Out, out damn Spot!

(no I was not yelling and swearing at Walter to get out. just couldn't resist that post title :-D)

First time at KK9 for the season. Worked on "out obstacle". A useful setup was to put a non-takeable obstacle as the obstacle to go out around. E.g. the wrong end of the teeter, or the dogwalk with the entrance ramp blocked. Got the feeling that maybe, just maybe he's starting to catch on? But I wouldn't bet on it just yet. Also practiced for the first time a bit of layering with obstacles on the other side of the dogwalk: did curved tunnel to jump and tire. That went pretty well.

Obstacle names / layering / out

Did some work on verbal discriminations with a tunnel and jump side by side, either sending him ahead or recalling. Started with tunnel closed down, clicking for the "over". All went haywire when the tunnel was opened; clearly this sort of thing needs lots more work.

Then did a little sequence layering the teeter behind a turned-down tunnel. He kept just running along the far side of the tunnel. After some patterning he was getting the hang of it but wow do we ever need to do a lot of work on layering/out/discriminations. (no surprise.) It will be fun to work on and I look forward to the day he starts to get it!

Dream Fields trial: new title but not much else!

Today's first class was at about 8am and the last one was at about 6pm so it was a bit of a long day!

First was Steeplechase. It was a nice, doable course except that Walter couldn't do the right weave entry on the second pass of the 6-weaves. Oh well. Plus he knocked a bar later on which I think was due to a really badly timed front cross.

Second, Jumpers. We were so not in sync and he got an offcourse as well as a few almost-offcourses. I had led out on him and he doesn't much like that so maybe it was his revenge! (or, more likely maybe I was just doing a really lousy job of handling!)

Snooker went alright, not the smoothest run ever although he stuck his teeter really well each of the three times. Did the teeter twice and a tunnel in the opening; in the closing he remembered how to weave (it was only 6-weaves) so he got his third Masters Snooker Q and therefore his first Masters title: the Special Masters Snooker Dog of Canada title (SMSDC). It will be soooo nice to have the pressure off now for future Snookers! (For any readers not familiar with AAC, all you need are three Masters Qs in each of the main events to get your big ATCH title.)

Walter's first try at Masters Team: The ideal team run, where both partners either go clean or goof up. In this case, we both goofed up. :-) Walter skipped a pole halfway through the 12-weaves and I didn't bother having him redo them because just the fact that he wasn't in Weaveless Walter mode was a good thing. He stuck his teeter and dogwalk very well.

Walter's first try at Masters Standard: Not a great run. It was a very doable course, but again Walter skipped a pole in the middle (and again, I didn't bother to fix it), then he almost got an offcourse at a chute/teeter trap, then he missed the tire. Oh and he did 2o2o on the dogwalk but self-released so we redid it and went into training mode.

All in all he was in a pretty slow mode today, even for the first run of the day, but overall he was a good boy, and I try to remind myself that any injury-free trial is a good trial in my books!

Green fee season!

Woo hoo! The first of at least two places I'll be getting green fees at has opened for the season! Stopped in for a quick five minute practice. Discovered that if I veer off laterally from the dogwalk down plank, Walter plants his hands to the side of the plank and risks his back feet not being in the yellow. Guess I'm gonna have to be more specific in setting criteria.

Walter is Tiger Woods

Your daily bit of silliness: Which celebrity is your pet?

Tiger Woods
Athletic & Poised

Calm and cool on the outside, feisty and determined on the inside, Walter is everyman athlete Tiger Woods!

Walter proved at an early age that he had the skills to pay the bills, running circles around the competition when he was just a wee whippersnapper. Thanks to his tremendous successes, Walter has set aside an entire wing of his luxurious shelter just to house his collection of trophies and ribbons. A high-class pet with exquisite taste, Walter prefers to be seen with long-legged female mates, preferably those bred from Scandinavian lines. Unwilling to rest on his haunches, Walter has no time to hang out at the 19th hole and pet himself on the back-he's got a lot more green grass to frolic across before throwing in the towel.

Dream Fields trial - Day 2

Our first run of the day wasn't until about 4pm, with the last run at 7:30pm which made for a bit of a long day since Walter didn't nap much before we left home.

