Neat site - Hip dysplasia and CCLR

Saw this site about canine lameness mentioned on a local agility list. The site has videos of dogs walking, trotting, and climbing stairs with a normal gait, with hip dysplasia, and with a cranial cruciate ligament rupture. There are normal videos as well as some hi-tech videos using sensors and computers. It loads kind of slow on my computer so I haven't watched it all, but it is neat.

Fortunately, so far Lucy and Walter haven't experienced these conditions, although my childhood dog Snoopy developed, around age 7 or 8, some kind of condition where both knees had to be operated on within a few years of each other. All I can remember is it was something about the ligaments giving out on her and being replaced with artificial ligaments. I assume this must have been CCLR?

For more info on CCLR from a fellow blogger, check out Roxanne's post about her dog's experience with CCLR, treated with TPLO surgery.

Tagged

Nat from Dream Dogz tagged me in the 5th photo thing. Hmmm let's see... Well, not a particularly thrilling photo:

Lucy and Walter trying to sleep, December 2007. Wait a minute, December 2007...!? Oh boy. I only have three photo folders: "have been printed", "not to print", and "to print". This photo was in the "to print" folder (though in retrospect, I'm not quite sure why, lol). Guess it's about time to load them onto a disk and get the darn things printed eh!

Few of the blogs I visit haven't already been tagged with this, and I can't remember which ones they are, so I'll politely bow out of tagging other blogs. Thanks though Nat, it's a fun tag and was a really good reminder to get my photos printed! :-)

Group practice: gambles

At today's group practice we set up a few gambles from a previous Nationals. After spending much of last year's practice time working on distance stuff, Walter's at a point now where I no longer panic upon seeing every single gamble course map. He now has a nice little (though not complete) repertoire of skills that come in useful for distance.

The first gamble was a series of jumps, basically a two-jump go, then come back over a couple of angled jumps. I don't have the course map for it. Anyway, it went well.

In the other part of the building was a teeter and jump, set up for additional practice opportunities. First we did a go-teeter / here-jump, which went fine. Then I tried a go-jump / here-teeter, which went not so fine. What was I thinking. Poor Walter hasn't been taught to independently find and take a straight approach to the contacts, so he stepped on the teeter from an angle, slipped up his footing, and got a scare. Accompanied him to the teeter a few times and he seemed to be ok.

Then we worked on the main gamble (1-2-3-4) from the 2008 Nationals. Walter surprised me by taking the correct tunnel entrance every time, but I think it's because he's a big dog and by the time he landed from the jump, he never even saw the wrong tunnel entrance. What I was REALLY happy to see is that he read my push/"get out" from 2 to 3 really well. Previously he didn't really respond to that kind of thing.

Finally we worked on the other main gamble (1-2-3-4-5) from the 2008 Nationals, but replaced the frame with the teeter and space didn't allow for the #5 jump. Walter did this one at a practice last summer so it wasn't completely new to us. Anyway, he read the turn away from 2 to 3 well, but refused the teeter by running past it with a worried look on his face. After accompanying him for a few passes on the teeter, he felt better about it and did a good job with the gamble.

Morning Star trial: Walter's MADC and ATChC

Well there's one goal for 2009 accomplished: Walter got the third and final Standard leg needed for his MADC and therefore for his ATChC. Nice to have that one done!

We were there on Friday and Saturday, seven runs each day. No videos, wasn't in the mood to find and beg people to film our runs.

Masters Snooker #1, 2, and 3: What the bejeebers, Walter's best class and we didn't get a single Q. In the first one, he took back to back obstacles of choice (an offcourse possibility I hadn't considered), tweet. In the second, he took a 2 in the opening instead of the 6 that we needed so we were 3 points shy (again, not something I foresaw when walking the course). In the third, which was the last run of our second day, the weaves were 7 and since I didn't want to have to ask him to weave at all, our choices were three 6s and make it through to 6 in the closing, or two 5s (teeter) and two 6s (three-jump combo) and make it through to 5 in the closing. I opted for the latter. The reds were pretty spread apart (almost all four corners of the ring), as were the 5 and 6 from the 2 (to transition to the closing), so it was a LOT of mileage to try to squeeze in to 55 seconds, but we gave it a good run! So much fun. Ran out of time just as we got to the 5 in the closing. Had some of our turns been tighter (or, perhaps, less wide, since they weren't exactly tight to begin with), we probably would have had enough time.

