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.
Trial #3, Day 2
Early success can be kind of a bad thing.
You sort of start to expect the good luck to continue.
When it doesn’t, you’re not sure what to make of it.
Today’s JWW course was a LOT better for my lame brain than yesterday. A tunnel separated the first third of jumps from the second third; weave poles separated the second third from the final third of jumps.
However, Mister Auggie HIT THE BRAKES on the weaves after doing 10 of them. Hit the brakes! I was prepared for him to pop out of the last jump – he has been doing that lately – but not a complete stop! It might have been faster to pull him all the way back to the beginning and have him start over, but I decided to simply direct him through the last two jumps. However, this took time – time that put us too far over to qualify.
Still a very good run. Auggie is not the fastest dog in the world, and I am really more concerned with accuracy before speed… but there are times that he forces me to change my plan. I walked the course with a front cross after jump – oh, I dunno, 10 or so – and he was WAY ahead of me as he soared over that jump. There was no hustling to get in front of him. The front cross was because an off-course jump was set directly in front and I was hoping to cross and block him off from that jump. Because I did not make my cross, I instead had to CALL CALL CALL and stop him from off-coursing.
And he responded to my call off, which makes me very proud… but not as proud as what happened next, because (and I don’t even remember doing this, but I have seen the video so I know it happened!) I still wanted to be on the inside of the jumps and curl him around into the weaves. So my body decided to do a rear cross over a jump… and rear cross we did. He was fantastic, especially for a dog that really hates to lose sight of me and dislikes rear crosses.
Standard, on the other hand.
He was distracted. He was tired. Two days may just be too much for my little guy right now. Until he matures some, we may not be doing two days anymore.
First disaster: I had two choices – try and do a front cross in an area I didn’t think I had room to cross, or try and rear cross him into a tunnel. As I said, this dog hates rear crosses, especially into a tunnel. I made the wrong choice… I should have tried the front cross. He wouldn’t go into the tunnel. He almost decided to go into the WRONG side of the tunnel. He stopped in the middle of the tunnel bend to take a sniffy-sniffy at the sand bags holding the tunnel. He FINALLY got into the tunnel.
Second disaster: He came out of the tunnel and was supposed to go over a triple jump. He CRASHED into the jump. I do not mean he knocked a bar, I mean he crashed into it. It was actually hard to see if he even really attempted to jump the bars as opposed to just charging right through them.
Third disaster: He skipped the tire jump. Who cares. He already knocked a bar so that’s a NQ. I’m not wasting time when he’s obviously already stressed and tired by trying to get him back around and through the tire jump.
Fourth disaster: He came off the a-frame and crashed into another jump. I slowed and almost stopped. I thought he was hurt. He kept going, so I had to speed up again to catch up.
Fifth disaster: He crashes into yet another jump. At this point, I seriously almost waved to the judge and said “We’re finished, thank you,” picked him up, and carried him off the course. I was VERY concerned, because he has never dropped a single bar in his agility career before, and now he crashes into three separate jumps? Jumping TWELVE instead of sixteen, too.
But he was still willing and was not limping, so I went ahead and did the final two obstacles with him – a set of weave poles and one final jump, which he cleared.
We have lots of theories about what happened, but in the end, he just checked out. He wasn’t interested in running the course. But, as J said, he was still smiling after it all (I was holding him afterwards and giving his muscles a massage to make sure he wasn’t hurt and wouldn’t be stiff the next day – no wonder he was smiling!)
It’s hard to go home with no ribbons for the weekend after so much early success. I mean, a title on my first agility dog after only two trials? And then a Q-less weekend. It’s rough.
But there were lots of positives in our Jumpers run, he did ALL of his contacts on both days…
and, as always – and most importantly – Auggie and I are learning more and more about each other.
Trial #3, Day 1
Our first time in Open Jumpers, and a complete disaster because I’m an idiot! There’s really a certain level of hilarity in sending your dog over a jump and going “OH NO CRAP” while he’s in the air over the jump because you just realized that you went from #6 to #10… yeeeeah that’s not the right jump in the sequence! No Q, because I’m a moron!! But Auggie does remarkably well with an idiot as a handler. His weaves – 12 of them – were just goooorgeous!
I swear, I’m blonde under all this red.
