Ivy's First Title ..... and Lots to Think About

Ivy gained her Jumping Dog title over Easter at our club trial.  I only entered her on one day as I had promised to steward on the second, and she managed to get 2 Novice Jumping passes, finishing in 1st place on both occasions - with another 'just over 14 seconds run' to prove the first one wasn't a fluke.
We took 'just over 16 seconds' on the other one, but it was a longer course.  Still a very green dog, making lots of green dog mistakes (largely due to her handler I'm sure)  but boy is she fun to run!  And magnificent courses all day, fast and flowing, especially from the Queensland judge who came down.

What beautifully groomed girl decided to jump into her clam shell pool pre-photograph?
Can you guess?  The tongue is a nice touch too.

I have also started entering her in Agility.  We have had 4 runs so far, managing a 3rd place NQ on the last one - just one bar.  She has had an issue with the dogwalk at both trials, refusing it totally on the first run, but having no problems with it whatsoever on the second, not even a hesitation and a good, fast performance.  At the second trial where this occurred, I decided to be proactive and to see how many unfamiliar dogwalks I could tee up to 'visit' - my aim was to find 5 - happy to report that I found four clubs (3 country, 1 city) who are willing for  me to visit and use their dogwalk, once they approve it at committee level, plus one individual who is willing for me to use hers.  And I have another country club that I run classes for once every 2 or 3 months that I know won't have a problem with it.  So I will be keeping an eye on this issue with her and even if it resolves itself (which I still suspect it might) I will still be taking them all up on their generous offers.

I think we tend to proof equipment with handler position, environmental distractions and the like, but don't really think about proofing on different equipment - which might look the same to us but doesn't always to the dog.  Plus the different locations thing is hard with the dogwalk, mine won't exactly pack up and go in the car to the local oval.  Visiting other clubs is something that we really should all be doing with baby dogs (especially in a state that won't even consider 'not for competition, but I won't get into that again) but in some ways we are all so insular and in our own little agility 'communities' that no one even thinks about doing it and then we test things in a trial situation and find that with some dogs, equipment doesn't transfer as well as we thought and obviously forms a different picture for the dog.  Weave poles would be a classic example. We haven't had any difficulty with very different sets of weave poles (touch wood!) but there are a number of dogs out there in Novice at the moment who would appear to be having difficulty with this concept (I know some of these weave well on their own equipment) and again would benefit from being able to work in as many different locations, on different sets of weaves as possible.  So maybe my 'club hopping' will start a trend - LOL.


Last Saturday I ran Ivy in Excellent Jumping for the first time - once again lovely courses but definitely toward what I would call the 'upper end' at Excellent level, in fact they were more like what I would term 'easier to mid level' Masters courses.  Well easier to mid level for the kelpies anyway - with a dog that goes like a bat out of hell they were damn hard - the kind of courses where you have a long straight stretch in the middle of the course that encourages blistering speed, ending up in a tight turn so if you weren't up with your dog (which I wasn't) then it was darn near impossible to handle the next bit.  But they were still a lot of fun to run (even for my short legs) and really showed up some things that we need to work on as a team.  On the positive side, her startlines were great, tunnel discrimination work was excellent and driving the line was also good - apart from the couple of occasions when I wasn't there, resulting in off courses.

Running a fast dog is very different to running more 'medium paced' dogs that's for sure.  So after now competing in a handful of trials, the skills that I really want to have in my toolbox are:
A reliable lead out and a good understanding of positional cues.
Independent obstacle performance.
Good lateral distance to enable me to get into position.
A good send on - especially at the end of a Novice course (LOL)
Tight turns - both with deceleration as a cue and verbally cued at more of a distance. (This one is an experiment at the moment, will let you know how we go)  I am especially interested in how Dave Munnings and Silvia Trkman train this skill and intend to base my training around theirs, without compromising my handling system - that's the plan anyway.
Good rear crosses, which are a skill that we are definitely lacking at the moment, so this will also be a focus area over the next few months.
Good problem solving skills when jumping, especially when working the gap between jumps, if that makes sense.
Me - faster.... heaven help me!


I have another trial coming up next week (only 3 runs this time so I can focus on contacts, no jumping) and then I am not entering the following week so I can start writing some action plans for what I need to train and can have a weekend with a long hike for the dogs that I rarely get time for in trialling season.

We have also been doing a lot of shaping which has been fun.  I signed up for both Susan Garrett's online Recallers course and Silvia Trkman's online Puppy training - even though Ivy has already been raised on a diet of games and shaping tricks, it has been a good reminder that agility training is not just about training obstacles and handling that's for sure.  I do question my sanity though, trying to work through both at the same time.  Just as well this type of training is a mindset rather than a recipe and I figure I can fit it all in at my own pace.  Which would most likely be a lot faster if Ivy had her way.