First was Steeplechase: It was a very fun course, but Weaveless Walter made an unexpected appearance. He got the entry but didn't do the rest of the poles. Ok, so I take him back again; same thing. Third time he didn't even enter, just ran right past. This is his third trial run where he's done this so from experience I know that there's no point in insisting cause he just ain't gonna do them. The other times this happened it was quite warm, and Walter isn't too fond of the heat, but today it was a nice cool temperature and he was fresh so I wasn't expecting this Mr. Hyde to appear. So on we went. Oh! And, later on in that run he knocked a bar, the second ever bar he's knocked at a trial. Both of these problems may have been related to speed which I was really pushing, it being Steeplechase and all. Fun fun though.

Jumpers: I led out on him, and he held, barking his fool head off as usual, woo hoo! It was a fun run but I failed to sufficiently support the jump following the chute, so he ran past it.

Snooker: Last run of the day and we were both tired but managed to keep it together for 48 points and a Q. Considered leading out again but it really wasn't necessary and I didn't want to push my luck, so I didn't. :-) There were no weaves in this course so I'll never know if he would have been back into weaving mode or not.

Overall I was really happy with how he ran this weekend. Looking forward to the next trial... and the darned snow melting so the practice fields can open! :-D

Dream Fields Trial and Walter's new title

Just one class today:

Advanced Standard: Walter finally got his Advanced Standard title (SAADC), and he did it in style! A flowy, connected run where he could do no wrong; 12 seconds to spare; first place; best run; and a compliment from the judge afterwards who said the run was very smooth. He confidently stuck his dogwalk and teeter contacts, yeah! So he was among the 3 dogs to Q out of the 27 who ran the course.

So, it took him 9 tries to get his first Adv Standard Q, 4 tries to get his 2nd, and 2 tries to get his third. Got lots to work on to try to get our skills up to par for Masters. Homework (once the practice fields open for the season) is to really work on tunnel/contact discriminations which I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of. And lots of other neat stuff to work on too; so many awesome Masters teams out there to watch and learn from.

Red Gate fun match: gambling fun and (gasp) leading out!

Walter and Lucy shared a spot at today's fun match. Lucy ran the two standards, and Walter took the two gamblers runs. You get two minutes in each run to do whatever the heck you want. I used the time to mostly practice the mini gambles and of course give a try at the end gambles.

Hey guess what, I led out on both of his runs! And guess what, he didn't self-release! Well, on his second run he did scoot forward somewhat, but still. I was very glad. Maybe, just maybe I'll try leading out on him more often in trials, but only if there's a real advantage to doing so, and no more than once per trial at first. (In a year of trials I've only led out on him once, this past January to help him get a tunnel/frame discrimination since those are a definite weakness in our skill set.)

Played around with the jump-teeter-jump mini-gamble. He had no trouble doing the teeter at a distance; we hadn't practiced that sort of thing since the fall so I was glad to see him look so confident.

For the end-gamble, in his first run we did the Advanced version: frame, tunnel, jump. Wasn't sure how he'd handle the lateral distance with the frame but he seemed fine with it. In his second run we did the Masters version: tunnel under the frame, jump, frame, tunnel, jump (last three obstacles same as Advanced). He got both on his first try, yay :-) (although as far as Masters gambles go, that's not exactly a tricky one) I might finally consider entering him in Masters Gamblers this summer or fall, but only after he has a much better handle on discriminations and "out".

For fun, here's a short video from his first run.


Oh yeah, and he had no hesitation at all on the dogwalk today. Hopefully he remembers a happy dogwalk at his next trial.

Dream Fields trial - Day 2; 1-year anniversary of trialing

Masters Snooker
Goal 1 was to make a fairly flowy course; Goal 2 was to get enough points in the opening before the #5 dogwalk which he wasn't comfortable on yesterday. Well frig, Walter was running fast! He was attentive and animated and seemed to be having fun as was I. We did the #6 tunnel and three #7 tunnel combinations. We only had to make it through to #4 in the closing, but alas despite Walter's good speed the buzzer went while he was in the #3b tunnel. Oh well; I can honestly say it was really fun despite the NQ.

