January 15th & 16th 2011 Trial
Here is video of our runs! Apologies they are not that great, my mom was camerawoman again and until I can train her to record better, this is what we get!
Pretty happy with our runs overall even though we only Q’d 2/4. His times (YPS) were good each run including the NQ runs. Not where I really want them and definitely not as fast as he can be, but it’s a definite improvement over a year ago.
His jumping was terrible in our first run but it started to improve through the next three runs. I can’t say I’m surprised since we haven’t been able to do hardly any practice. I got in a few days worth between finding out we were going to be in the trial and then getting just enough slick snow on the ground that he actually slipped and faceplanted – hard – Monday. Tuesday I took him to the chiropractor and he was out of alignment in his shoulder, elbow, and wrist, which he isn’t usually… and she said even his jaw was a little out of alignment. So no more practice for us after that because there was just enough snow on the ground to make it slick and I wasn’t going to risk him getting hurt. Also no more trials until Louisville in March so hopefully we’ll get enough of a thaw I can work with him and improve his jumping plenty before then.
Also, I don’t own a triple, and I need one. The triple in the standard run Sunday I knew was going to be a problem for him based on the angle AND the fact that the a-frame was right there like “hellooo, come run up me!!” and it turned out to be a problem for both his brother AND his dad too, so I’m not really surprised by that one – but the triple on Saturday shouldn’t really have happened, and if I owned one and we were able to practice with it, I would have had a Q that day. But oh well. I can’t do anything about it now except to build myself a triple and get to work.
I was sort of surprised Sunday when he decided to off-course to the a-frame instead of taking the dog walk. He used to love the a-frame, but we had an issue one time where a judge, wearing clothing that AKC highly recommends they do not wear, was standing RIGHT in his way by the a-frame and he refused it… and then developed buggies with the a-frame and refused it for multiple trials after that. So I was actually kind of glad to see him off-course to it. I know that sounds weird, but it’s the truth. I started laughing and telling him he was so bad, and when I brought him back and he tried to off-course it again I wanted to crack up hysterically. It was just so funny to me. And I know there are people out there who DIE when that stuff happens and get SOOOO mad at their dogs, and there I was going “You are SO bad, you bratface, bad bad bad,” and laughing. I know a lot of people were laughing at me but I’m sure there were people who were horrified that I was so amused by it all.
But the truth of it is that every time he does something like that – or like he did in Glen Carbon where he blew his down contact on the dog walk – I can’t do anything but laugh, because it symbolizes a return to the dog he used to be. As long as he is running with joy, I can’t be angry. We’ve been through too much and worked too hard to get him to start returning to that joyful dog that every sign I get that he is developing into the dog I want him to be, even if it’s “bad,” even if it costs us Q’s, is a reason for ME to be joyful too, ribbons be damned.
And even if it takes us five years to snag the QQ’s we need for a PAX – or even if we never manage it – if I can’t get us there with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts, then it’s just not worth it.
Um… uh-oh!
I entered an agility trial, but I sent my entry in pretty late… with the holidays and all, I kept forgetting. I ended up on the wait list, and then the trial closed, but they were keeping a post-closing wait list. I didn’t specifically ask to be on the post-close wait list, so I figured I just didn’t get in and kind of forgot about it.
Well, I just got an e-mail – and we ARE in. OMG. It’s not this coming weekend, but the next one. I don’t even have a hotel booked. I need to find somebody to cover the football game at work if I’m going. OMG OMG OMG. And besides one day last week when we had a really nice warm-up and everything melted and thawed, I haven’t hardly done ANYTHING agility-wise with Auggie.
$&@*%)@%@**@)(@)$@!!!!
(In all seriousness though, I’m EXCITED that we can go trial again. And I asked Auggie if he wanted to “go agility” and he flipped out.)
Agility today – Bloomington, May 29-31st 2010
I am having a hard time putting it into words.
First of all, we had a three day agility trial, Saturday-Monday. On Saturday, Auggie got the last Q for his OJP so I moved him up into Excellent A JWW. It was a surreal feeling to finally be able to move my dog into Excellent. I asked J if she could think of a good reason not to move him up, and she couldn’t think of one, and I couldn’t either… so up he went.
On Sunday, he got his first ever Excellent Q.
Today he also Q’d in Excellent Jumpers, so that’s TWO already down towards him AJP – but that’s not really the highlight of the day.
He had no Q’s in Open Standard all weekend. Saturday he didn’t even really run. He went back to the start twice because I’m 99% sure he thought I threw hot dog down on the ground and he wanted to go back and eat it (he saw me throw his leash down.) So I just pulled him and didn’t run.
Sunday he went past the table and then froze next to it and stood there smelling it for probably 30 seconds. He would NOT get on the table. So finally I passed it by and went on. The buzzer then sounded for max time, so I turned, yelled for him, and made a mad dash for the last obstacle, which happened to be a tire. Auggie took off with me. And it was beautiful. Top speed running and a gorgeous jump through the tire.
He gets a pass for Sunday, because it was REALLY hot all weekend and he tried, but it was too hot – and also because we suspect there was a bitch in heat being run out there and she got on the table, and that’s why all these dogs (including Auggie, of COURSE) kept smelling it obsessively.
But today.
Today, for one thing, I almost put him over the wrong jump. He wasn’t really coming with me, and finally I realized I was asking him to come over the wrong jump. Oops. LOL.
Then he came off the a-frame… and nearly off-coursed to the dog walk. I yelled “Auggie… Auggie… AUGGIE DON’T YOU DARE.” Everybody laughed hysterically (I think even the judge laughed) but he DID come back to me. Then he blew past the table and took his sweet time coming back to me.
So I had been thinking… if he was screwing around, if he knocked a bar, if he was off coursing… I was just going to kick it into high gear, run as fast as I could, and he either kept up or he didn’t. So he was sitting on the table and I was looking at him thinking there’s no way we had a Q going, what with the two delays as well as a refusal at the table, and I thought “Okay you bratface. Now you’re really gonna get it.”
The judge finished the table count and I flung him into the weaves. Through the weaves.
Then I ran.
This is, in theory, a bad thing to do to Auggie, because if I get too far out he panics, thinks he needs to catch up, jumps WAY early, and tends to crash jumps because he’s freaking out trying to catch up. I blew a Q one weekend because I started running fast to the end, and before he even took off I realized what I was doing and what it, in turn, would do to Auggie – and sure enough, he crashed the last jump on the course and I could kick myself for blowing that Q!
But it’s just what I decided to do today. I wasn’t worrying about the Q because he’d already blown it for me.
