That's One Small Step for a Border Collie and One Wild Ride for Me !

Ivy's first ring experience has now come and gone and I have spent the last 2 days grinning like an idiot I'm sure.  To say that she surpassed my expectations on her first time out is definitely an understatement.

I honestly didn't know quite what to expect - even though I am very happy with how she is performing when training, getting out in the trial ring is a totally different ball game and anything can happen.  This was a bit of a 'fishing trip' for me - all I really wanted was to see how focussed she was before going into the ring, to test her startline under trial conditions and to actually run a full course without rewarding after every few obstacles as to date we hadn't done that at all. 

What did happen was that she ran clear on her very first Novice Jumping run, winning the ring to boot.  The judge set a Standard Course time of 35 seconds and Ivy mangaged to get around in just over 14 secs.  Her handler took a bit longer, LOL.

Ivy and her first place sash - although she would prefer to be in that tunnel rather than posing beside it.

So proud of my little girl right now.  Her second run I was also really happy with - she clipped the back bar of the spread on her lead out in the opening sequence so after that I sent her to the tunnel with a bit more distance so I could try out a 'run-like-hell-to-position' front cross and got an off course when she added an extra jump on her way ......... bad handler !  This course had a longer run home, the first one was a bit twisty-turny- and I was very pleased with her verbal 'go on' that we have done a lot of work with over the past few weeks.   Ivy's special galpal Sassy won the second run, so that was very exciting too !

I only entered this trial for the final afternoon but there were some very fast runs at Novice level and I believe that in the morning and on the previous day there were lots more.  There are quite a few experienced handlers with new dogs just starting out in Novice at the moment and the standard has certainly skyrocketed since I last run Cruz there.  From memory he won the ring every time with a reasonable paced clear, now a run like that would be lucky to finish in the top 5.

This can only be good for the standard of agility though, I believe for a long time we have been lagging behind a lot of the other states, but that appears to be changing (there are some awesome fast dogs in Masters right now) and with a whole new crew on the way up it can only get better.

So I am over the moon that we were able to hold our own against some really promising dogs, but boy are we going to have to work hard - still so many 'green dog' holes in our training that need filling in not to mention the handler ones as well.  But I look forward to lots more wild rides in the process.  Go Ivy !

Proofing Outside the Square

We have just reached a big milestone in our agility journey as Ivy has been entered in her very first trial.
Even though at this point I am not exactly certain if she will actually get to run, it was very exciting filling out the entries and seeing her name in print with all the other agility dogs - this is a trial that uses online entries so instant gratification.


Our favourite motivator - anything that includes a ball

I have no doubt that Ivy is capable of running a novice jumping course- that's all we have entered at this stage.  But that's not the motivation for entering at the moment.  I have reached the point where I now need to put her out in a trial environment to see how she deals with it as this is something that is close to impossible to recreate- especially living in a state that hates the idea of not for competition runs and won't even consider them.  Let's not go there with what I think of that attitude.

So I figure that if I choose a sympathetic judge who is at least a little bit open minded about such things - and we do have a handful- then I can create my own not for competition run if I decide to, or at least something resembling it, without anyone being any the wiser.

So I chose an open minded judge who has the Novice ring in the afternoon and then entered Atilla in Masters for the morning and Ivy in Novice jumping for the afternoon - but now Atilla has injured his leg and joined Cruz on the sidelines. I'm not sure if he will be ready to run by the weekend of the trial plus with his past history I tend to err on the side of caution and will most likely wait longer than I need to anyway.  Whether or not I think it's worthwhile driving 3 hours for Ivy's very brief debut I am still contemplating - especially when I can wait a couple of weeks and then have a whole month full of trials to choose from.  I am in no hurry to get her out - this becoming all too common attitude of 'my dog is only 2 and has Masters titles' doesn't really impress me one bit -  but the little voice inside my head keeps telling me how valuable it would be to have that first hand knowledge of how she reacts to the trial environment in my toolbox..... and it's very tempting.
Decisions, decisions !


The feral one showing her jumping style - accidentally captured when L. was meant to be shooting video.


