Whatever Wednesday
Other ideas for names for this post was “Wimpy Wednesday” or “Whiny Wednesday.” Or maybe I could save this post and call it “Failure Friday?” Let’s stick with the slightly more optimistic “Whatever Wednesday,” because once again, I’m trying to be positive, right? Right. So let’s go.
As I mentioned in last week’s training challenge, Payton was entered in his very first rally trial last weekend. It was novice rally – not a huge deal, right? Payton’s perch work was fabulous and his heel was looking really good as a result. Not flawless but really good for the semi-rush job I was doing to get ready for the trial. I thought we’d maybe scrape out a Q, even.
Sometimes life just likes to punch us in the stomach though.
I had Payton out before going in the ring and was practicing the moves for the signs, popping him some treats to get him all locked in and ready to go. He was sitting in heel and I was chatting with a friend while feeding him and just working on eye contact before we were going in the ring. She was telling me he looked great, was so attentive, I was feeling pretty good. Optimistic!
Then a large dog almost sat on him.
Cue a meltdown from Payton. I got up and took him in the opposite direction but that wasn’t helping. He was barking and flipping out. I had a treat and tried to get him in heel to pop him the treat, he had NO interest in the treat at all.
My dog’s brain was gone… and they just called our number to get into the ring.
I did about four signs with my dog barking the entire time and swiveling his head around looking for that big dog, freaking out, before I realized there was no recovering. I turned to the judge and said “That’s it for us, thank you,” and out of the ring we went.
My friend told me not to feel bad, that dog had just freaked him out, but I still felt bad. Immediately doubts started setting in. Payton is kind of OCD at times. If you move something in the house, he’s alarmed and barks at it. If you bring something new and strange into the house, he’s alarmed and barks at it. If he sees something new while on a walk, he’s alarmed and barks at it. The response I was anticipating from Payton in the ring was for him to get really excited and start jumping around and playing like a crazy, not panicking. What was I going to do?
The second day I got Payton out and was ready to try again, and made SURE I was very calm and quiet with him before we got in the ring. I kept out of everybody’s way so nobody would accidentally sit on him again, so nobody would do anything strange and freak him out. We got in the ring and he sat in heel at the “start” sign and looked up at me with a smile. “Yes,” I thought. “We got this.” I took a deep breath as we started forwarded…
and as we reached the second sign, there was another person standing right outside the ring gates with their border collie, doing as border collies do, creepin’ and peering into the ring.
Cue meltdown!
I did manage to get Payton to complete the second sign, and we started towards the third sign, but he wouldn’t do the third sign (a left pivot) for me. I looked up at the judge (a different judge this day thankfully, I don’t think I would have even had the guts to walk back in under the same judge) and said “We’re all done I think, thank you.”
“That was a good decision for him,” she told me as we walked out. I’m pretty sure my face was bright red. I know I did right by my dog by taking him out so I didn’t poison the ring experience, but this was mortifying. I’m sure everybody thought my dog was a total nutcase and completely untrained.
Just to be clear: I don’t blame the person with the border collie. Yes, it would have been nice if they weren’t standing right outside the ring gate with their dog staring at me. Before Auggie goes in the ring for agility, I try to keep him back from the ring gates, but I am getting him revved up and that means he’s jumping around and barking. If that sets off a dog in the ring, it’s unfortunate and yes, I would feel bad, but it ultimately means the dog in the ring needs to be trained better against distractions. Same rules apply to Payton. He needs to be trained better. It is not the fault of the person outside the ring that my dog was unprepared for that kind of distraction, it’s MY fault. The answer is TRAIN MY DOG.
So that’s why this is WHATEVER WEDNESDAY. Part of me feels really beat up and beat down right now (and it’s not because this week’s gym activities have left me unable to tell you a part of my body that is NOT sore at the moment.) I am terrified that we are facing a long uphill battle and might never be able to fix this problem. I’m picturing my dog freaking out every time I take him in a ring and he sees something new. THERE’S A SANDBAG UNDER THAT DOGWALK OMG. THERE’S A SIGN HANGING ON THAT WALL OMG. THAT TABLE IS PAINTED PURPLE INSTEAD OF YELLOW OMG. It’s panic inducing picturing serious problems for the rest of his life. You certainly can’t control every aspect of every trial – there will always be something new or unknown or unusual.