So we leave the weaves, and Auggie comes over the triple jump. I pretty much expected he’d crash it. Except he didn’t. And then he zips into the chute. And I was yelling for him to come out of the end of the chute and waiting a half-second to help him get over the next jump – his breeder was watching and says he beat me to the jump, he came zipping out of that chute so fast. Next was the dog walk and I am bellowing “WALK IT WALK IT GO GO GO GO GO” and I’m racing him to the end of the dog walk. I beat him to the bottom. He comes down the dog walk and I gave him just enough time to hit his down contact, then I turn, and it’s basically a straight line of three jumps to the finish line… and I’m sprinting it.
And oh my God, here comes Auggie, right with me. Like a bolt of lightning, he is FLYING, and he’s jumping, and it’s awesome.
We didn’t Q.
But he didn’t drop a single bar.
And it was amazing. I keep thinking about it and I want to cry. Auggie used to run like that. The first time we ever ran, I staggered out of the ring with him in my arms and I heard some person say “One day, that dog is going to be awesome.” But he has had so many roadblocks and has taken so many confidence hits that he doesn’t run like that anymore, and I’m left trying to figure out how to restore my dog’s confidence so I can try to regain some of what he used to have. And today, I saw it, right next to me. My little dog broke free and for just a moment he was the dog he used to be. And he was awesome, and I am so proud of him and I don’t CARE that we didn’t Q.
Because now I know that the little dog who will be awesome some day is still MY little Auggie. That dog is still inside of him. I just have to figure out how to unleash it and unleash it all the time.
And today I really, honestly believe it again… that one day, my little dog is going to be awesome.
Here’s the video.
Susan Salo Jumping 1
I haven’t totally abandoned all thought of the Natural Jumping program, but I got both the beginning and advanced jumping DVD’s by Susan Salo for Christmas. So right now I’m learning another method and exploring it. So far I can say that the Natural Jumping program is a very clear regiment of “do this on this day; do this on that day,” and so on and so forth. Susan Salo gives you the tools for your toolbox and you are sort of left to decide which tool you should use when. The disadvantage of this is that somebody who doesn’t know (like me) could easily end up using the screwdriver when they should still be drilling holes.
Obviously there are probably people who would prefer just being given the tools and left to their own devices; personally I liked being able to look at the book and know exactly what to work on with my dog and which point. My plan is to actually try and write up a schedule for myself to try to keep us on track.
Today is the first day I have begun to put into practice training with Susan Salo’s methods (not counting the set-point exercises I’ve been doing since last week and do not have video of.) Today I set up a straight line equal distance grid and worked Auggie through it a few times. It consists of five jumps, set 5′ apart, with the bars at 8″. It went… well… it went I guess.
Here’s video:
Watching these, I think I’m setting him up way too close to the jump. He’s supposed to take one step and then jump… I’m setting him up so close that he’s basically popping out of his sit and over the jump. Ouch. So that is my fault. I’m pretty sure his one-stride on the second and third runs there is a result of that. Not really sure what happened towards the end there where he strides on jump three.
I took a LOT of notes while watching the Beginning Jumping DVD and I need to go back to them to remind myself about troubleshooting and see what I might do here. I think the first thing to do is to drop the bars down to 4″ and work him for a few days at that height… see how he reacts.
Obviously Auggie has major jumping problems and it’s going to take a ton of work to help him one way or another.
I will say that Auggie was REALLY EXCITED to see a jump chute set up again. He kept blowing his sit-stays because he was so super excited to get through these. I don’t know. It’s weird. His confidence isn’t 100% even in the jump chutes but he seems to LOVE jumping. My mom would tell me about times last year when he would go to the back of the yard where I set up the jump chutes and he’d pace around crying and whining at her, because he wanted her to set up the chute so he could go work it.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 10
Week 10 is the beginning of the Problem Solving stage of the jumping program. This stage introduces one stride lengths, bounce distances, long and short strides, and higher verticals and bigger oxers throughout the different weeks. This is where a dog really starts to learn to look ahead and THINK about what is ahead of him rather than just rely on muscle memory to jump the same way every time. During the problem solving weeks, the setup changes each lesson whereas previously all three lessons in a week were the same. However, Clothier doesn’t want you to move on until a dog has basically mastered each lesson. Some dogs might need additional practice rather than just one day/series of six jumps to master a lesson. Auggie needed more practice on lesson 3 in this series… unfortunately, I forgot and moved on to week 11 without really allowing him to master that lesson.
This video shows lesson one, lesson two, and lesson three of week 10. The patterns are different every day and can be found in the book. Week 10 is about teaching one stride lengths, which for Auggie is 45 inches. You’ll see there are still oxers and verticals mixed in, and that jump distances change between two stride lengths and one stride lengths.
As you can see, day three (I should have changed my terminology to lesson three – sorry) is a hot mess more than once. The good news is that Auggie seems to be getting a real kick out of the jumping program anyway, even though the distances between jumps keep changing! And having fun is what it’s all about.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 9
So week 9 is five oxers. No more single bar jumps… every jump in the chute is an oxer.
He does really well navigating smoothly over all five oxers, getting a nice arc over them. Unfortunately he also keeps up with that pattern of stutter-stepping the last jump a majority of the time. Still not sure why he does that. I experimented some with putting a target after the last jump, hoping it might drive him over the jump and remove that stutter-step… didn’t work. So I’m still not sure on the “why” of how he reacts with that final jump.
September 19th & 20th Trial
Somebody needs to tell Auggie he’s doing it wrong.
This past weekend, I was glad to be back at our local club for the trial. It’s a site we’ve been to many many times, a place I’m comfortable at, and a place I feel like Auggie is comfortable at. I was hoping he would be more relaxed as far as some of his recent issues with the a-frame were concerned, hoping he would have fun, and hoping we might go home with a couple ribbons.
Saturday was a bit of a hairy mess. We didn’t even get started running Novice until after 4PM in the afternoon… and Auggie and I had rolled in around 10AM to set up and hang out with everybody. It was also a sunny day and a bit warm due to the sun; more than once I found Auggie huddled up in the back of his crate trying to catch air from his crate fan.
So when we got out there for our JWW run, he wasn’t totally feeling it. He slowed to a walk through the tunnel about halfway through, and as we entered the weave poles, he stopped entirely and stuck his nose to the ground. Augh! Something smelled quite good and he was no longer interested in me. Attention Auggie: this is not earthdog. This is agility. After several attempts and trying to get his attention back, I waved at the judge and carried my bad little puppy off the course. Snotbucket!
I sat outside the ring and mulled things over in my head. He was still so pokey. What’s his deal? His breeder offered that his confidence might still be shaken from everything he’s had to deal with as far as his jump height going up and down all over the place. Would I ever be able to restore his confidence? I wasn’t sure. And if I can’t restore that confidence, I might just resign to playing with Auggie in the backyard instead of competing.
