I am too lazy to look for the dates on the trials and A Matches.
Zola's agility career started in August 2012, when she came of again
He first A-Match was picture perfect except for the lack of 2 on 2 offs on the contacts. She was really fast and very focussed.
Next up was one day in the Golden Retriever Trial at Soccer Blast in August. Again as far as I remember she was near perfect, again 2 on 2 offs a problem. She got a first place for her very first event, and a 2nd for the other.
9/8+9/9: LaCrosse: The wheels came off a bit, she had some nice runs, but she was getting distracted and the perfect weave entries that we had from the previous A-Match and Trial was not there for 3 of the 4 runs, plus she started getting distracted by things - aka, Kurt, she had to know where he was and the one run she spend a ton of time looking into the crowd for him, though I did get her back. Thought I was going to escape some of the issues I had with Cedar when I started her out.
9/15: BOTC Trial, not horrible but again not her speedy self as she is in class. No 2 on 2 off. Again a little distracted but I got her back.
Then this week I got some good advice, "If you bring home the blue ribbon, you better have been the only dog that qualified", aka, don't push the speed, focus on fun and getting things right.
So getting things right or improving on our little problems is what I did today at the fun match.
So day in Open Standard:
1. I remembered that she does 2 on 2 offs and didn't carry on running like I do with Cedar. She still blew that, I am not taking credit for that, she was not going too fast to stop, oh well.
2. Next up the weave entry which we had been missing at a couple of trials, whew perfect. She did skip some poles towards the end of the 12 set, but I think it was because I slowed down too much. I did not take her back to repeat them as I was just happy that she got the entry, and I wanted to keep her momentum going.
3. I wanted to not baby sit the table as I know she has a good stay. So I didn't stand right there, I got a good 7-8 feet away so I could get into position for a front cross after a jump. Perfect, she let me step away!
4. Next goal, 2 on 2 off on the dog walk, almost perfect, she stopped a little high up and I had to prompt her to come down to the 2 on 2 off, hey but at least we did it!
5. Another goal was for her not to get distracted on the course, she managed that on this one. Whew, so good!
6. Not knocking bars was a goal, she did knock one, but I am not going to worry about that too much, the ground was very uneven.
Today in Novice Jumpers:
1. I was wanting to not to rear crosses with her at trials for a bit as it didn't go so well the last few trials and though I know this was an a-match, I didn't want to do anything she thinks is demotivating. But alas, there was no way I was going to get away with not having bigger problems without doing rear crosses.
2. Lead-out was not so good, I started turning away from the second jump too soon and pulled her with me, had to go back and get her over, so a Refusal.
3. What with me having to go back, for the refused jump I could not get into position for a front cross, so the only cross I planned as a front was lost. BUT she did a perfect rear cross.
4. Then a few jumps, then another rear, there was no other way to do that one, perfect.
5. Then jump, weave, perfect entry into the weaves. But then I started moving towards the off course jump and realized my mistake and turned on time to stop that ...... but she got a good glance at the plastic bag which had blown against the fence, so had to check it out ...... grrr, distraction goal not met.
6. Got her back, jump, jump, rear again, again perfect, jump, jump done. 95 Q.
So I would say a successful day, weave entries perfect, rears perfect, 2 on 2 off's 50% perfect. Focus 85-90% perfect.
Come to the conclusion I am not going to push the speed with her until we are accurate, I know she has the speed, but speed does not matter in Novice and Open. Novice and Open are all about getting used to the trial environment.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
St Paul Dog Training Club Trial
Very quick summary. QQ for Cedar and I. For some reason I am not remembering the jumpers course at all because standard is ingrained in my brain because it was a tricky, trappy, awkward course.
Anyway, I give it to Carol and Libby, they made that course (excellent standard) look the smoothest of anybody else out there today (the 20 inchers were a horrible mess) - I was not brave enough to run the one stretch of 4 jumps as a serpentine though they should have been, but I was brave enough to do a blind cross which did not involve a tunnel for the first time at a trial, it wasn't perfect but at least I tried it and I know my tiny mistake (which was not straightening out enough after the blind cross). The sequence after the weaves was awkward, weave, triple forward to an angled jump so your dog is jumping away from you, and then 180 back in the handlers direction, and then into tunnel - I did get a few nice comments from people saying I had a nice decel queue there ..... which I silently had to laugh to myself as decel is a weakness of mine and I only remembered just in time to decelerate at the correct place.