Standard was an interesting experience. I thought it was easy-peasy after all of that goofiness in Jumpers, but then… some guy is sitting near the table, for some bizarre reason, wearing dark sunglasses. Auggie gets into his sit on the table, and then – and he’s never done this before – TURNS AROUND, sees the guy behind him, and goes “Oh hi!” Off the table he goes, and over to the spotter. What the crap!! He has NEVER gone up to a spotter in his (granted, short) agility career! I finally get him back up on the table, and fail to remember that the dog walk was right behind us. I should have been standing at a different location. When I call him off, instead of going over the jump, he off-courses and takes the dog walk back the other direction.
Now, at the very first Fun Run I ever went to with Auggie… he went up the dog walk. Then he went back up the dog walk. Then back up the dog walk. THEN BACK UP THE DOG WALK. It must have been six times or more than he went back and forth over that dog walk. So I’m almost beside myself with panic, imagining this scenario happening again – this time on an actual course. I would just die from embarrassment… DIE.
So PRAISE the agility gods, I called him to me CLEARLY away from the dog walk and took him back towards the table, then away we go, over the correct jump and on to finish the course.
So much for easy-peasy!
A bit of a rough day for many people. It was an EXTREMELY long day because FAST classes were running, and they went first. We’re still in Novice Standard, and for this trial, JWW came before Standard… so our last run was the very last run of the day. We got there around 9AM and were leaving around 5:30PM. Very, very, very long day for the dogs.
The one positive is that Auggie measured “right at 14” and the judge said “Well, this wicket is a little off. What are you entered in? 12? That’s fine.”
So, hey! We finally got to compete at the 12 inch level!
Trial #2, Day 2
Our haul from today…
Wait a second!! Are you SURE you saw that right?? Maybe you should look closer.
I am now the proud owner of Sentinel’s The Flash NAJ CGC. That’s right… we got our novice jumpers title this weekend!! And all three of his qualifying scores – we got running 16! Snazzy!
Today’s runs:
Standard run!
He got buggy on the table and that’s what screwed us, but J is almost positive he just didn’t “see” the table as a table. She thinks he saw it like a jump, since it’s so thin and the walls around it are plain white, not to mention the top is pale purple. So we got 1 table fault (two points) and a refusal for that, but it was the time more than anything else that really put us over. I then failed to pull him in enough to get him a straight shot into the tunnel, so he didn’t go into that right away – another refusal! Also, notice that he doesn’t come OUT of the tunnel. I notice he’s not coming, I can’t see the tunnel moving – where is Auggie? I lean over and look into the tunnel… and he’s standing there at the bend, nose to the ground, sniffing something interesting! He sees me, goes “Oh – HI!” and comes running out. What a goofball!
Regardless of the NQ, I watched this a billion times because of how wonderful his weaves are!
JWW – the run that got us our title!
Would have been clean, but he changed my plan on me! I was going to front cross before that blue tunnel, but when he spotted the tunnel he suddenly sped up so I couldn’t get in front. I KNEW he would hate me trying to rear cross him into the tunnel, and sure enough, when he got to the tunnel entrance and I started to try and cross, he suddenly hit the brakes. Refusal! The time it took for me to back him up and put him into the tunnel put us over time. You can’t see them as well here, but he did flawless weaves again here… so beautiful.
Anyway, I came around that last jump and everybody was clapping and going “THAT WAS GREAT!” and the VMO says to me “That was a Q!!” and my mom goes “YOU DID IT” and J goes “YOU DID IT!”
And I say, because I saw the time on the clock as I picked Auggie up at the exit, “But we went over time.”
“It’s okay,” J says. “You’re allowed time faults in Novice.”
I stare at her.
“You get a point off for every second over time, but you weren’t over by that much, even with the refusal. You did it.”
I stare.
“YOU DID IT.”
“Wh…??”
Seriously… it didn’t sink in. It didn’t sink in until I looked at the scores posted and saw, yes, he really did Q. And then I stammered out to the trial secretary that we get a new title ribbon. And even now…
we’re in Open. My dog can run in Open.
I’m in shock. Seriously.
Trial #2, Day 1
His prize, a “Q” cookie for qualifying, and his 1st place & qualifying score ribbons.
These are for JWW – no Q in standard (again!) Not really his fault, though!
I couldn’t get him to relax enough to measure under 14 inches – he was 14 3/8ths (an improvement from 15.5 like he measured last trial!) So we ran 16 instead of 12 again. He didn’t make it all the way over the broad jump, I’m not sure if he misjudged the length of the jump or if I just didn’t give him enough “push” to get him over it. But still… no dropped bars, not a single one, and I JUST managed to call him off an off-course up the a-frame (holy crap did I just!!) Besides his landing on the final section of the broad jump, it was a great run. Not his fastest – we are going to have to retrain contact obstacles, I think – but accuracy > speed, my friends.