And then we had to run Standard.
The course was set up in a pretty straight line. Jump, jump, a-frame, jump, tunnel.
Auggie would see that a-frame, and, God willing, that would be the end of the story. If I could just get him to run straight up the a-frame, everything else after that was secondary.
I decided not to even bother putting him in a sit. I was just going to drop him and take off running. I’ve seen people do that before, so why not? Maybe having him in a sit was screwing with his momentum.
So I put him down. And I took off and he came with me. And I yelled and screamed and drove that dog like crazy.
And he went up the a-frame.
I was roaring and screaming and yelling the whole time. Angels sang a chorus of Hallelujah.
And then I pushed him off the entrance to the tunnel.
Hahahahaha! Oh well. Other than that, he ran great, even did his weaves flawlessly (presumably to make up for his total disaster over on JWW.) Even with the one refusal, we got a Q! Awesome!
Sunday was not a very good day as far as the weather went. I decided I would go out early on and watch the excellent runs, and then leave during Open, pick up Auggie, and bring him back with me so he wouldn’t be out there for so long during the day. Shortly after I arrived, we got caught in a good downpour of rain. Lovely. The ground got nice and wet, then the sun came out and looked like it might at least dry up the obstacles.
Then I left to get Auggie and it rained some more. And then I sat there and it rained and rained and rained. Eventually, the rain was just there to stay. I was glad that I invested in my ASICS for the sole purpose (haha, get it?) of running in wet, muddy conditions. Auggie, however, does not have shoes that are specially made for running in wet, muddy conditions. He just has little feetsies that sometimes slip.
Oh well. If he knocked bars or anything, I wouldn’t blame him. I figured we would just go out and see what happened, and if it looked bad, I would pull him.
Well, he didn’t slip and he didn’t knock any bars, but he off-coursed twice. Once was my fault, the second time, he was too busy going “LALALALA THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER LALALALALA!” At least I can’t say he wasn’t enjoying the game anymore at that point, because the look of joy had obviously returned to his face, and surprisingly, despite the weather, his speed was back as well.
So on we went to standard. He went straight up the a-frame again – bliss! He came out of the tunnel and I pushed him off the broad jump… then oops, I let him back jump it, getting us a wrong course as well as a refusal. Then we came to the weave poles and… Auggie disappeared on me at pole four. Doot doot de doo, he went to go check out the sandbags they had holding the dog walk down. I stood there calling him back… he started to come back, and then went “Oh hey, a-frame!” I distinctly remember going “AUGGIE DON’T YOU DARE.” LOL. He came back to me again.
I was THIS CLOSE to blowing off the run. I thought we’d had too many refusals, wrong courses, and now we were way over time. There was no way it would be a Q.
But in my head I heard his breeder’s voice, and what she always tells me. “Fix it. Whatever happens, just fix it.”
So I fixed it. It took me a while because I had to back him up a few times to help him get the entry correct, but we fixed it. And then on we went, up the teeter, through the tunnel, over the dog walk (where I practically had a heart attack because he looked for a moment like he was going to slip off it), and then through the last tire jump.
“That should be a Q,” his breeder told me after the run.
“Oh, there’s no way. That took forever. We had to be way over time.”
“No,” she says, “I think that’s a Q.”
So I packed up the car, then waited around some more… and what do you know.
That was a Q.
In fact, we were really good as far as time went. We would have Q’d even if we were playing regular agility!
And that means that in four days of trialing Auggie got his NAP.
The same dog that took me TEN TRIES to get a single Q towards his NA.
You have to be kidding me.
So there you have it. We’ve gotten a jumpers title now, and a standard title. Just, sadly, not all at the same time, LOL. We’re still in Novice Jumpers until we get those 2 more Qs towards his NJP. I have to decide if I want to move him up into Open Standard or not.
Auggie’s Return to Agility
I make it sound so overly dramatic… we really only took about a month and a half off, LOL.
First, I packed up my bag and an overnight bag for Auggie…
…and off we went. A little late, actually, which resulted in a frantic call from his breeder going “hey are you here because… you need to be here!!” I pulled in, loaded out Auggie’s crate, ran off to walk the course and listen to the briefing, ran off again to get my armband, ran Auggie to the warm-up jump and got him limbered up, then in to run JWW.
I was panicking. I felt awful. I had it in my head that we would get out there and he would go “Mmmmmeh… I don’t really want to do this.” I was all prepared to burst into tears on the course that my dog didn’t want to do agility anymore and I had to retire him and and and
I honestly thought I might pass out. I was trying to do some deep breathing to relax (and to stop the OH GOD GONNA PASS OUT feeling) but nothing was helping.
I put Auggie at the start line and decided against a lead out – while thinking I would black out at any moment and konk my head on the standard and I would get a concussion and it would be horrible – so I just ran with him. He came with me and sailed over the first jump.
Whew. Suddenly I can breathe again.
Then the next jump, and then the next. Another jump and another and another – front cross, jump jump jump… into the tunnel, over some jumps, and smoothly into the weaves, smoothly THROUGH the weaves, jump, jump, jump… oh my God, it’s honestly been so long since we’ve had a clean run.
We had a clean run. And… oh my God. We just Q’d. Oh my God.
There was a pretty long gap between our JWW and standard run so we just hung out and relaxed for a while. Standard has been our enemy from the first time we started trialing. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Resolve the issue of missing contacts, then it’s the fact that he doesn’t want to hit the brakes to get up on the table WITHOUT flying off, THEN try to resolve the off-coursing to a contact (*headdesk repeatedly*)
Now the issue is that he has developed a judge issue with the a-frame. And the name of the judge who caused this issue is a name firmly on my List (and the List of several other competitors from this and the other trial, might I add, but I digress.) So he gave me a refusal there. But PRAISE GOD, I backed him up and he took it the second time. Hurray!! So that’s an improvement.
Some darn weave buggies that are largely my fault (the weaves were after a jump, but on either side before the weave entry was a tunnel off-course and the a-frame, Auggie’s favourite off-course, and even though he refused it before it would be just my luck that he’d off-course onto it. =P so I was SO GLAD he got past the off-courses I don’t think I was handling him right through the weaves, LOL. I’m a dork.)
The hilarity of the day: Auggie came over the double jump and went wide. Very wide. So wide he decided to slid under the folding chair that the bar setter was seated in. Then he came scooting back to me and jumped over the last jump. Everybody outside the ring was dying with laughter, going “He wanted extra points! Extra points for the chair obstacle!” He just saw that chair there and thought it was part of the course I guess, LOL. No real “visiting” because he didn’t actually care about the spotter. I have no idea. My dog is hilarious.