So 24 points for use which brings up our Nationals tally to 190 and 6 QQs. Agility season is only just really starting for us this year, that was our 11th or 12th day trialing for Nationals, so the results aren't horrible, but we are going to kick the schedule up the rest of the year to make the 210 points we still need (but not totally out of control, Cedar is skipping on some of the days I have entered Zola in ........ and no Rochester, or Lake Elmo for us, heat is not our friend.
Anyway, I give it to Carol and Libby, they made that course (excellent standard) look the smoothest of anybody else out there today (the 20 inchers were a horrible mess) - I was not brave enough to run the one stretch of 4 jumps as a serpentine though they should have been, but I was brave enough to do a blind cross which did not involve a tunnel for the first time at a trial, it wasn't perfect but at least I tried it and I know my tiny mistake (which was not straightening out enough after the blind cross). The sequence after the weaves was awkward, weave, triple forward to an angled jump so your dog is jumping away from you, and then 180 back in the handlers direction, and then into tunnel - I did get a few nice comments from people saying I had a nice decel queue there ..... which I silently had to laugh to myself as decel is a weakness of mine and I only remembered just in time to decelerate at the correct place.
So 24 points for use which brings up our Nationals tally to 190 and 6 QQs. Agility season is only just really starting for us this year, that was our 11th or 12th day trialing for Nationals, so the results aren't horrible, but we are going to kick the schedule up the rest of the year to make the 210 points we still need (but not totally out of control, Cedar is skipping on some of the days I have entered Zola in ........ and no Rochester, or Lake Elmo for us, heat is not our friend.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Working Group Trial - Cedar
What can I say, Cedar is awesome and I can really mess up some of the time, grr, need to get my act together, if Cedar decides to be fast I go to pieces , so what the heck is going to happen when I run Zola one day and she is a whole lot faster.
Cedar and I did come away with a Double Q on Saturday but I felt like I was barely keeping it together on both of the runs, no handling mistakes I don't think, but a little faster than I expected.
On Sunday the wheels fell off, great runs by Cedar except for the one missed weave entry on the Standard course which I am not taking credit for, she is an advanced level dog so I really shouldn't have to be babysitting the weave entry.
The jumpers course was a mess, she was going way to fast for any of my plans, I recovered in 2 spots but by the 3rd place where she was going to fast my brain gave in and I couldn't improvise any more. My bad, learnt my lesson, should have just done rear crosses that whole course and we would have been fine.
Zola got to do the practice jump both days and practiced being measured. Hopefully she is used to Soccer Blast now. I think she is. ;-). Starting to get very excited and scared about running a much faster dog at a trial. Not sure how the border collie or sheltie people do it, it must be a total rush for them every time they do a run .... And Zola isn't nearly as fast and she gives me an adrenaline rush.
Cedar and I did come away with a Double Q on Saturday but I felt like I was barely keeping it together on both of the runs, no handling mistakes I don't think, but a little faster than I expected.
On Sunday the wheels fell off, great runs by Cedar except for the one missed weave entry on the Standard course which I am not taking credit for, she is an advanced level dog so I really shouldn't have to be babysitting the weave entry.
The jumpers course was a mess, she was going way to fast for any of my plans, I recovered in 2 spots but by the 3rd place where she was going to fast my brain gave in and I couldn't improvise any more. My bad, learnt my lesson, should have just done rear crosses that whole course and we would have been fine.
Zola got to do the practice jump both days and practiced being measured. Hopefully she is used to Soccer Blast now. I think she is. ;-). Starting to get very excited and scared about running a much faster dog at a trial. Not sure how the border collie or sheltie people do it, it must be a total rush for them every time they do a run .... And Zola isn't nearly as fast and she gives me an adrenaline rush.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
We're back!
After 2 1/2 weeks off for spay surgery, I am very grateful to report we are back. All went very well and Zola's scare is tiny and she was a very busy active patient which made it tough on me trying to keep her quiet. Both her and Cedar got bones every day for nine days to chew on just to keep them quite.