But you know? Whatever. I know the answer: TRAIN MY DOG. And it’s kind of that simple, isn’t it? I went to the Dollar Store and I bought a bunch of “weird” things. Anything that just looked different, stuff that maybe Payton hadn’t seen before. I bought some spinny flower sticks, some glow sticks in the shape of a trident and an axe, a plunger, big buckets, just anything that looked different. We’re going to start more distraction work. I’m going to double down again on the recalls and try to rebuild getting him locked on when he hears his name rather than having him tune me out so much.
My biggest plan right now is to re-read my way through Control Unleashed, especially as it addresses Over Noticers. So I’m planning on running a nice muscle soak this evening and dying a little while reading the book. Just like I’ve been making a weekly schedule on what to work with my dogs every week, I need to battle plan out how to work on this with Payton.
It all comes back to training.
We’ll see how simple it is when we actually tackle the problem.
Training Challenge for 7/2/12
This week is going to be a bit different, because Thursday night we set off for a three day agility trial for Auggie, which includes two days of rally for Auggie and also – gulp – two days of rally for Payton. That’s right, Payton’s trialing debut is this weekend. And I’m slightly terrified. Anyway, on with the schedule!
Monday
Session 1:
Heeling (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Rally sign practice
Tuesday
Session 1:
Rally sign practice
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Rally sign practice
Wednesday
Session 1:
Rally sign practice
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Heeling/rally signs (P)
Treadmill (A)
Thursday
Session 1:
Jump chute (A)
Session 2:
Rally sign practice in the hotel room
Friday
Auggie agility trial!
Session 1:
Last desperate attempt to fix any problems with rally signs!
Saturday – Sunday
TRIAL TRIAL TRIAL
I have printed out a full set of rally signs, so we will hit those on July 4th, since I have the day off and can play with them a little. I know one I need to practice is the “bowl of food on the ground” with Auggie. It also occurs to me that Payton doesn’t have a very good Front, so I probably need to teach him that.
Auggie’s jump chutes have changed according to our weekly wrap up, so we’ll continue with those this week and cross our fingers that it may put some deposits in his jumping bank before this weekend’s trial.
Weaves for Pay have been scratched from this week, partially due to the impending rally trial and the need to work more on heeling, and partially just due to the heat. I’ve been taking Auggie out to jump after 8pm at night, and even though it’s still pretty hot and humid then, it’s at least a little cooler than the rest of the day. He’s also still getting some treadmill work to get in better shape and improve his speed. So far he seems to be doing really well, he’ll hop onto the treadmill and doesn’t seem bothered by it, so hopefully that will do some good for us too. It’s always a surprise with Auggie, haha! We are two standard Q’s and one jumper’s Q away from his masters agility titles, and I’m hoping we can clean those up this trial. But it seems I’ve been saying that for a while. Ohhhhh Auggie! <3
Payton in class, round two
This afternoon I texted with Auggie’s breeder. My initial thought was to just bring the puppies over to the training building after her class tonight and let her see how things are going and give me some tips, especially on an issue I’m having with Georgie. But she told me she was just starting a new class and asked if I would like to bring the pups along.
I decided to bring Payton, since our rally trial is in three weeks, and he could use some work in a new location and with some other eyes watching. Georgie will wait for another day; besides, I can’t really work two dogs at once.
The class is a unique one we developed to meet some in-between demands… people who weren’t quite ready to jump into agility, but were looking for something more than just pet house manners. We delve into some rally exercises and do some extended sit-stays and down-stays in a line up like you would at an obedience trial, and also do some beginning obstacle introduction with agility stuff (jumps, tunnels, tire.)
So away we went tonight. Payton did fairly good with heeling though he is still very forgey, and forges more on me the longer we heel. I stepped on his paw once and almost tripped over him several more times. Sigh. And the sits, oh God, the crooked sits! I’m still hoping to clean it up enough in the next few weeks that we can scrape out at least ONE qualifying RN score.
But in light of my decision earlier this year to stop always being so negative about my dogs and their behaviour, I am not going to tell you where he was awesome.
First, his first sit-stay was ALMOST great, but being his very first time in a lineup with dogs he had never met before, he got up and came to me just before I went back to him. The next several sit-stays, however, were lovely, and I was even able to test him some by doing stupid dance moves and things (I made sure none of the other dogs – or their handlers – were looking at me while I was doing this.) So he rocked those!