I had no idea what our time was. Did we make it? I just didn’t know. I kept telling everybody, “I don’t know if we Q’d. I have no idea. The time might have been too much.” The full-stop before the a-frame and all the time I wasted fixing the weaves might have put us too far over.
The placements/ribbons weren’t out yet but this club was giving people a copy of their scribe sheet, so I went to go peek at the scribe sheet. And then I walked back to our little tent and acted all casual about it.
“Well?? Well??”
“Ask Auggie what a Double Q feels like,” I said.
High fives all around, lots of celebrating, and Auggie got some more cookies for no good reason, LOL. This is our first ever Double Q, and even though it counts for absolutely nothing, it’s a big deal for me. Way to make your return to agility, Auggie.
Off we went to the hotel after that where we ordered some Chinese and crashed out on the bed and just hung out all night.
Couldn’t figure out for sure where to put his crate. I settled on the little corner AWAY from the door, but not totally crammed into the corner under the sink. This is before I brought in his pillow from the car (I had to make a few trips.)
Auggie in his crate.
Snuffling and pouting in his crate. It stormed so I put him in the crate to mellow out while it thundered. He was Not Happy.
Snoozing out on the floor later; after it quit storming I let him back out.
And hanging out on the bed with me. Yes, he did use that pillow. This is why you should always bring your own pillowcases to hotels, people… LOL.
Later, he thought that the spot underneath the bedside table would make an awesome place to crash.
He was unhappy when I told him he couldn’t sleep there all night. Sniffle sniffle.
On the second day, I blew our JWW run with us. He hadn’t even taken off for the triple jump yet, but I already knew he wasn’t going to make it. He’ll try to beat me over jumps and 99% of the time, that means he isn’t going to clear the bar. Well, I pushed it and he tried to beat me over the jump, so he crashed the last bar. The crowd all went “OHHH” because, well, of course they didn’t have my foresight so they hadn’t known before he even took off that he wasn’t going to clear the jump. =P I walked out of the ring and somebody said to me, “He still ran beautifully, though!” and I was like “Yeah, that was ALLLL my fault!” Bad mommy. Bad handler. Bad.
Standard we encountered the a-frame issue again, but this time when I backed him up he really TORE over the a-frame like he was back in his element, loving his favourite obstacle again. I screwed up again and he didn’t clear the broad jump, so when we had issues at the weave poles (which I anticipated in my walkthrough and figured I’d just have to try our best to make it through), I tried to fix it a few times and then decided, eh, who cares, we already NQd. Forget it, just let him sail over the last jump and end it on a good note.
So no Qs on Monday, but overall, an awesome weekend.
My job always seems so very mundane after a weekend at an agility trial.
I wanted to take some pics of Auggie with his ribbons and decided I was for sure taking them by…
Giant Lincoln. Anybody who’s ever been to the Illinois State Fairgrounds has probably seen this in person and they know I’m not kidding when I say it’s a GIANT Lincoln.
SERIOUSLY giant. LOL teeny tiny Auggie.
I wanted to get Auggie in the foreground, then tilt the camera and get Giant Lincoln in the background… I couldn’t get the shot. Giant Lincoln was too darn giant.
My pretty boy. =>
And yes, the ribbons are red, that means they are 2nd place ribbon. Wanna know who took first?
As expected, MACH4 Granny smoked us. ;> REALLY smoked us. She doesn’t want to slow down, apparently, LOL. It’s all a-okay though, red is Auggie’s colour so I’m fine with that! Looks like we’re both gonna be chasing the PAX together. I’m looking forward to it.
So there you have it. On the 19th & 20th we’re back at it in our local club, which I think will be a really good weekend… but we’ll see. The moral of this story is that Auggie kicked butt and he CLEARLY is digging agility again, even in a trial environment. And that he’s a big rock star. That is all.
Oh, I forgot to mention: This was the first time that we have ever been at a trial where they had two rings going at the same time. Auggie really doesn’t give a crap about what’s going on outside the ring, but he’s never competed in a place where there are people issuing commands in the other ring. It didn’t throw him off at all, though. Good boy Auggie!
Agility Trial Packing List
I know you can find a BUNCH of these online, but I thought this might be fun. In anticipation of our agility trial this weekend – one where I will actually be staying overnight in a hotel with Auggie, for the first time EVER (so excited!!) – I have been thinking a lot about what I need to remember. Local trials are no big deal, because a) nothing I have forgotten could be that big of a deal Or b) I live about ten minutes from the trial site so I could just run home to grab something. But when I’m driving an hour or more away, it feels a little more tense and I have to try and remember everything.
First, we’ll start with the goodies that are always in my car! I have an organizer in my trunk that holds:
– two beach towels
– a small container of clamp-style clothespins to pin the towels to the crate in case of a windy day
– a spill-proof water dish… this dish actually foiled my mom once, who couldn’t figure out how to take the lid off and so was going “HOW DO YOU DUMP THE WATER OUT OF THIS THING???” It really is pretty darn spill-proof.
– a crate fan
– two collapsible beach chairs
– soft-sided travel crate; Auggie rides in this whenever I drive around
– my extra PetEdge brush
– a ropey-bone and a tennis ball
– a stadium blanket
Easy enough. I always have to double-check to make sure the water dish and towels are in the car before I go, because on occasion I pull them out to wash, but they are generally already packed into the car.
Then, the far longer list of Dog Things I have to load into the car:
– wire crate
– crate pillow
– cookie treats
– First Aid kit; has in it Benadryl (already cut into halves, per the dosage Auggie would need to take), Traumeel (anti-inflammatory), styptic pads, a thermometer, petroleum jelly, and gauze wrap
– poop bags
– my Clean Run Humane Slip Lead – this is the only thing I use at trials now since the recent AKC rule that a dog must be on lead when they come into the ring and on lead before you leave the ring. I take Auggie’s collar (which has his tags attached) off when we get to the trial now and just use the slip lead at the trial. (Yes, this means my dog runs naked.)
– a bottle of water
For this trial I will also be bringing along some collapsible bowls and dog food, since we’ll be overnighting… as well as a cuddly or two to put in his crate in the hotel.
For humans, I bring:
– cooler with drinks… I typically drink soda but I always make sure to bring plenty of water for myself as well as Auggie, because if you need to rehydrate quickly, water will do it whereas soda won’t. But I also like my Mt. Dew and cannot beat my caffeine addiction, so, there you go.
– snacks
– my own first aid kid. For me this includes a contact lense case with solution already in it, a pill case packed with Aleve, Ibuprofen, and Immodium, a couple of my prescription migraine meds, foot cramp meds, some bandaids, and sunscreen
– a change of clothes should weather turn on you… for me this usually means I dress in layers AND bring along a coat, jacket, sweatshirt, whatever
– camera if you like to videotape your runs… MAKE SURE YOUR MEMORY STICK IS IN IT and has room to capture your runs.