We have been to two agility classes this first week back and both went well, but we came out of each with distintive problems to work on.
First up was On the Run: Our Post Turns were not good if there is a 180 degree jump to go to instead, plus our rear crosses have gotten rusty, here is the modified sequence we worked on, the original had a curved tunnel, but I don't have one of those. Please note, no front-crosses allowed in this sequence, the goal is to practice post turns and rear crosses.
We have been to two agility classes this first week back and both went well, but we came out of each with distintive problems to work on.
First up was On the Run: Our Post Turns were not good if there is a 180 degree jump to go to instead, plus our rear crosses have gotten rusty, here is the modified sequence we worked on, the original had a curved tunnel, but I don't have one of those. Please note, no front-crosses allowed in this sequence, the goal is to practice post turns and rear crosses.
Next up was Cloud 9: This sequence had a tough weave pole entry, and an opportunity to practice layering, or a blind cross, and then the tricky weave entry, see map below. This I will practice when we get a tunnel. Please note you have to start with your dog on your left and you have to start with your dog, no lead-out, this was part of a bigger course.
And last but not least of things I have been practicing this week, a Sequence out of the Alphabet drills book, from the letter T. I am pleased to say we can actually do this sequence now, but the challenge was leading out to the side instead of in front. It was a new skill for us, but it did not take that long to master, we did have to take it in baby steps.
So as you can see we have worked on quite a bit and still have work to do on map 2, the weave pole entry one. I have submitted my order for a tunnel. :-) even though we only get to use it 6 months of the year. I figure if we receive the tunnel by the end of August, then we still have September and October (maybe November) to practice with it.
Zola is entered in her first trial next month, just one day. We have all the skills needed for novice, except our 2 on 2 off is not 100% accurate yet, so we will focus on that as much as possible in the next 4 weeks. I think next time I will write will be after the Game Fair on the 11th August, as we have a Mock Trial on the 10th August and the Game Fair on the 11th August, so some really good distraction practice coming our way.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Stacy Peardot Goudy Seminar last week
Zola and I had the opportunity to attend a Stacy Goudy seminar last week, and it was so much fun.
We had orginally wanted to do the beginner seminar but due to me procrastinating as to when I was going to spay Zola that class filled up .... which was very lucky for me as we totally fitted into the more advanced Novice/Open group. Learnt a few new things - a slighly new hand signal for the serpentine, the correct way to do the back side of a jump though we probably did it correctly all along but I was never certain what we were supposed to be doing and some tips on 270's. I was very grateful that I had introduced Zola to all the moves 1-3 weeks before this, so we were not brand new at any of it. There were some amazing dogs there and it was fun to be in a class with all these people you never train with but see at trials.
At this point I am honestly very happy with Zola's progress, this 7 weeks since she turned 1 years old have been huge in her agility career, she has gone from a dog who had barely started stringing things together to a highly intense very decent agility dog who can do most of the moves.
I did try one of the international moves this morning in the backyard, yip one of those blind crosses, and I totally understand why they need to be done sometimes, it may not speed the dog up, but it certainly helps the handler get on the correct footing to speed up. So all those You-tube watching and the seminar has motivated me to get back into shape again. I don't have a border collie, so even though Zola is driven it is not the same as a BC ...... so I am going to have to be fast to pull every little extra bit of speed out of her and I am going to have to work very hard to get get tight turns out of her. But as Stacy said, tight turns are not always the best things if it slows them down dramatically, you have to know where you need them.
This coming Friday 06/29/2012 is "Spay Day" for Zola. My heart says she is going to be just fine, but I still scared for her and me, very scared. I just don't want to loose another best friend and a great agility dog. :-) and even to this day I will have a quiet little cry for Jik because she was just a sweet sweet dog. Weird thing is, I think she picked Zola for me, and I am very grateful I stood my ground with the breeder and picked the sassiest smallest puppy in the litter ..... because something kept telling me she is the one and I must not let the breeder pick.
