Family Reunion

Ivy got a lovely surprise at the Ballarat trial a couple of weeks ago - a chance reunion with her brothers who came all the way from Western Australia.



What a good looking bunch !



That's the very handsome and talented Dan on the left - a full brother to Ivy from an earlier mating. Dan is an awesome agility dog and if Ivy turns out to be half as good I will be over the moon. 

That's the gorgeous and very exuberant Quinn on the right - a half brother to Ivy as they share the same father.  The first three words that come to mind when watching Quinn run are fast, fast and fast - did I mention he was really fast ???  Definitely a potential superstar in the making there.

It might not seem all that exciting to catch up with relatives for those who do it on a regular basis (yes, I'm talking DOGS - LOL) but for the little girl who moved from one side of this big country to the other it was an out of the ordinary event that we were not expecting to happen so most definitely 'blogworthy'.  Hopefully we will meet up again if we end up making the trip to Nationals next June.

We have just returned from a full weekend trialling at Warrnambool - Ivy had a ball and was just as enthusiastic at the end of the second day as she was at the beginning of the first.  Wish I could say the same about me !  We finally managed to break the cycle of 'just one little thing and always something different' in Novice Agility when she won the ring on Sunday morning to complete her title.  Best thing was that her contacts were great on every run and she didn't self release once - I even chose a run where she had already knocked a bar to run past the end of the dogwalk and continue ahead without releasing her and she stuck her position perfectly. 

Our Summer project (after she has a break for a few weeks) is to really work on proofing those contacts and improve her confidence in driving to the end position that I want.  I was so despondent about her contacts after Sale at the beginning of the month, but a couple of weeks of 'extreme consistency' in regard to criteria really appears to be making a big difference to her performance.  Now that I have stopped obsessing about speed over the contacts at all costs and am more concerned about the consistency of her performance,  her 'slow-ish' (in relation to the end picture that I have in my head)  contact performance is suddenly speeding up anyway.  Another lesson learned the hard way.  I still intend to teach a running A Frame down the track, but I don't think I'm quite ready to take a walk on the wild side just yet.

The 'just one little thing' saga now seems to have taken up residence in Excellent Jumping.  We had some lovely runs over the weekend in jumping but just couldn't seem to manage a pass.  But very happy with her startlines, serpentines and response to my cues when I actually got to the right position, which sadly didn't quite happen as often as it should.  My favourite run for the weekend was probably the most difficult jumping course of them all, where we managed to get a fairly difficult lead out pivot into the tunnel, pulled off a fairly difficult diagonal line front cross, followed by a tight tunnel discrimination and by then I was on such a high that I totally forgot the course and just made up my own - but tragically I had made up quite a bit of it before I realised it wasn't right and the judge yelling out 'go straight ahead' brought me back to reality.  Well it felt right to me and obviously felt right to Ivy too as she was having a ball running my course instead of the judge's one which we both felt was far superior, LOL.

Just a couple more trials to go before the 2011 season is done and dusted and we look forward to them both as well as tackling the 'training list' over January and February.  Bring it on !

Getting Connected

We've had a month off trialling over September, which is something that I do with all my dogs every year.  With the amount of trials cancelled this year and the small number that we've entered, I probably didn't really need to do it, but I'm a creature of habit in regard to what trials I like to run.  Plus Ivy and I are still feeling our way as a team which is to be expected.  

As a quick summary, Excellent Jumping is very much all over the place, largely due to me either getting where I need to be or, well ........ not. (Sorry Ives)  We either have a brilliant run or it's a total train wreck - there doesn't seem to be too much in between at the moment.  Novice Agility is usually a pretty good run, with the curse of just 'one little thing' still plaguing us. Lovely run for 1st place at Hastings at our last trial with just one bar down.   It feels as if we are going for the record of the most 1st places in Novice Agility ever without actually qualifying, LOL.  Patience, we will get there when we get there and I am in no hurry.

 It was good to take the month off  to look carefully at our runs and then to pinpoint what we need to work on- sometimes if I keep entering trials it all starts to blur into one which I don't want to happen.  The lessons from our mistakes are the most valuable ones and I want to act on them, not just ignore them because I don't  have time and then find I keep on making the same mistakes over and over. 

Plus it gives me time to get some updated photos of Miss Feral - beautiful as ever, in my eyes anyway.  Oops - photo overload ahead.   Warning !

One day we might get a photo where her mouth is closed, but that day hasn't happened yet ! 

Taking time off has also meant that I can lock myself away inside over the holidays, be lazy, read a book, make some more tug toys and enjoy listening to the rain ........ with 4 wet dogs. Today is good as there have been brief periods of sunshine where they actually got to have a walk.  (Although I suspect it won't be 'today' any longer by the time I actually get around to finishing this post. ) Yesterday was scary with torrential rain, defeaning thunder and the sky lit up with lightning for a few hours. One almost deaf Cattledog who really didn't notice, one Border Collie who couldn't give a toss and two Kelpies both trying to sit on my knee. I usually don't mind storms but it was a bit freaky at times.   The Royal Show was closed down for the afternoon and I don't think that has ever happened before.

In regard to agility, I signed up to do Daisy Peel's Mental Management and Goal Setting course online - this is definitely an area I want to learn more about.  So far it hasn't disappointed and it's really forcing me to move outside my comfort zone and think about training and competing in different ways.

One of the exercises that we did related to startlines - when we had our 'twisting episodes' earlier this year, I thought a lot about the criteria I wanted for Ivy's startline and even developed a POA for how I could deal with the sideways movement I was getting.  Although we have made excellent progress in training through this issue and I am pretty happy with her startline in general, I have never really given much thought to what I actually do when I enter the ring, set her up, and then leave her.

Most of us work pretty hard to get connected with our dogs before we go into the ring, but how do we keep connected once we set them up at the startline and walk off?  What about actually entering the ring and getting to the set up point?  I have to admit I am jealous of the set up in the US where it is permissable to take your lead off and throw it on the ground, rather than have a person come and hover over you waiting for your lead.  Although I don't think Ivy even notices, there are some dogs that are put off by this - my kelpies included- and it would be nice if it was one part of the startline procedure that didn't have to happen.  Then we have this ridiculously formal procedure where we have to wait for the judge to ask if we are ready, indicate we are and from this point on you cannot touch your dog.  Then most of us do the 'sit-stay-march away' thing without looking at our dogs - so in between getting connected with your dog outside the ring to leading out and turning back to our dog ......... are we still connected to the same degree or has the startline procedure killed all the work we've done outside the ring?  Something I will be thinking about over the next few trials and experimenting with a couple of different things.  My goals for October - apart from staying connected on the startline - are testing out all the things we've been working on over the past few weeks -  to trust our training, to get to where I need to be, to give information to Ivy on time and to run like hell ! 
Wish us luck.