunnel cue (sit, down, left, TUNNEL), tight turns out of the tunnel, running past the tunnel mouth and not taking it (flappy tappy), threadle to the opposite tunnel mouth, sending to the tunnel from a distance,etc.  There are so many skills I can work on with just this one little piece of equipment.  It's fun and exciting and perfect since the weather has been so cold here lately. I will try and video it at some point and post it on here.


Today the weather FINALLY warmed up.  Plus 7 right now! We have had about 2.5 weeks of
freezing cold weather. -20 and colder has been the norm. So the dogs haven't been getting a lot of outdoor activity. So today we finally had a chance to change that and head outside for some fetch. Here are some pictures of the dogs from today.