We had orginally wanted to do the beginner seminar but due to me procrastinating as to when I was going to spay Zola that class filled up .... which was very lucky for me as we totally fitted into the more advanced Novice/Open group. Learnt a few new things - a slighly new hand signal for the serpentine, the correct way to do the back side of a jump though we probably did it correctly all along but I was never certain what we were supposed to be doing and some tips on 270's. I was very grateful that I had introduced Zola to all the moves 1-3 weeks before this, so we were not brand new at any of it. There were some amazing dogs there and it was fun to be in a class with all these people you never train with but see at trials.
At this point I am honestly very happy with Zola's progress, this 7 weeks since she turned 1 years old have been huge in her agility career, she has gone from a dog who had barely started stringing things together to a highly intense very decent agility dog who can do most of the moves.
I did try one of the international moves this morning in the backyard, yip one of those blind crosses, and I totally understand why they need to be done sometimes, it may not speed the dog up, but it certainly helps the handler get on the correct footing to speed up. So all those You-tube watching and the seminar has motivated me to get back into shape again. I don't have a border collie, so even though Zola is driven it is not the same as a BC ...... so I am going to have to be fast to pull every little extra bit of speed out of her and I am going to have to work very hard to get get tight turns out of her. But as Stacy said, tight turns are not always the best things if it slows them down dramatically, you have to know where you need them.
This coming Friday 06/29/2012 is "Spay Day" for Zola. My heart says she is going to be just fine, but I still scared for her and me, very scared. I just don't want to loose another best friend and a great agility dog. :-) and even to this day I will have a quiet little cry for Jik because she was just a sweet sweet dog. Weird thing is, I think she picked Zola for me, and I am very grateful I stood my ground with the breeder and picked the sassiest smallest puppy in the litter ..... because something kept telling me she is the one and I must not let the breeder pick.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
1st Birthday! Holy smokes my puppy is technically not a puppy any more
This week brought Zola's first birthday. To celebrate Kurt and I did a run walk around Lake Calhoun with her and made tuna treats which she loved that day and all the training classes which followed that week.
Zola also officially started jumping 20" this week, early for her age but her growth plates are closed which is what I suspected as she did go into heat early, so I was expecting her to be done growing early. Mentally she is still a puppy and gets up to puppy stuff, though she does still have great focus for work. I also measured her and she is still at 22" even at the shoulders - so measuring for when she starts competition later this year is going to be interesting.
We had 2 classes and 1 at home session by ourselves.
First up was "On the Run" on Wednesday, she did very well and I was fairly shocked at the level of difficulty of the course especially since we have really only just started stringing things together. She did a really good job and I do notice with her she pushes a fairly well, and I didn't really teach that ........ weird, but I will take it. We also got to work on a tire, jump, and then tunnel entry - but not the entry right in front of the dogs nose after they take the jump - that took me about 15 tries to figure out how to handle it. I have a feeling, I am the one that needs to learn the most here - handling a faster dog (and she is not even border collie fast) is a whole lot harder. We worked solidly for an hour that day, with tiny breaks in-between, and she just kept on going - and then we hung out at Kurts house for several more hours and she kept on being super active - she sure has a very long lasting battery on her. So used to Cedar, who you do a little bit of exercise with and she is nice and relaxed and mellow for the night.
Next up "Cloud 9" on Thursday, I was expecting the class to be 6-7 dogs, but it ended up being 8/9. But actually was really nice, which is the good thing about hanging with the more experienced dogs and handlers, things just flow a whole lot faster. I did learn some handling skills on what not to do in general and what not to do with Zola (aka, she is too fast to pull off some of the moves I have for Cedar). First course I handled badly so we didn't look that good, but 2nd course I thought we looked fairly good. And the highlight of the day was I don't think she off-coursed once to the ramp - yip, the ramp is a fav for her.
And then yesterday we worked on the letter C from the Alphabet book. Just some general 5 jump work, sharp turns, front and rear crosses and some driving forward. I did throw in a few blind crosses even though they are not in the book. I will have to find some kind of course maps with some good examples of blind-crosses for us to follow. We didn't do the whole of the C pattern because I wanted to keep the session short and I did feel a whole lot better about me not having her out there too long practicing. I am happy about the new spot for doing this at home training, it is the field at the end of my road with the high-school parking lot next to it, so as long as I get there early on a Saturday or Sunday morning, training will work out perfectly, no people, it is cool, and I can drive right up to where I need to offload my jumps.