JWW was beautiful, even though he missed his first attempt at entry on the weave poles (allowed in novice.) 100 points, and the time was… 39.76 or something? I wrote it down, I do not remember it off the top of my head.
Here’s the video of our Standard run – apologies for my annoying yapping of “AUGGIE AUGGIE HERE HERE AUGGIE HERE!”
Couldn’t be happier, particularly because after they measured him over 14 I honestly was ready to just write the entire day off as a wash. I figured we would totally blow it, because it was indoors and he was in the “wrong” height class… and he had to go and prove me wrong.
Because my awesome Auggie is bad to the bone!
Agilty Trial #1, Day 2
Not as good of a day as yesterday!
But first, a lovely picture:
Left to right is Auggie’s uncle, Auggie’s gramma, Auggie’s aunt, Auggie’s full brother, Auggie’s dad, and then Auggie, looking teeny tiny next to his relatives!
Standard:
I managed him on the teeter fine – because of his fly off yesterday, I was very concerned about that. He was doing great. He went through the weaves and it was lovely… but then something on the ground was suddenly very smelly. I yelled, I hollered, I cheered – he was sniffing away. You can’t touch your dog in agility so I went over to him, put my feet right next to him, and cheered, “AUGGIE let’s GOOOO!” and finally got his attention back. Everybody congratulated the heck out of me for my great handling after our run, but it was sort of bizarre! After that, I was a little thrown off so I missed getting him into the chute. Still no problems… except when he came out of the chute and through the tire, then up the a-frame, I was a little taken by surprise at his speed and total willingness to go up the a-frame. I didn’t catch up in time, and was desperately yelling “TOUCH TOUCH TOUCH” at him in an attempt to stop him from flying off.
No good. That lovely 2o2o video I posted the other day? Forget that! He leapt off the a-frame halfway down. UGH. I had to reel him back in to get him over the last two jumps because I was so frustrated about the a-frame, but hey, it was no big deal. An unfortunate automatic NQ, but it was still a pretty good run for Auggie. Most of it was handler error, and reportedly, a skunk was out on the course in the morning, and we were guessing that remnants of skunk is what smelled so interesting by those weave poles!
Then jumpers was awful. I don’t know if he was tired of jumping 16, (that’s REALLY hard for him) or if it was because a rainstorm was about ten seconds from hitting us, or if he was picking up on my confusion after the whole sniffing around the weaves/flying off the a-frame thing, or maybe a bit of each.
He again found something really smelly before the weave pole entrance and it took me FOREVER to get his attention and get him through the weaves. Then I thought, okay, it’s time for a bunch of jumps – he should really be into this now. He went over two, but then…
I saw it, and J saw it… he suddenly slowed down. His whole body and demeanor changed. He took the two jumps funny and then slipped away from me, and I had to holler to call him back.
At that point, it was official: I was totally thrown off. I almost sent him over the wrong jump, realized I was doing the wrong thing, and screamed to pull him off them at the last second. He came back to me and I went “Wait – I have no idea what I’m doing.” I looked at the judge, looked at Auggie, then looked at the tunnel… THE TUNNEL!!! That’s it!!! I looked back at Auggie, and before I could tell him to go into the tunnel…
I kid you not, he barked in my face – gave me the canine equivalent of “f(%# off!” – and started to run away from me. I was so terrified of him running out of the ring that I SCREAMED at him, pulled him back, and got him through the tunnel. I put him over a jump, then he… took a wrong jump, knocking a bar as he did. And then the buzzer sounded, and the judge called “That’s time, thank you.”
We got whistled off for going (way) over time. We didn’t even finish. Yikes!
I’m not upset about the lack of a Q. I was very upset at losing control of Auggie – again.
It was like I was back at our first fun run months ago, standing in the ring while my dog completely ignored me and I desperately tried to regain control. It was a really, really awful feeling – probably the worst feeling in the world. J tried to calm me down, and I still had several people coming up to tell me I handled REALLY well in standard… but I was too icky feeling at the moment to be able to come out of my funk. I wanted to say a lot to J about how I was feeling, but all I could manage was, “I just hate losing control of him.”
“I know,” she said, paused, and then said “I mean – I really… know.”
She told me it was a long time before she ever even got her first Q, and I got one yesterday in my FIRST TRIAL, so I really did do a good job in her opinion…
but it was pretty hard to go from a great experience to losing control like that.