Team #1 and 2: Dang dang dang. Both times my partner was clean but I had a 5-fault bobble and we weren't enough under time to be able to make up for it, though on one we would have had it had we been less than a second faster. Partner for first one was a sweet GSD or GSD mix; partner for second was an aussie with a fondness for blond dogs who managed to stay on track and not come to visit Walter. Goofup on the first course was Walter popping at his usual place toward the end of the weaves; goofup on the second was my handling error which caused a refusal at the weaves. Oh yeah and another thing, in his first team, which was his very first event of the trial, he had a bit of a scary teeter when he went running up it as if he thought it was the dogwalk. Fortunately he was just fine and didn't have any teeter or dogwalk issues for the rest of the trial.

Jumpers #1, 2, and 3: Good first two runs so two more Jumpers Qs, but on the third, I thought I could get in a front cross but ended up rushed and out of place. It was right after a chute. Being so rushed to get there I lost track of where exactly I was positioned and also lost sight of Walter, so for a moment I just stood still and held my arm up hoping he'd take the oncourse jump and not the dummy jump right next to it. A moment later, the "ohhhhhh" from the crowd told me he'd taken the dummy. I had been practically blocking the correct jump though, so he had been a good boy and we kept going, no point "fixing" that. Later in the course he ran past a jump, no idea why, but again the "fix it! fix it! fix it!" gremlins kept their distance so we were able to just keep going.

Standards #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6: Walter needed one more Standard for his MADC and ATChC, so I had entered him in all six Standards, taking the approach that "you can't lose 'em all!" (saw that line in an agility blog or magazine article recently). Well, it worked! Not only did he not lose them all, but he actually Qd in 3 of them (the second, fourth, and sixth). The NQs were caused by (a) a dogwalk refusal (I had given him a bad approach) plus a runby on a jump (didn't fix it); (b) ran past weave entry plus popped at end; and (c) ran past a jump and popped out of the weaves right after entering. Interestingly, one of the judges designed two of this weekend's Standards (as well as one of the Teams) with two sets of 6-weaves instead of the far more common one set of 12-weaves. (However, those aren't the ones we Qd in.)

General notes: Walter ran well all day both days, just a few momentary lapses causing some jump runbys (none of which I "fixed", so take that, dagnabbed gremlins!). Even with seven runs each day his enthusiasm level was good, though now that he has his ATChC I can be more choosy in what to put him in so will cap it at six runs per day. Also, now that he has his ATChC, I'm going to go on a ribbon diet. For the last year or so I've been taking all Q ribbons and placement ribbons only if he Qd, but really, except for a few particularly meaningful ones, they all get shoved into a box, for that non-existant day in the future when I'll finally figure out what to do with them. I'll still take them at venues that do ribbon presentations, since I'd feel kind of rude to decline it. But at venues that have self-serve ribbons I'll pass unless it's a venue from which we don't already have a ribbon, or if it was a particularly memorable run.

Delicious veggie burger from Lotus Heart Blossoms Vegetarian Restaurant

Goals yesterday and today

Every January I like to have a look back over the past year and see how we did with the goals set a year ago, and set more for the upcoming year.

So, starting with last year's goals:

• Add tunnel/contact discriminations and "out" to skill set
  We made some progress, and these skills came in handy for Walter's first Masters Gamblers Q, but at this point I'm not convinced that there isn't some fluking going on with the discriminations so more work is needed.
  