That is this weeks training done. Now off for our Sunday morning walk as both Cedar and Zola are getting pesky.
Zola also officially started jumping 20" this week, early for her age but her growth plates are closed which is what I suspected as she did go into heat early, so I was expecting her to be done growing early. Mentally she is still a puppy and gets up to puppy stuff, though she does still have great focus for work. I also measured her and she is still at 22" even at the shoulders - so measuring for when she starts competition later this year is going to be interesting.
We had 2 classes and 1 at home session by ourselves.
First up was "On the Run" on Wednesday, she did very well and I was fairly shocked at the level of difficulty of the course especially since we have really only just started stringing things together. She did a really good job and I do notice with her she pushes a fairly well, and I didn't really teach that ........ weird, but I will take it. We also got to work on a tire, jump, and then tunnel entry - but not the entry right in front of the dogs nose after they take the jump - that took me about 15 tries to figure out how to handle it. I have a feeling, I am the one that needs to learn the most here - handling a faster dog (and she is not even border collie fast) is a whole lot harder. We worked solidly for an hour that day, with tiny breaks in-between, and she just kept on going - and then we hung out at Kurts house for several more hours and she kept on being super active - she sure has a very long lasting battery on her. So used to Cedar, who you do a little bit of exercise with and she is nice and relaxed and mellow for the night.
Next up "Cloud 9" on Thursday, I was expecting the class to be 6-7 dogs, but it ended up being 8/9. But actually was really nice, which is the good thing about hanging with the more experienced dogs and handlers, things just flow a whole lot faster. I did learn some handling skills on what not to do in general and what not to do with Zola (aka, she is too fast to pull off some of the moves I have for Cedar). First course I handled badly so we didn't look that good, but 2nd course I thought we looked fairly good. And the highlight of the day was I don't think she off-coursed once to the ramp - yip, the ramp is a fav for her.
And then yesterday we worked on the letter C from the Alphabet book. Just some general 5 jump work, sharp turns, front and rear crosses and some driving forward. I did throw in a few blind crosses even though they are not in the book. I will have to find some kind of course maps with some good examples of blind-crosses for us to follow. We didn't do the whole of the C pattern because I wanted to keep the session short and I did feel a whole lot better about me not having her out there too long practicing. I am happy about the new spot for doing this at home training, it is the field at the end of my road with the high-school parking lot next to it, so as long as I get there early on a Saturday or Sunday morning, training will work out perfectly, no people, it is cool, and I can drive right up to where I need to offload my jumps.
That is this weeks training done. Now off for our Sunday morning walk as both Cedar and Zola are getting pesky.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
THE LETTER "J" - ZOLA AND MY 1ST DAY OUT ON A LOCAL FIELD TRAINING
THE LETTER "J" - ZOLA AND MY 1ST DAY OUT ON A LOCAL FIELD TRAINING
I have a lot of dreams and high hopes for Zola, and with that is going to be quite a bit of skills training, drive training and focus training, and a ton of planning on my part. Where my training with Cedar has always been lacking is I have never really had a plan, I just show up for class and do whatever is going on that day and it worked out perfectly fine, Cedar ended up being a hig achiever but not an elite dog and I ended up being an average to good handler but nothing special.
So Zola and I am going on a quest to hopefully be an super duper awesome team. I know our ultimate goals will be to get into the Invitational as one of the top 5 Labradors in the country and get at least 4 MACH's. But I still need to sit down and make littler goals. Like our goal for this year is the 3 F's, Fun, Fast and Focussed. And any trial we do this year will have those 3 in mind, Q's are not going to be on our brain (well they will be, but I will have to remind myself to push those thoughts away).
So my first step of my grand scheme is to train a little by ourselves so we can practice things I want us to practice. To achieve this goal I have bought Nancy Gyes "alphabet drills", I do see it is lacking blind crosses, oh well.