– extra batteries for the camera, just in case
There you go… that’s what I lug with me. I usually throw a lot of things into a tote bag or two, so it takes two trips to get everything to my trial spot. Crate and the dog comes first, then I go back to the car and snag everything else!
Return to Natural Jumping
Well, I’m cheating it. I know, I know – I have the book, I have read it, I KNOW it says not to cheat and move any faster than she recommends. And I’m cheating it anyway.
As part of our effort to start over in Preferred, I have made a return to the Clothier Natural Jumping Method. Now that I know Auggie’s height (in preferred, for now, anyway) is 12, and I know that we really need to stick with that, I made a plan of how to continue.
And that is to just move the bars up to 12 for the rest of the method.
I DID back up some. I went to the final week of the rhythm lessons, where you have five regular jumps, evenly spaced, and did that for two days.
So here are your videos!
Jumps 4 and 5 are call throughs rather than run bys. On Jump 6, I cut out the less than spectacular shot of my butt running away from the camera, but I ran him through the chute going away from the camera, then turned him around at the end and ran him back up. He was nice and smooth, both ways!
So far, so good!
It’s real now…
I just filled out some entry forms putting Auggie into Novice Preferred.
I’m not really sure how I feel, but I just don’t feel very good right now. I know this is the right thing to do but I have a serious case of the bummers all of a sudden. I guess part of it is the feeling of starting over back in Novice… the other part is still the tiny niggling in the back of my head, no matter how silly it might have been to hope for with my first ever agility dog, is the giving up on the MACH dream.
I’ll get over it. I’m also feeling excited to get back out there and hopefully have Auggie enjoying agility again. I’m sure once we have a nice run things will feel differently.
It just doesn’t feel so great right now.
The Aug
This weekend was not a very good agility weekend. I am concerned at this point that Auggie is no longer having fun at trials. He was incredibly slow on Saturday, and Sunday he tried to leave the ring during standard. He has never left the ring on me – I think he just wanted to let me know that he was done.
The 16 inch jump heights are too much for him. This trial was also indoor and the unusual mats were giving a lot of dogs problems – I think the combined effect was just too much for Auggie.
We have decided to give him a break. Our agility practices will stop; instead I will start playing around with herding, something I’ve wanted to do anyway. When we go back to agility, we will start running in preferred. The jump heights will go back down to 12 inches at that point. It does mean that I am basically giving up my single NA and single OAJ leg in order to pursue an NJP and NAP. We will still HAVE our NAJ but we need to start over with preferred agility rather than having that grandfather us into Open Preferred.
But it also means that this may bring the joy back to the game for Auggie, which is what is really important.
The good thing about preferred is that you can switch back and forth between preferred and regular agility. If we are ever able to challenge his measurement and get a new height card that puts him at the correct height, we would be able to switch back to regular agility.
So, well… there you have it.
I hopefully will soon post with some herding photos/videos.
Taking a break
Today was a really not-great agility day. It is far better than my worst agility day ever, when I spent half the day in tears, but it wasn’t that great.
Auggie did fantastic, he really did. The problems we had weren’t his fault – they weren’t even really mine.
But his course times were horrible. Ridiculously slow. We finished JWW and my mom said “What time did he have to beat?? He got 60.”
“SIXTY? He had to beat Forty-FOUR.”
Honestly, he was practically walking the courses. I do think it was mostly the matting inside the club (we are indoors – this is only our second indoor trial ever) because he went into a tunnel, and when I saw him coming out the other end he was running like a rocket. He was up on the side of the tunnel he was coming through it so fast. But once he hit the mats again, he was like “oh.” and the switch turned back off.
I sent a very very long e-mail to J because she asked me to e-mail her and tell me how today went. I told her everything that happened and all the possibilities, what I thought went wrong, and what I was wondering and afraid of… that is, that Auggie is no longer enjoying agility. And after some feedback from other agility folks, I asked her if she thought we should maybe take a break or something… just for a while.
Her response is that we have plenty of other things to play in, maybe we will switch to herding for a while… and she thinks we should start running him in preferred. That will drop his jump height down back to where it should be and also give him more time in the SCTs.
And now I agree. In May, when the judge measured us high, I cried all the way home. I didn’t want to drop my dog to preferred. I felt like it was giving up on him. I wanted him to run regular agility. I wanted to MACH him! I knew he could do it, because he has – he got his NAJ, he got that running 16, so he CAN do it! I decided that as long as I still felt that way, dropping him to preferred wasn’t a good idea. I knew that, if it ever became the right thing to do, I would know it, and I wouldn’t feel that hesitation anymore.
Today I no longer have that hesitation… today I know that dropping him into preferred is the right thing to do. I am still very sad at the idea of giving up on MACH Auggie… but, as J reminded me, he is my FIRST agility dog. And he has so many things against him right now.
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose.
We could still get a PAX. We could still go to nationals (they allow Preferred dogs to run at nationals since last year.) Same goals… just different. This will drop his jump height back down and give us more time if he doesn’t rev up. If he DOES rev up… or if we CAN fix the jump card issue… we can always make the decision later to move him back out of preferred and pick up right where we left off.
In the meantime… looks like for our next trial, we are going to be starting totally fresh in novice. Chasing a NAP and NJP now. Well, I guess when I sat at today’s trial thinking “Golly, I wish I were in Novice Jumpers again! That course looks so EASY!” little did I know.
MANY UPDATES
When did I last update this thing? I have no idea.
What has happened in the meantime:
Next to nothing. We had another agility trial hosted by the same club as the one I previously posted about, and it only solidified my decision to never, ever, ever go to a trial hosted by this club again. It was terrible. I saw things on the Novice Jumpers course that no judge in their right mind should have had in a novice course. It was just terrible. If that were my first trial I would have thought “This s**t is too hard” and quit agility forever. Really. Some challenges are necessary, I agree, but when there are things that make a course flat out DANGEROUS – no matter if it’s Novice, Open, or Excellent – there’s a real problem.
We have received our official jump height card and I am not happy with the measurement. I have heard rumors that you can no longer challenge, but don’t know if this is true. If it’s not true and you can still challenge, you better believe I’m challenging.
Regardless, we have been practicing with jump heights at 16 in the meantime, and we’re doing pretty good. I’m very happy with the clearance Auggie’s been giving me.
I have not been doing a lot more work in the jumping program, because the weather has been disgusting – rain 5-6 days a week, and one sunny day that is usually insufferably hot; that one sunny day we have been taking advantage of to scoot off to Auggie’s breeder’s house for agility practice, so the jumping chute on the same day would be too much for him, IMHO. I am hoping the weather improves, and I think I may actually start the program completely over again using 16 inch jump heights.