Next, his recalls were equally lovely, though the first was lacking the enthusiasm I like to see, but he gets a pass because once again, he was sitting in a lineup with dogs he had never met before.
After that, we moved on to introduction to agility. First we had a jump, and I felt bad because Payton and I are totally cheating. We have at least a dozen jumps of varying type at home and he has seen regular jumps over and over and over again being that we’re doing beginning jump training! The other students were like “ooooh!” but HE’S CHEATING HE’S DONE THIS A MILLION TIMES ALREADY.
Next we got out the tunnel. Payton has seen a tunnel before but not fully extended, and as many times as I see it in my basement and think “I need to get that out and work on it,” I have yet to actually do that. So I wasn’t sure how he was going to do with a tunnel stretched all the way out.
Of course I am an idiot and had no need to worry. He darted right through it, then came back, then back through again. Everything was going GREAT until Auggie’s breeder suggested I run with him through it.
So I did. And Payton went OMG YOU GUYS THIS IS SOOOO MUCH FUN and the next thing I know he jumps on top of the tunnel, STAYS THERE for a second or two, then hops back down. How he managed to actually stay perched on top of the tunnel is beyond me, but he did it.
But I said I wasn’t going to be negative, right? Well, as embarrassing as that was, he only did it the one time and then appeared to realize that on TOP of the tunnel is not how we do it. I ran him back and forth several times after that in both of our turns, including setting him up for some odd entries.
The best news: he is really fast. Not so fast I can’t keep up, I am a runner myself and just generally a gym junkie (in fact, I’m blowing off a Wednesday class at the gym to take him to this class… but I figured I can do those weight lifting sessions at home…) so I have the added bonus of being able to sprint myself and not end up nearly killing myself. But he is definitely fast.
Now I just have to figure out how to not kill that speed in him. Which means I need to become a far better handler and very soon.
So there you have it. My dog is a huge brat and embarrassing, but he’s a very talented little embarrassing brat too.
Agility and Rally weekend
This weekend I took Auggie down to an agility trial. I saw they also had rally, so I went ahead and entered us in both. I would rather do both one weekend than have to travel specifically just for rally, and there’s only a rally trial locally twice a year, so why not?
I blew our Rally Advanced A run on Saturday. I practiced pivots in the hotel room the night before and thought I knew how to signal them, but when I got in the ring the next morning, I decided to tuck my arm in like you do in obedience and forgot that I needed to signal Auggie for the pivot. So he didn’t pivot with me. Also, I forgot when I did the moving call front then forward that even if it’s a moving call front then forward the dog still has to SIT when they front. Durp durp. I was so focused on the moving/forward part I didn’t make him sit. The only thing I can partially blame on Auggie is we had the stand then handler walks around the dog, and when I reached down to give Auggie the signal for stand, he immediately thought I was going to signal “down” and threw himself into a down. I could have backed up and then repeated the sign, but I didn’t think about it, so I just stood him and carried on, which meant I failed the exercise because the dog added an extra “part” into the sign. Oh well. The judge was very nice and gave us a few tips.
We Q’d the next day because I decided to screw having my arm tucked in and handled far differently. He was WAY revved up because we were also doing agility, and the way the timing worked, we basically did agility and then went right over to rally – his brain was definitely not in controlled heeling mode, so it was messy messy messy, but I wanted to at least come home with one Q, so whatever I guess. In November I will probably enter us in the local rally trial (unless it’s the same weekend I’m out of town at agility) where all we do is rally, so hopefully he will be in the right mentality and we can get it done without being so messy. The judge told us afterwards that we did a much better job the second day. I thought it was a better job the first day, LOL, even though it wasn’t a Q. Oh well.
Agility was the most important part of the weekend even though I knew I wasn’t guaranteed any Q’s and sort of doubted if I’d get any. Auggie had a clean jumpers run on Saturday, but didn’t make time because the course was wheeled so tight and he’s not running fast for me right now. He knocked the triple in standard which is my fault. Sunday standard was first and we just barely squeaked by under time, so that’s #2 towards his masters standard title. The mystery is jumpers, where he made time by plenty. We ended up with 7 PACH points. I think the scribe may have recorded our time incorrectly, but I have no way of knowing, because everybody was packing up or had already left so nobody was watching to tell me if he really was running that fast, and of course nobody recorded the run for me so we had no way to look and find out. But the course was a very fun, fast course, so it is possible he really ran it that fast… I just have no idea. But, as we say, the agility gods giveth and they taketh away, so in this case I seem to have gotten a gift.