Just back to my philosophy on training and trialing a bit, because there is a huge range of opinions on that topics. First off, I am fine starting a dog young as long as it is fun and the expectations are not too high ..... I learnt that after getting 1 NQ out out of 4 in obedience with Zola so far, did I ruin her like some people say, absolutely not ..... I know my dog, she is not going to get ruined by NQing, she does not even know she didn't NQ - I can ruin her by making it totally boring, and getting angry or making her do things I can see she does not want to do - but I cannot ruin her by entering anything. So as long is my dog is having fun, early is better because they learn so much quicker when they are young. That all been said there is a fine line as too what the perfect amount of training is. Got to have another little detour here, young dogs are way more adapable than older dogs, huge oppurtunity to get them to be able to perform anywhere and any time, hence another reason for trialing and doing fun matches very early ....... otherwise you have to wait until they are like 5, believe me I know, Cedar took that long, so going a whole new route with Zola.
So today was "J" - the jump pattern was in the shape of a J, we practiced arcs, rear crosses and strait aways, together with learning to single bounce jumps. Was it successful? Absolutely! Was she or me perfect, absotutely not, but we both learnt things. She learnt a rear cross on a jump and a single bounce stride to the next jump. I learnt she will tug as a treat at the end of a sequence, I also learnt, that I need a plan for treats when the grass is too high, and that I need to shorten the session a bit and maybe make it a tiny bit simpler (she did just fine, but I was worrying it was too much for her even though when I set out I thought I had a good plan).
So before my next session.
I need to have my plan more defined and I need a better venue, that place was a little too distracting even though she did very well for her age. And I need to work on my handling skills as always, because Zola I think has a ton of talent, and it is going to be me that holds her back if I don't concentrate on being better at handling.
Rene, Cedar and Zola
I have a lot of dreams and high hopes for Zola, and with that is going to be quite a bit of skills training, drive training and focus training, and a ton of planning on my part. Where my training with Cedar has always been lacking is I have never really had a plan, I just show up for class and do whatever is going on that day and it worked out perfectly fine, Cedar ended up being a hig achiever but not an elite dog and I ended up being an average to good handler but nothing special.
So Zola and I am going on a quest to hopefully be an super duper awesome team. I know our ultimate goals will be to get into the Invitational as one of the top 5 Labradors in the country and get at least 4 MACH's. But I still need to sit down and make littler goals. Like our goal for this year is the 3 F's, Fun, Fast and Focussed. And any trial we do this year will have those 3 in mind, Q's are not going to be on our brain (well they will be, but I will have to remind myself to push those thoughts away).
So my first step of my grand scheme is to train a little by ourselves so we can practice things I want us to practice. To achieve this goal I have bought Nancy Gyes "alphabet drills", I do see it is lacking blind crosses, oh well.
Just back to my philosophy on training and trialing a bit, because there is a huge range of opinions on that topics. First off, I am fine starting a dog young as long as it is fun and the expectations are not too high ..... I learnt that after getting 1 NQ out out of 4 in obedience with Zola so far, did I ruin her like some people say, absolutely not ..... I know my dog, she is not going to get ruined by NQing, she does not even know she didn't NQ - I can ruin her by making it totally boring, and getting angry or making her do things I can see she does not want to do - but I cannot ruin her by entering anything. So as long is my dog is having fun, early is better because they learn so much quicker when they are young. That all been said there is a fine line as too what the perfect amount of training is. Got to have another little detour here, young dogs are way more adapable than older dogs, huge oppurtunity to get them to be able to perform anywhere and any time, hence another reason for trialing and doing fun matches very early ....... otherwise you have to wait until they are like 5, believe me I know, Cedar took that long, so going a whole new route with Zola.
So today was "J" - the jump pattern was in the shape of a J, we practiced arcs, rear crosses and strait aways, together with learning to single bounce jumps. Was it successful? Absolutely! Was she or me perfect, absotutely not, but we both learnt things. She learnt a rear cross on a jump and a single bounce stride to the next jump. I learnt she will tug as a treat at the end of a sequence, I also learnt, that I need a plan for treats when the grass is too high, and that I need to shorten the session a bit and maybe make it a tiny bit simpler (she did just fine, but I was worrying it was too much for her even though when I set out I thought I had a good plan).
So before my next session.
I need to have my plan more defined and I need a better venue, that place was a little too distracting even though she did very well for her age. And I need to work on my handling skills as always, because Zola I think has a ton of talent, and it is going to be me that holds her back if I don't concentrate on being better at handling.
Rene, Cedar and Zola
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)