Meanwhile, the agility trial I went to also offered rally, so I went ahead and entered rally both days. We didn’t place the first day, and got second the second day (some other guy beat our time by a second or two, and also Auggie kept trying to high-five me instead of down, so I’m pretty sure that is what happened with our score, LOL.)
Regardless of placing, we did Q both days – so Auggie now has his RN. Hurray Auggie!
This coming weekend we are doing a little indoor trial. We are two legs away from our NA and two away from our OAJ, so if he has a stellar weekend… well, I will just pee my pants with joy. I’m hoping to at least come away with one Q each after the weekend is over and done with.
I haven’t been doing our Natural Jumping program. I got thrown off with bad weather, an intense summer course, and a vacation. I’m unsure now if I want to actually start back over at week 1 at 16 inch jump heights and let him work through it, or what I want to do. Being unsure of where to start again is holding us back for sure. I think I will see how this weekend goes, and then maybe get started again next week.
Auggie has started DOGGIE DAYCARE as of last Wednesday. He’s doing really well. Hopefully I will be able to get some pics in the coming weeks and post some cute Auggie-playing-with-other-dogs photos. =>
Uhhhh I think that’s it. I’ll try to remember to update this thing more often.
Finally… finally!
I am very happy to say that, as of yesterday, I was finally able to change the sidebar to read that we only need TWO legs towards our NA title…
Yes, finally, finally, after ten tries, Auggie qualified in Novice Standard. SCT was 74 and Auggie’s time was 74.42; he ran up to the table and then stopped to just stare at it so got a refusal, so our score was 95.
I am SO PROUD of my little guy. Saturday we had a pretty rough day at the trial… the surface was TERRIBLY muddy, full of potholes, and the grass was that nasty, stiff stuff that you sit down on and it feels like you might as well be sitting on nails. Not to mention we got measured into 16 again because he stood on the measuring table so terrified he was trembling. Sigh.
But he made up for it on Sunday with a really great performance in JWW (NQ) and his fabulous qualifying run in Standard, proving once again that he can take just about everything in stride and bust it out, to boot.
We drove home blasting “Bad to the Bone.” I also was singing “baaad to the bone… baaad to the bone… b-b-b-b-bad… b-b-b-b-bad…” to him while holding him at the start line for standard while the bar setters were finishing raising the height on the table. I’m pretty sure the volunteer sitting near the start line could hear me and she must have thought I was nuts, but hey… it seems to have worked!
And would you believe it – I completely forgot to put his target out and practice with it before we went in the ring, but he STILL performed every one of those contacts excellently.
April 25th & 26th Trial
I have jumping videos still to edit and post, but this weekend we had our first agility trial of the season, so I thought I’d go ahead and update what happened.
First, I will say that I was excited to see the weather was going to be WARM this weekend. Last April, we were huddled up under blankets and still freezing, so this was going to be a nice change. Unfortunately, this spring has been VERY windy, and this weekend was no different, with winds 25-35 MPH both days.
On Saturday, we got our first leg in Open Jumpers! We had a hiccup at the weave poles which cost me a refusal and some time, so I got a score of 93 and second place. I don’t own my own set of 12 weave poles, so the only change Auggie has had to practice them is out at J’s house, and thus he wasn’t exactly used to powering through 12. He popped out at pole 10, and I had to put him back through the last two (I chose NOT to go back to the beginning because that would cost us even MORE time – right decision, as I was only two seconds over this way.) So it’s not really his fault. Plus FIRST LEG IN OPEN JUMPERS!!
Still no legs in standard and it’s almost entirely my fault. There were three jumps, then a tempting off-course dog walk… but the correct obstacle in the sequence was the a-frame. I SAW that dog walk and thought “golly, Auggie may want to take that.” I SHOULD have front-crossed after the third jump and put him up the a-frame.
But I ignored the little voice in my head. I thought “But he LOVES the a-frame!!”
Sure enough, Auggie went up that dog walk. I ran to the end and tried to pull him forward enough that he wouldn’t get stuck in his endless loop of dog walk THIS way, dog walk THAT way (SO FUN FOR AUGGIE… not fun for me) and failed. He turned around and took the dog walk back, and about halfway across the plank… the wind gusted up and my little dog got blown off the dog walk.
I grabbed him and waved at the judge, who told me I should put him through the tunnel at least to make it a good experience for him, so I put him through the tunnel and then celebrated like we just had the best run ever, and got the heck off that course.
So it was my fault he off-coursed onto the dog walk. But I can’t do a damn thing about those 35 MPH winds. Auggie was not the only dog blown off the dog walk, and for all we know he might have been blown off when he was SUPPOSED to be on the dog walk anyway.
He is okay; running, playing, jumping around as usual that night, but sure scared the crap out of me. We’re going to see a canine chiropractor hopefully sometime this week to have him checked out to make sure he didn’t twist anything, but he’s acting fine.
On Sunday, we actually got to run the full standard course – and Auggie only took the dog walk once (!!!) Also major breakthrough in that he did EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of his contacts with no problems. No off-courses, but a run out on Jump 2 (my fault) and a refusal on the tire – he was sniffing something interesting on the ground – and a refusal on the table, because I don’t tihnk he’s had to actually jump UP onto a table since… well, last trial in September, I guess? I really need to get my table built.
Anyway, the faults plus the time faults screwing around try to get him moving again/get him on the table put us waaay over. So here we are… four trials, eight runs in, and not a single Q in standard. There’s nothing else to do but laugh about it. I think I’ll fall to the ground sobbing with joy when we finally get a standard Q!
Open Jumpers Sunday was pretty good. I had a refusal on his weave entry – not totally sure what happened there, I’ll have to watch the video and see if it was my fault – and he popped out of the weaves again (adding “set of 12 weaves” to my list of stuff to build and work with.) I didn’t succeed in calling him off an off-course jump. I’m going to blame that on the again 25-35 MPH gusting winds and that he couldn’t hear me, because I THINK he heard me… but it was too late; I think he turned an eye over to me RIGHT before he was about to take the jump – like as he was already in motion to jump, he suddenly heard me and realized I wasn’t right beside him. Ah well. So again, faults plus some time fiddling around getting him through those weaves put us too far over to Q. We would have been SO GOLDEN except for those darn weaves! My fault entirely.
Strangely enough, this is the first time I haven’t had major ring nerves before we go out and run, and the first time I’ve really left the ring honestly feeling like “Meh! So we didn’t Q!” I’m not sure why. I kinda like this, though.
Our major goal, besides Auggie’s successful contacts when we actually got into standard (oh wind!), is that Auggie has apparently returned to my awesome little man, not dropping a single bar. That’s my guy. Aw yeah.