So Auggie is 2/10 for MXP, 4/10 for MJP, and 1/20 for his PACH. And also he only needs 741 more PACH points. HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah I think we need to just put the PACH dream to bed. We’ll get his masters titles and then run him just for fun. I still fully intend to try and work through his jumping problems and hopefully that will boost his confidence enough that he will start running faster, but who knows what will happen? I suppose if his confidence returns full-force and he starts running courses at trials the way he is capable I might change my mind, but for now, I think it’s just time to put the dream away. The odd thing is, it doesn’t really hurt the way I thought it would. I guess I sort of knew, in the back of my head, that this was coming and have had plenty of time to cope with the reality of it.
Or maybe it just helps that I know there is a puppy baking in the oven, and I may very soon be having a chance to try this all over again. Auggie is a great dog and I love him very much. I’m not going to love him any more or any less if he gets an agility champion title. It’s a little disappointing to not be able to shoot for the moon with him, but I will soon have another one to go after the dream with, so that eases the disappointment. And meanwhile Auggie just gets to be my super special little lovey boy!
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.
Best Birthday Ever – In Photos
Our day started out pretty good.
Then it became the Best Day Of Auggie’s Life:
OMG, I get french fries?! REALLY???
Yes, really.
Then I made a cake.
It looks really good.
I was going to try it, but then I remembered the peanut butter jar I used is the one specifically marked “DOG.” The one I put a knife in, scoop up peanut butter, stick inside of Auggie’s nasty slobbery goopy Kong, and then plunge back into the jar. Yeah, I don’t think I want to try it.
He’s THREE. So I lit three candles.
Ta-daaaaa!
MMMMMM!!!
Blow out the candles, Auggie!
Cutting him a piece…
I made him wait for it. ON HIS BIRTHDAY. I’m horrible.
NOM CAKE
ALL GONE!
I put half in the freezer and the remainder of the other half into the fridge for him to snack on throughout the week. THAT’S A LOT OF CAKE.
Happy third birthday, my little guy.
Rally-O/Auggie’s Birthday Part 1
This is me at Rally-O:
“A DOWN?? Nobody told me he had to do a DOWN!!”
I don’t know WHY it never occured to me he would have to do a down. We hadn’t been working on that, and certainly not working on it with him at my side (usually he does his sits and downs in front of me, not next to me in heel.)
Oops!!!
Our score was 90, time was 2:16 because we spent probably 20 seconds trying to go from a sit to a down – hahahahahaha! Oh God it was hilarious. And also, there were times when Auggie barked in my face. Rally-O was a LOT different to him than agility. He got out there and thought it was time to go… and then it wasn’t. I think he was kind of confused. “Hey Mom… aren’t I supposed to, like, go over some jumps and run through a tunnel or something?”
But when we crossed the finish line you’d have thought we just won the Olympics or something. I made a HUGE deal out of it and Auggie got super excited. That was the whole point, really: go out there and have some fun, work together, no pressure, and act like he’d just done the best thing ever.
We went out afterwards for the qualifying ribbon presentation, and I thought we’d be getting a Q ribbon – and suddenly he was calling my number for fourth place. “Wait… what? OH!! That’s US!” I told Auggie. The judge was really nice, shook my hand, and then we got our ribbons, a rope bone, and a cookie treat. Auggie tried to eat the ribbons out of my hand, haha. He then got a HUGE chomp off his cookie treat, we packed up, and took off. Crate space was very limited so I thought we’d go home and give some other people some room.
Not bad for a bratty little birthday puppy.
Auggie’s Big Day
Saturday is Auggie’s big day.
First, we are off to our first Rally-O trial. I have NO idea how that’s going to go. It might be short of hilarity.
Second, we are getting pro pics done for the second time.
Third…
IT’S AUGGIE’S THIRD BIRTHDAY!!!
I can’t believe my little guy is almost three.
He’s going to get a very special birthday cake… if I can just decide what recipe to use.