Masters Jumpers
This course had a lot of off-course potential and I really wasn't sure how it would go. Again he was running well and very responsive, so fun! Despite his responsiveness I found myself clapping at the turns to make sure he turned with me. I also found myself way out of position at one point but Walter saved the day. In the closing line there was a tempting off course decoy tunnel so I was pleased that he seemed to respond to my shoulder pull there and he ended up with a Q. I'll be the first to admit I'm eager to get a Masters Jumpers title on Walter so my handling is pretty darn conservative, but after he gets the MJ title (requires 3 MJ Qs of which he now has 2) the pressure will be off for future Jumpers courses, at which point I promise to handle more on the edge and have fun testing our limits.


Masters Jumpers
(yes that barking at the startline is Walter)

Steeplechase
This is the second Steeplechase course I've run under this particular judge and I find he designs great Steeplechase courses: fast, flowing, and fun, as Steeplechase is meant to be. It was Walter's fourth try at a Steeplechase and his first Q! Holy mackerel did I have to boot it to keep up with him on that first line to the tunnel! How he managed to keep the bar up on that terribly awkward front cross before the second frame (I found myself in spectator mode -- oops), I just don't know. He was getting tired by this point as it was a long wait between classes so I lucked out that it was the frame twice rather than the weaves twice; he was weaving pretty slowly (check out the inconsistent footwork) and probably would have popped them if he had had to do a second set. Anyway, I was excited to get our first Steeplechase Q which made for a nice trialing anniversary present.


Walter's first Steeplechase Q
(more startline barking... I think it means he's feeling good)

A friend reminded me today that this trial marks Walter's one-year trialing anniversary! It was in the March 2007 Dream Fields trial that Walter and I made our debut. If nothing else, we have been consistent: at his first trial and at this trial his Q rate was 50% (1 out of 2 in March 2007; 2 out of 4 in March 2008). And, check this out: In his Starters Jumpers course last March, his YPS was 4.72; in his Masters Jumpers course today, his YPS was 4.73! Darn, and here I thought he's been running faster lately. Maybe it's just that I'm getting slower so it feels like he's getting faster?

Watching these videos gives me some more goals to work towards (thank you to my camera person... it's a great help to be able to watch runs afterward): (1) not pointing at or naming obstacles that are clearly on his line; and (2) collection and tighter turns -- lotttts of room for improvement.

Stats
Classes entered: 3 (Masters Snooker and Jumpers, Steeplechase)
Qs: 2 (Jumpers and Steeplechase)
Time/SCT: 32.99/42.00 in Jumpers; 36.49/40.00 in Steeplechase
YPS: 4.73 in Jumpers; 4.36 in Steeplechase
Bars knocked: 0
Placements: 2nd in Snooker; 3rd in Jumpers; 4th in Steeplechase
Temperature: -10 outside, much warmer inside
Crating: mostly in his crate inside the facility; in the car before his last run since it was getting too warm inside for Walter's liking)
Time spread between his first and last class: approx. 6 hours

Dream Fields trial - Day 1

Today being Starters and Advanced only, Walter had only one run:

Advanced Standard
I'm really happy about the way he ran this course. It's so nice to have a flowy, connected run with one's dog. No Q though because... (a) He refused the dogwalk several times. This is a relatively springy dogwalk of which he's always been leery... could it be that he remembered the springiness from his other experiences at this facility? Are dogs that smart? (I think so.) He did take it after a few approaches but he didn't exactly look very confident doing it. Then, (b) he missed the weave entry due to my getting in his way in the preceding front cross. Didn't bother to go back and fix it since he weaved the rest of it fine and I don't want to make an issue of the weaves, plus it was my fault anyway. His table was fine today.

Caught him sleeping in the car later on (while Lucy was doing her runs) which is good. Of course, it probably took three hours of constant surveillance before he allowed himself a break from his car guarding duties (he seems to think a tiny, fur-infested, dog-stinky car would be a thief's first choice to take on a joyride) to succumb to a nap. Tomorrow I'll crate him mostly inside the facility and see how that goes.

Stats
Classes entered: 1 (Advanced Standard)
Qs: 0
Temperature: cold! (-10 or so outside, probably around 0 inside)