For a brief moment a week or so back,  I almost had 3 broken dogs ....... Ivy had a fall from the top of the dogwalk which she was negotiating like a formula one racing car in her usual style.  She has fallen from the top at home once before where she landed on her feet, then raced back to the start to get on again, but this time she squealed and held up her rear paw when she came down and scared me to bits.
By the time I had her lead back on and walked back toward the ring entry she was walking normally and showed no effect whatsoever.  We had a walk around for a bit, then played tug for a bit and when I was pretty sure that she was OK we did a couple of jumps and the dogwalk again, which she had no trouble with.  And no sign of anything wrong since thank goodness.

The whole experience really scared me and has made me back up a few steps and think about how I can do some more proofing on the dogwalk, especially as I was told that she turned her head and looked at me before she came off, which she does not usually do.  When I think about working the dogwalk at home, I am usually working it as a recall to try and tempt her off the end, or we are running together, where she is usually so fast that she well and truly gets to the end before me and completes the middle ramp ahead of me.
Friday was the first time she has completed the dogwalk in a sequence and as I was ahead of her when she got on, I was actually running right beside her when she came off.  I am wondering if this might have been the first time that I have ever been in this position, so now need to proof it.

I have lowered my dogwalk and have been running right beside her as fast as I can but no matter what I do I can't seem to make her look at me, which I am actually pretty pleased about.
So far I have tried :
*Running alongside really fast - well as fast as my short legs will allow me to anyway.
*Pumping my arms in a very exaggerated fashion as I run.
*Running in a flapping coat and hat.
*Running with me on one side and L running on the other side.
*L. standing still really close to the middle ramp and then calling her name as she came over.
*Waving a tug toy around as I run.

Nothing takes her focus from the end so currently I am leaning toward some sort of a shadow going across the dogwalk that distracted her as we train under lights and this was the first time she has done the full height dogwalk at night.  The experience has given me some things to think about though and made me realise just how many things we take for granted and don't proof.  It's also made me a bit more aware of actually looking for where my shadow might be when we run at night, especially if it's falling across contact obstacles.  I don't want her to react to people very near contacts as it's common for a couple of judges here to run very close to the dogwalk as the dog is completing it, not something that I particularly like but something that I may very well have to deal with occasionally and I don't want to be worrying about her safety.

Another area needing proofing has also just surfaced - her A Frame has been really solid up until now and I have done lots of proofing involving me being in different positions, but we ran a few reps today and I had dragged the tunnel really close while I was moving equipment around and hadn't put it back.  When she came over the A Frame and saw the tunnel entry directly in front and very close, she was so excited that she didn't stick her end position and leapt off before being released.  Even though she was well and truly in the colour, this is not the behaviour that I want to encourage so I now need to do some equipment proofing as well.  Again, I have done this with the end of the weaves but it never occurred to me to do it with the contacts as well.  The list keeps getting longer and longer.

Last Friday we ran the Masters Jumping course at training as I was instructing in the same hour as the Novice/Excellent class that she normally works in.  I broke the course up into 3 sections and rewarded in between and she had no trouble with it, providing I was able to stay ahead on the tricky sections.

The only area of her training that I really feel is way behind where I would like it to be would be the seesaw, mainly because I totally shelved this after I had my accident last year.  Last month we went back to working the seesaw between 2 tables in the shed, then removed one table and worked the bang game, and now I have moved the adjustable seesaw out to the back of the agility area and we are working on the whole thing at the lowest height.  Hopefully I will be able to raise it at least one link by the weekend but I don't want to rush it and I am unsure how long it will take realistically to get to full height.  She is confident but I am very conscious of how easy it is to have a setback on this obstacle and really want to avoid this if possible.  Plus her position at the end at the moment is kind of awkward and I'm not sure if this will disappear as she gets more confident or whether I need to look at a different behaviour for the end of the seesaw.

I certainly don't remember having such a long list of things to work on with Atilla when he was younger, but as your training knowledge increases so does the training list !  Guess it's all part of the journey and she will be ready when she is ready and there is no time limit on this apart from my own impatience.