  
• Add hard and soft weave entries to skill set
  Didn't do any work on these other than a few living room sessions -- I've just been happy if he's able to weave all the way through without popping. It's totally cool to watch a dog independently nail a tough entry, but it just hasn't been a priority for us since aside from an occasional weave gamble one can generally futz about to help the dog get the entry. So we've focused on acquiring other skills this year.
  
  
• Improve distance skills and have a try at Masters Gamblers
  Done! After fluking his way to a Q in his two first tries at Advanced Gamblers in July and September 2007, Walter took a hiatus from Gamblers to work on distance skills. He entered his first Masters Gamblers class this past June and earned his Gamblers title in November.
  
  
• Take time off trialing this summer to train a running frame
  Nah. His completely untrained "running" frame (we abandoned 2o2o and didn't retrain anything in its place) hasn't caused the problems that Lucy's has, so why try to fix something that isn't broken?
  
  
• Achieve fully independent contacts
  Good progress made with lateral and send-ahead distance, though his speed and confidence need work.
  
  
• It'd be awfully nice to get two more Advanced Standard Qs for his SAADC
  Done! Walter had breezed through the Advanced Games, and with his second ATR Q in January sealed the deal on his having earned a Q in every advanced games course he had ever been entered in (yes I'm quite happy about that brag). However, those Advanced Standard runs sure were a long time coming and are our ultimate anti-brag: Took us about 15 tries at Advanced Standard to get the three Qs needed for his SAADC title which he got in April.

And so, here, in no particular order, are my goals for 2009:

• Solidify tunnel/contact discrimination skills
  
• Improve speed and confidence on dogwalk and teeter at a distance
  
• Turn Walter into a tunnel suck Get Walter to be happy about sending ahead to tunnels (we've blown a few gambles due to this issue)
  
• It'd be awfully nice to get one more Masters Standard Q for his ATChC!
  
• Get back into playing Steeplechase! (given his weave issues he hasn't run Steeplechase since the spring since I wanted to "save" his good weaves for Standards)
  
• Edit on 4-Jan-09: Forgot a big one, which is to get a lot better at cuing tight turns.
  
• And another: Add 270s to skill set.
• And yet another: Some general things to aim for: Trust my dog more by letting him work at a greater distance and not babysitting every obstacle; Run faster!

Lucy and Walter 2008

Our second annual compilation video:



I had a lot of fun making the video as a little souvenir of our year.

Didn't think of it until now but I should have also included mention of Walter's first ever 0 point Snooker. :-)

Bo-bo

Walter gets little lumps from time to time. Some of them are growths on top of the skin just like his mom gets (um, by mom I'm referring to his actual mom, not me). Sooner or later those go away on their own. But some of them are under/in his skin and they grow slowly but steadily and need to be removed. His latest of those was on his right arm. Didn't bother him at all until this week when he started to lick and nibble at it quite a bit. So in he went today to have it chopped off. Unfortunately for him and my wallet he had to go completely under because of its proximity to a vein. The good news is he's fine now and will be sporting a lovely Christmas tree decoration until next week. This is the first time we'll have had a Christmas tree in our house, and his even has a fancy golden star at the top! Thanks to the co-op student at the vet's for making the bandage look so darn cute. In this photo, Walter's still a bit groggy and trying really really hard but somewhat unsuccessfully to not look completely exhausted.

Not so agile

Don't get me wrong, I was rooting for underdogs Andrew and Dan (who finished in third place on tonight's series finale) on this season of The Amazing Race, but the scene from a few weeks back where poor Andrew simply could not figure out how to march is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on tv. Here's hoping he doesn't come back in a future life as the dog of someone with aspirations in agility or, heaven forbid, freestyle.

AAC Regionals and Nationals

Exciting news: The 2009 AAC Ontario Regionals as well as the AAC Nationals will be held right here in Ottawa! Both will be at the Nepean National Equestrian Park, a mere 20 minute drive away. Regionals will be on May 29th to 31st, Nationals July 30th to August 2nd.

