Bodhi works somewhere new

I took Bodhi along to Flirt's private lesson yesterday to show Mary Ellen how far he has come since the summer. While he spent sometime working in Barto he's never been asked to sequence much or do the contact equipment there. Mary Ellen set up some short (8-10) obstacle sequences with contacts, weaves, chute and tire and Bodhi did them. He was great. Showing some drive to the obstacles and lots of enthusiasm. He's like a new dog.

I don't know if he'll ever go turbo like Flirt is or like Alina's Figment has in recent weeks, but I am so pleased with how far he has come now I am rethinking the timing of a puppy. I don't want to put a crimp in our progress. But a Fury/Ben pup would be sweet.

I guess it's not a decision I have to make today. Puppies are due December 27th. Maybe they will all be boys and the decision will be out of my hands.

Bodhi attends Agility Class

I have the good fortune to be able to take Bodhi to a class for agility that is 6 miles from home and is taught by a friend, who was able to take over a building from a retiring instructor. She's been teaching for long time and also has Aussies and takes her instruction from the same person I take Flirt to for her lessons. So it is just perfect for me. I don't think the stars have ever aligned so nicely before.

We've had 3 weeks of classes so far and with each week Bodhi gets better and better. Perhaps I should have put him in a class earlier but he did so poorly as a youngster in obedience class that I just didn't feel that it would be beneficial for him. But since last winter when I began to actually train him during my weekly practice sessions with Flirt and then after working with Elicia Calhoun a bit this summer, he began to focus more and seemed to enjoy the learning part of the game. In the spring I started to enter him in Starters Jumpers and it really wasn't going well. He had no spark, lost focus on course and was invariably over time. But we kept plugging away and I learned ways to handle him that would help with his focus. One weekend on a lark, I entered him in Gamblers. And he had a blast. He stayed focused and working and really seemed to enjoy doing the other obstacles on the course rather than the monotony of just jumping. In 4 tries at Starters Gamblers he finished his title.

And so, going into this winter, I was debating what to do with him training wise when this barn became available to my friend and she had a class that was perfect for him. Novice Handling. It assumes the dogs have their obstacle performance trained or that you are willing to work around the obstacles you may not have down yet. It provides an opportunity to learn the best way to handle Bodhi to maintain his focus and develop more drive. And it's working. He is crated in the building during class and gets to watch all the other dogs run. Only one other dog has any substantial drive but he is envious when the other dogs run and ready to go when it is his turn. He has stayed on track for the short sequences we do and has even shown some oomph in the weave poles.

It's been really good for both of us and I am enjoying the class a lot. My plan is to enter him in some other classes when we begin showing again in 2010. See how he does. Leave jumpers out of it for a while. I think there is hope for us yet. He actually pulls his leash to go into the building instead of just ambling in.

Kinetic Dog 1 Ring Tournament Trial

This trial began at 6pm on Friday evening when we ran both rounds of Steeplechase. We didn't have a great run because I had awoke early and worked all day and I was tired. But Flirt held up her end and hit and held both aframes. She was a good girl. Got home before 9pm and got a good night's sleep.

Team began on Saturday. We had Jumpers, Snooker and Standard. Flirt was amazing. We made it around a Jumpers course that E'd 1/2 the Open dogs, with just a dropped bar. In Snooker, we got 4-sevens and made it through the close for 59 points and 2nd place. In Standard I think we had just a refusal. Every contact was picture perfect. I went home happy, happy, happy.

On Sunday we started with Team Gamblers, then Relay and GP. Our team was in good position to Q in 7th place. After gamblers, where we all scored firmly in the middle of the pack, we held on to 7th. Relay looked pretty doable for all three of us. But Flirt could not hear me coming out of the tunnel to the last jump and she went off course. My teammates were clear. So we had to sweat out the rest of the runs. Fortunately for us, there were lots of E's in relay and we held on to 11th place for a Q in the Dog Agility Master team event. Glad to have that out of the way, so I don't have to look for team tournaments and can focus on getting my 2 GP and 2 Steeplechase qualifiers for the Championships. As long as I am in a pretty good place, we are running really well.

I don't know what happened to correct Flirt's contacts, but they were perfect at Hog Dog and they held up nicely this weekend too. It was a good weekend.

A Dilemma

It isn't much fun to go to an agility trial and be pull your dog from the majority of her runs because she's being naughty about her contact performance. That is what we did last weekend. If it weren't for a lot of other factors, the whole weekend would have been a total bust and probably finished me for agility for some time. It's just not fun. Sucks all the joy out of it. Maybe I should just stop showing Flirt for a while and focus totally on Bodhi. I am sure he would love that. :-D

But the general consensus is that if I don't correct Flirt's contact performance in the trial setting we will lose whatever we gained over last winter and she will just get worse and worse. Truth is struggling with this makes me want to cry. Am I such a bad trainer? I worked so hard with her when she was young to have the kind of performance I wanted and she had it, until the afterburners kicked in and she got the game and her level of arousal when astronomic. And it isn't that she doesn't care, but she's an Aussie and she's all about the job. So I could hit her over the head with a two by four to correct her contact performance and she would shake it off and go on and blow the next one, regardless.

I thought we had it licked. The spring and summer were just wonderful to show her. She knocked off 3 standard legs and all her qualifications for the Cynosport Games. She even got one of the super Qs she needed. But this fall it's all gone.

We've been struggling to maintain team work too. I know I've not been 100% so she's sensed that and tried to make up for it, but she can't. So I'm going into this weekend's trial with a huge knot in my stomach. And it's only Thursday.

Mad Co Agility - Charlottesville VA

It's a longer haul than I usually like to make for an agility trial, but I thought fall in the Shenandoah Valley was a compelling draw so we went to the MadCo USDAA trial in VA last weekend. Flirt and I are definitely in a slump. Her recidivist behavior regarding contact performance is putting a crimp into our teamwork. She was walked off the bulk of our runs for the weekend. And her only good performance was in pairs, but our partner e'd.

On the other hand, the site did not disappoint. It was beautiful and we had power and water too. We pulled up ringside for the weekend and could watch the masters ring from the comfort of our camp chairs under the RV awning. The weather on Saturday was a bit iffy, but Sunday was beautiful and the mountains were glorious.

Bodhi had a little trouble concentrating for the most part and took a long detour in his Saturday gamble run. He made it around the jumpers course, but over time. Sunday was a bit better in gamblers. He accomplished the hat trick of 1st place, Q and his Starter Gamblers title. Jumpers was a train wreck. I've moved Bodhi to P1 Gamblers for his next trial. I am not moving him up until I have to. It will give us the opportunity to run on courses with good flow and I can start to see if he can do some weaves in competition.

I am grateful that Duke was content to do all the driving and I even took a nap on the way home and we were asleep at home by 11pm.

Our last titling trial is this weekend in MD. Then the KD tournament trial. And then we are off until February.