I jokingly asked Auggie why I was picturing us in Excellent Jumpers and still in Novice Standard.
Okay, maybe I’m not totally joking.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 8
For week 8, we move up to four oxers. The pattern is vertical, oxer, oxer, oxer, oxer. Jump heights are still set at 10 inches and distances are still 90 inches for Auggie’s two-stride length per the calculations in the book.
He learns a lot faster in this video than he has in previous weeks. By the last jump in day 1 he’s running smooth and fast – save the last jump, which he still stuttersteps up to. On day 2 he drops a few bars, but notably, during jump 5 he actually doesn’t stutterstep up to the last jump! I have no idea what the difference is, because he goes back to doing it in the next jump and during all of day 3. WEIRD DOG.
Hopefully time will even out the issue here. I’m the kind of person who likes to know the “why” behind stuff though so I’d really like to know WHY he is still stutterstepping the final jump and only the final jump. I may never know, but I would LIKE to know, haha.
Agility Update
The weather has gotten a little better, and last week we managed to get out to J’s house twice and work outside – practice we desperately needed since our first trial is coming up in a few weeks here.
First, the jumping is going pretty well. His confidence is pretty good and he was taking the 12 inch jumps outside nicely, better judging his take off points. This week in our jumping program we are entering the Problem Solving phase, which may prove pretty challenging. I’m nervous about it, because I don’t want to really shake Auggie’s confidence right before a trial, but I feel like we need to just keep pushing forward and hope for the best. What else can we do?
There will be a VMO present at our trial at the end of this month, and I’m desperately hoping Auggie is thinking short that day… nothing to do but hope for the best.
Second, we got to put the target on the full height a-frame for the first time and it went SPLENDID. He really gets the idea of driving to the bottom now rather than hopping off halfway down. I’m hoping we continue to have success with that in the weeks that come and his bad habits don’t return.
J informed me that this spring we’ll be focusing on obstacle discrimination when it comes to things like a tunnel under an a-frame or dogwalk. “You’ll see that in open,” she tells me, as though she thinks we’ll soon be competing in open standard…
Let’s just get a SINGLE NA leg first, and then I can start worrying about open standard!
Anyway, I have many many many videos to edit and upload, and I will get on that soon, but finals are creeping up and I have been working on some large-ish projects that need to be completed… uh… well, Friday. So until I get a chance to really sit down and edit the videos, then post them all on YouTube, then write about it here… you’ll just have to believe me that Auggie did AMAZING on his last day of the series of five oxers!! Nice, even pacing, sailing over the jumps – just gorgeous!
Natural Jumping Method – Week 7
Week 7 is a series of five jumps with three oxers. The pattern is vertical, oxer, oxer, vertical, oxer.
LOTS of stutter-stepping as he tries to navigate this series. About halfway through day 2 he starts to even out as he figures out how to adjust, though during his fifth run he ends up stutterstepping WAY too close up to the bar and has to pop up over it… and if you pause it at just the right moment he’s making a hilarious face as a result. Day 3 goes pretty well, but I notice that he’s consistently stutterstepping up the last bar. I’m not really sure why that is – if it’s a matter of him not seeing another obstacle beyond the final jump, so he makes some kind of weird adjustment for some reason? I honestly can’t figure out why he would do this. It’s interesting, anyway.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 6
In week 6, you add another oxer. The pattern is jump, jump, oxer, jump, oxer. Since I had the pattern as jump, jump, oxer, jump, jump during week 5, I simple added my second oxer to the end of the chute. Hopefully that means my pattern during week 5 was correct!
Hey, check it out! My new fencing is up!
Let me explain exactly what is occurring during day one – the jumps are secondary to the other lesson that is going on here. Earlier that day, I learned some bad news and ended up having an anxiety attack (in the middle of work, to boot!) I came home that evening practically in pieces, stressed out, not sure how to deal with the situation I’d been handed.
I didn’t think about this when we went out to do our jumps.
Auggie completely and totally picked up on me being an emotional mess, and did not want to disconnect and go jump out away from me. I had to make a change in my emotional state to get him to go ahead (it helped that it was pretty funny that he pulled off the jumps like that to come back to me…) Clothier has you do two sets of three jumps with a fifteen minute break in the middle, so after the first three jumps and out break, I basically had to pull myself together and knock it off, or it was going to affect my dog and his performance.
This video really shows something about the relationship we have with our dogs, and how they can pick up on things and it changes their demeanor, their performance. Imagine if this were at an agility trial and we were working on a full course instead of just through a jump chute… he would NOT have been a happy Auggie if I were trying to put any kind of distance between us!
I ran out of SD card space on day 3 again so another clip is missing. During day 2 and 3, we have what looks like a serious setback here, because Auggie’s back to stutterstepping – a LOT. But at this point in my working relationship with Auggie, I know what’s going on here: the rules have changed so he has to figure it out again, and when the rules change, Auggie decides it’s better to resort to stutterstepping. That’s how we got to this problem in the first place.
I’m running with him or constantly moving in just about all of these runs because I’m watching his footing really closely. If you watch the day 2 video, you can see how his jumping changes even within the one video, within six runs. It’s kind of impressive, but again, I’m really hoping this is just a part of the learning process rather than being something where he’s not going to actually have confidence when it actually comes to an agility course where all you have is one shot to get it right. This is only week 6, we still have lots to learn, so no sense worrying about it yet.
(Oh yeah, and check out all my newly striped jumps in the day 3 video! I spent all Saturday afternoon with several rolls of multi-coloured tape, striping my standards and jump bars.)
Week 7 is three oxers. Ai yi!
Naturally Jumping Method – Week 5
Week 5 is the first week with oxers. An oxer is as wide as it is tall – in Auggie’s case, since we are still using 10 inch jump heights, this means I have two 10 inch jumps that span 10 inches. The book doesn’t tell you where to put the first oxer, so I guessed and put it as the third jump. All of the jumps are still spaced 90 inches apart; in this instance, jump 2 is 90 inches to the first bar for jump 3, there’s the 10 inch spacing between jump 3’s bars, and then from the second bar of jump 3 to jump 4 it’s another 90 inches. For the oxer stage of the program, that 90 inch spacing will stay constant.
It’s a bit hard for him to nagivate that oxer at first. I started putting our broad jump/spread jump word to it (“big jump”) after the first crash into it and he did better after that. This might be cheating because it requires me to be there cueing him to adjust for a larger jump, so he’s not really learning to look at the jump and just adjust on his own. But it makes sense for agility to me – competitors I know all use a word like “big jump” or “go big” for spread jumps, doubles, and triples to cue the dog “There’s a longer than usual jump coming up – adjust!”
During the second day, he crashes into the oxer the first time, but on jumps 2-6 he doesn’t make the same mistake again.