In hindsight, it is somewhat funny that my dog literally barked in my face and told me “Hey, Mom, screw you!!”
There are a number of factors to consider, but ultimately, the biggest thing to take away from this trial is… that my dog is a novice, and I am a novice handler. He is two and a half years old, and he is my little baby dog, but we are still learning a lot about each other and working on our relationship together. There is nothing to replace experience, especially on my behalf. I make so many mistakes and do so many silly things that, actually, Auggie does WONDERFULLY, to his credit!
Agility Trial #1, Day 1
When I left the standard ring, the first thing I heard was “That dog is going to be AWESOME.”
Everything was going dandy. I gave Auggie to my mom to have him measured by the judge while I walked the standard course. Then I walked JWW. After that, Mom came out looking kind of sour. “I guess I don’t know the ‘trick’ to make him shorter,” she says. “He’s 15.”
Auggie’s breeder, J, and I stare at each other blankly for a minute. My dog is not fifteen inches at the withers. He is 13 and a half! “Wait… what?” I said.
There was much flabbergasting back and forth, and finally the judge appears and confirms that yes, my dog has to run at the 16 inch jump height. Again, J and I stare at each other. I go to the practice jump to make sure he can handle it, and he does okay. J helps me out and tells me what to change up now that he’s running at a much higher jump height than we’ve EVER done before.
Okay. No big deal. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m not freaking out.
I just think I’m going to puke.
Everywhere.
So we run standard. It’s going REALLY really well. He gets on the table, I put him in a down, and he holds there. Then I call him off and to the teeter – and suddenly I’m still standing by the table and he’s already on the teeter! I remember thinking I was going to throw up all over that teeter, panicking, thinking he was going to take off that teeter and start creating his own course. I caught up with him, but not in time – he hopped off the end of the teeter before it even hit the ground. Automatically eliminated from qualifying at that point. I fumbled a bit after that and missed getting him into the tunnel, which would have been -5 points but would still have had us qualify.
It was just my bad, letting him get away from me on that teeter, that screwed us out of a Q.
REGARDLESS… it was beautiful. It was awesome. It was wonderful. I came out of the ring and wanted to cry, I was so proud and so happy.
My Auggie did it. I couldn’t stop telling him what a good boy he was, I was just SO DAMN PROUD.
For Jumpers with Weaves… it was great for a first run! It was a clean run, no off courses, no touched bars, he did the weaves wonderfully!
I don’t have video for my standard run, but I do have it for JWW. (No sound because the wind was awful!)
Our JWW time was 37.79 seconds, and… FIRST place, and a Q.
It was amazing. Afterwards, everybody kept congratulating me and going “Did I hear right that this is your first run?? You did SO WELL!!”
I didn’t do anything. Auggie did it all.
That’s my Awesome Auggie.
….and now we have to do it all over again tomorrow!
Canine Good Citizen
We did it!!! Auggie passed his CGC test. Awesome!!
The only reason I took the test was because it was offered free as part of our local dog training club’s “AKC Responsible Dog Ownership” day. Otherwise, I was terrified about paying to take the test and failing miserably.
I panicked a little when she tried to touch his front paws and he pulled his right one away from her rather forcibly… but when she picked it up again he let her touch it. I also was nervous about the “walking in a crowd” exercise, because they put a child in the ring to walk past him. He didn’t bark or look twice at the kid though – and then, during the “distractions” exercise, they gave the kid a bag of empty soda cans to walk around him and jingle the cans… and even though he looked at her twice, he didn’t bark!! Awesome progress for my little guy.
He lost his focus on me a little because the ring smelled of a bajillion different dogs already, and he was so busy sniffing he wasn’t interested in doing boring stuff like a sit or a stay, so I had a bit of trouble getting him to pay attention to me – but he heeled beautifully during the “on a walk” exercise, and for his recall test he came running towards me with glee. It was such a gorgeous (and adorable, because he always looks like “HI MOMMY WHEEEE!”) looking recall that people kept stopping me after the test to congratulate me on how great it looked.
I’m so proud of him! I had my doubts, but he did it. Even though CGCs don’t go on a pedigree, Auggie is now Sentinel’s The Flash CGC.
The photos:
Test #2, I think this was – “hi, can I pet your dog?” We started with our backs to the fencing on the left, but he didn’t want to sit facing that direction… so we rotated.
The grooming/inspection test.
Walking through a crowd. WITH CHILD. I love it.
They gave him a HUGE milkbone as a prize… and he was quite happy.