If all goes well next spring and Walter remains healthy and injury-free, it will be a lot of fun to run him in what would be our first Regionals. Last year's Regionals were a 7 or 8 hour drive away. I didn't go because it coincides with a really busy time at work and would have entailed several days off, but also we were still a really green team back then with only a few Masters runs under our belt, so probably best to wait another year before "jumping" into something way over our heads. Of course, we're still pretty green but at least we've accumulated another year of experience. Lucy will definitely be sitting this one out as she will still be on trial hiatus at that point while we work through some issues.

Walter's the sort of dog who's always very aware of his surroundings, so I've learned that any time we go to a new place for a trial he tends to be a bit unfocused for his first few runs, running past obvious obstacles while eyeing the new scenery. So, my biggest challenge will be to try to keep his focus as best as possible, on top of dealing with whatever course challenges are presented!

Whatever happens, it will be fun to have the opportunity to watch competitors from all over the province and country right here in our hometown.

Getting itchy for the ATChC

Well, not really; that was my attempt at a clever post title.

After this weekend's trial which brought Walter his first two MTR Qs, he is now 2 Qs away from the ATChC title, which requires 3 Qs in each of Masters Standard, Jumpers, Snooker, Team, and Gamblers. One more Standard and one more Team and Walter will have his ATChC. As Walter has been getting closer to reaching this milestone, I've started to get the feeling that it would be somewhat anti-climactic, that I would be left with the "What now?" feeling. (Of course, there are tons of skills that we could use a "little" bit of work on as you can see if you've watched any of our videos!) The ATChC is the last title awarded in AAC, with awards of merit awarded afterward: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Lifetime, each with a requisite number of Standard and Games Qs. For example, the Bronze Award of Merit requires 10 Masters Standards and 25 total Masters Games.

These awards would be something to keep in mind, but they would be much longer-term, at least with our current Q rate. Compare that with Walter's 2008 year, which has been a really fun year in terms of advancing to higher levels and earning new titles.

Well, what should arrive in my emailbox yesterday evening but a long email from the AgilCan yahoo list describing a bunch of changes to the AAC, including requirements for level move-ups, Masters Games titles, and the ATChC title.

A big change is that the Team Relay component has been removed from the Games and ATChC title requirements, and is now (as of January 2009) a separate stream unto itself. What news to receive on the very weekend Walter gets his first 2 MTR Qs! Heh. I'm glad I'm a pretty easygoing person, so this doesn't actually bother me. So, the new ATChC title "will require four Masters Qs earned under at least two different judges in each of Jumpers, Gamblers and Snooker plus three Masters Standard Qs earned under at least two different judges".

Details have yet to be announced on grandfathering and transitioning to the new system. A lot of great ideas for this have been expressed on the AgilCan list; I'm interested to see what comes out of it. Anyway, I think what it means for Walter's ATChC is that he still needs only two Qs: either, under the old system, a standard and a team, or, under the new system, a standard and a gamble (since he already has 4 Jumpers and Snooker legs). Gee, and just after I thought we didn't need to worry about gamblers Qs anymore with his new gamblers title. Again, it comes in handy to be mellow and not get upset about such things :) (However, I completely understand being frustrated about the changes if one has a dog who is close to retirement and has been struggling to get their final gamblers (or snooker/jumpers) leg only to find now that they need two legs in their toughest event. Hopefully the transition rules will consider such aspects.)

Another brand new change is the creation of a bunch of post-ATChC titles which "include “Expert” awards for each game and “Versatility” awards recognizing a combination of skills". I won't go into the details here, but it will be fun to have some more titles to work toward after the ATChC.

Another exciting change is the creation of a new games event, the AAC Challenge, similar to Masters Standard courses but emphasizing "more technical handling challenges". And, to add a more competitive aspect to it, the SCT "will be determined after each height class runs by multiplying the fastest clean-run time achieved in that height class by 1.2." Yikes! It will certainly be fun to watch but I will probably hold off on entering that one for a while.

So yeah, lots of changes to AAC agility for 2009!