I don’t have day 3 videos because I screwed up with the camera. As the video says, the day went pretty much the same as the other two videos here, though.
Naturally Jumping Method – Week 4
Week 4 went pretty good! Moving the jump heights up to 10 inches didn’t seem to throw Auggie off much at all, so I’m glad. All of the jumps are still set at 90 inches apart.
During day 1, I ran with him on all of the jumps. Every now and then he does knock a bar… but Clothier says not to worry about dropped bars. She says it is a natural part of the process of re-learning how to jump and that every time they knock a bar it helps them think stuff over. I’m not sure why I don’t have all 6 jumps recorded – I must have had another issue with my memory card.
Day 2 was REALLY windy – apologies for my camera wrist strap blowing into the shot during one jump! I was worried the wind might throw Auggie off a little, but he did fine.
For day three… there is a reason I only have five jumps shown here and it’s not a memory card problem. But I’ll talk about the video itself first! My mom was operating the camera and she made a few observations. Auggie still stutter-steps up to the very first jump before he gets into the rhythm of the last four jumps. The first jump is the bar he usually knocks, as well – probably because of the inefficient jumping.
I tried a few other things with these jumps, including sending him ahead (wasn’t sure if he’d do that, but he did!) and standing right at the end to call him through. Usually when I call him through I’m standing back several feet and sometimes even run backwards as he approaches to build up his drive, so that was a little different for him – but he’s pretty much unphased by it, which is great!
Another thing I’ve been noticing is that he hugs the standard pretty tight. Clothier wants the dogs to run and jump in the middle of the jump, but because Auggie has done agility training for so long he has learned how to hug the standards and try to make things a little more efficient when it comes to turning, crossing, and so on. When I run with him or am behind him, he always takes the last jump right over the middle because he’s in the process of turning to me – if I’m right ahead of him, he doesn’t make that change and stays to the side, hugging the standard. I’m not exactly sure if I should be concerned with this or not. My instinct is to not be worried about it…
NOW… why there are only five jumps shown in the third day. My mom was working the camera for me that day because it was raining – just a light drizzle, but still raining, so I asked her if she would come out and stand over the camera with an umbrella so my camera wouldn’t get wet.
Right before we did our sixth jump, it started POURING down rain. I’m standing there going “Oh holy crap – hurry Auggie, hurry, go through the jumps!” I’m flailing around with training treats in my hand, trying to get him back into the channel to run through the chute, and for a split second Auggie stands there, tries to blink the rain out of his eyes… gives me a Look, and proceeds to run back to the house – leaving me standing out in the pouring (did I mention it was COLD RAIN?!) rain, yelling “YOU GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE BRAT AND DO THOSE JUMPS!!!”
Thus, there are only five jumps in the video… because Auggie was standing up on the deck wanting to go inside and refused to come out and jump one last time.
Here, have a picture of my dog, after I came in and toweled off my hair and had to change my clothes because I was soaked through.
Look how proud he is of himself. Brat brat brat BRAT! He later asked to go outside, and when I opened the door and informed him it was still raining, he proceeded to go out in the still pouring rain and prance around going “La la la, I’m playing in the rain, la la la~” BRAAAAAAT!
Oh yeah – I bought a ton of PVC and spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon in the garage, listening to it thunderstorm outside and cutting pipes down. The two jumps at the beginning are my “Junior AKC” jumps from Toys R Us, and are now four feet wide, so they match the rest of my jumps (finally!) and I am now all set to add additional bar jumps to create an oxer for the coming weeks of the jumping series. I need to break out my coloured tape and start striping stuff again!
Sadly, it is quite cold again today. The beautiful spring weather has been replaced by… well, icky spring weather.
Naturally Jumping Method – Week 3
We’re into week 3 now, which leaves the jump heights the same, so we’re still at 8 inch jump heights.
He does VERY well the first day! Jump 5 is gorgeous! I’m starting to see real improvement. During day 2, I realized I forgot to put my memory card in, so I didn’t catch every jump we did. I also decided to try running with him to see what that did… I’m running funny because I’m in my snow boots and they aren’t exactly the best thing to run in, so it seemed to throw him off just slightly at the beginning. Then he kind of decided to ignore me and focus on the jump, and he did a lot better! During day 3, I started just running with him to watch his strides more than really running to run with him, so I’m getting a really good look at just how his strides are. Runs 5 and 6 are really great!
During Week 4, we will move the jump heights up. My jump cups for the two jumps I built (the final two you see in the chute) only go every two inches, so I’m going to have to move up to 10 inches instead of gradually moving to 9, then 10… I hope it’s not going to throw things off too much.
Next week is also the final week in our 8-week long agility classes, and I think I will stop for just a bit… give Auggie a few weeks to work on his jumping and nothing else. Once he starts to improve and the weather warms up, we’ll pick up again, probably going to private lessons back out at his breeder’s place! Gotta work on those contacts, too.
Natural Jumping Method – Round 1
I meant to start last week but things kept coming up. So as of yesterday we are in week 2. Week 1 is getting dogs used to jumps/jumping multiple jumps; Clothier gives people who have dogs used to that sort of thing, IE flyball, permission to go straight to week 2. We don’t do flyball but Auggie IS used to jumping a ton of jumps in a row, so I went ahead and skipped to week 2.
Please forgive my very ghetto jump chute… I am in the process of trying to decide on some kind of fencing to build the other side, and until then I’m using my two ex-pens and the plastic playpen I’ve had since Auggie was a wee puppy. Also please forgive some of the camera angles… I know it’s hard to see a lot of the jumps. I was still trying to figure out the best way to shoot the videos.
Some details: per the measurements and formula in the book, our distance between jumps is 90 inches. I had a lot of trouble deciding on what height to start working at, and ultimately I decided to start at 10 inches (Auggie normally jumps 12), and if it seemed that was too high to move down to 8. The jump heights were all set at 10 inches during day 1. During day 2, I went ahead and moved the jump heights down to 8 inches after the third jump. They will remain at 8 inches for a while.
During day one, he basically stutter-steps the ENTIRE length of the chute. I apologize for not having all six jumps filmed, but my mom was helping me and by “helping” I mean she was putting her terrible camerawork to use. Only four of the videos she shot were any good, so those are the four jumps I show.
By the sixth jump on day 2, he actually appears to run the length between the jumps (it’s supposed to be two stride lengths) instead of stutter-stepping the entire length between jumps. He’s still not taking normal stride-lengths; he still stutter-stepped just about the whole length of the chute. But he is smoothing out a little.
Day 3 gives us some better results and he really begins to smooth out more. There were multiple times that I could count the two strides between jumps. Day three was encouraging to start seeing progress already!
