Fletcher: Trialing in the Mountain Snow

This weekend's trial in Fletcher started out with frustration. A snow storm descended upon western NC on Friday night as we were traveling. What would normally be a 2 1/2 hour drive turned out to be much, much longer.

The roads were bad, but passable within a safe speed. We were doing well until 3 miles from I-26 we were stopped due to a tractor-trailer accident. After an hour and a half wait, we got going slowly and decided to re-route off the highway to get to I-26 where I was convinced that since it was an interstate, the roads would've been pre-salted and possibly plowed once or twice.

I was wrong. Not long after getting on I-26, we got behind another accident approaching the gorge near Saluda. This time we had 2 hours to entertain ourselves. We found out that another tractor trailer had jack-knifed across the interstate.

After getting going again, things were looking good. People were starting to realize how to drive in the snow, and as a result, traffic was relatively smooth considering the conditions. Then came the THIRD stoppage. This time we were TWO MILES from our exit, and it was 1:45 AM. After about 2 hours, I got out and started talking with other people. Turns out that there was another tractor-trailer jack-knife, and that the police had now closed the interstate until it was all cleared, and they could plow everything. Hour after hour passed. Finally at 5:30AM we started moving. 10 minutes later we were at the exit.

We pulled off, and much to our displeasure, the exit was blocked. Two tractor-trailers had attempted to go up the exit ramp, and subsequently got stuck. (Are you noticing a theme here?) After waiting about 20 minutes to see if anything was going to happen, we turned around on the ramp and got back on the interstate hoping that the next exit was free. As we went through the underpass, we noticed the exit ramp was free. Having been driving for just under 11 hours, laws be damned, we went up the exit ramp backwards.

When we finally checked in to the hotel, it was 6:20AM. The trial check-in starts at 7. So we slept for 40 minutes and headed over to the site. Upon arriving we found out that the trial start had been delayed for 2 hours due to weather. So we had to sit around for another 2 hours.

Once things finally got started, we started having fun. Saturday we were entered in PII Standard, PIII Snooker, Performance Speed Jumping, PIII Pairs and PIII Gamblers. Snooker was short and not-so-sweet. We got eliminated on our first set of obstacles. Our pairs run was clean, earning a 2nd Place & Qualifying. Unfortunately, we already have a Q in PIII with the pair we ran with, so it won't count towards our PIII title (it can apply to other titles down the road). Harley did well in Gamblers, but came up short on the closing gamble. Our Standard run was excellent, earning a 2nd & Qualifying, which means we only have 1 Q left before getting our standard title! A fault on her Speed Jumping run left us out of the running for round 2.

Sunday started earlier than Saturday despite being slightly delayed due to the icy road conditions. We had 3 runs, none for Q's. Another good Gamblers run, but still came up short on the gamble (need to do more distance practice!). Harley faulted her weave entrance in her Standard run, and proceeded to do the same in Performance Grand Prix (in addition to an off course that was totally my fault). Having only 3 runs, we left for home early. Thankfully the trip home took the usual 2 1/2 hours.

Reflecting, we learned a few lessons and what to work on. While we didn't perform as well as we hoped, it was the best we could do considering the lack of sleep and conditions. We're planning on attending CPA's trial this January in Raleigh, so we'll see if we can get our weave poll issues and distance work improved by then!

Lastly, Harley, Slo-Mo, Jazzmine, India, Shai, Bruno, Pepe and their 2 two-legged friends would like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season!

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Summarized Results:
Saturday
 - PII Standard - 2nd and Q
 - PIII Pairs - 2nd and Q
 - PIII Gamblers - Did not place
 - Perfomance Speed Jumping - Did not place
 - PIII Snooker - Eliminated

Sunday
 - PII Standard - Did not place
 - PIII Gamblers - Did not place
 - Performance Grand Prix - Eliminated

Rescue Dog Haiku

Saw this funny haiku on someone's email signature on an agility mailing list I belong to and thought I would share:

Ode to a Pre-Owned Dog, by Melanie Lee Chang 

How can it be that
Someone else didn't want you?
What an idiot.

Via Melanie Lee Chang's Blog

Keeping Track of Titles

When we started in agility, there was so many things we not only had to learn, but also to keep track of!

Titles are a big part of competing in agility. Most competitors will tell you how excited they were when they earned their first title with a dog.

For those of you who might not know much about agility (yet!), a "title" is a certification of sorts - It says that you have completed all the requirements set forth by an organization. After completing all the requirements, the dog is awarded the title. Usually titles have a 2-4 letter abbreviation. Dogs earning titles like USDAA's ADCh (and the Performance equivalent APD)  and AKC's "MACH" are highly regarded and respected in the agility community, as the road to earning those titles is long and hard. When a dog earns a title, it is proudly appended to that dogs name. For example, our dog Harley's full name is currently "Harley Davis PJ3 PK2 PR2 PG2 PS1 PD1."

While you're racking up the Q's, it does become hard to keep track of all that information, especially when you have more than one dog! Here are several recommendations:

• Agility Record Book is a free, open source software product that keeps track of pretty much anything you can think of with agility. It supports requirements from most agility organizations (USDAA, AKC, NADAC, CPE, etc) and helps organize your future trials as well.
• If software is not for you, then consider the old fashion way: Pen and Paper. Many trial vendors offer agility record keeping binders. They're relatively cheap, but not as cheap as free. You also have to be diligent about keeping track of your runs - it's easy to fall behind and lose track!
• Make a cheat sheet. I wrote my own spreadsheet that's printer-friendly so I can take it to trials and quickly mark off Q's I earn during the weekend. I made mine to be quick to update, and SIMPLE. Here's a link of my USDAA cheat sheet on google docs. It doesn't keep track of course times or placements, but it doesn't need to. It's just a quick cheat sheet, and to be usable, it needed to be simple. Note: I hastily converted the link above from an ODS file, so it's not as pretty on google docs as the original on my computer.
• As a reader added, some organizations have online portals to access your dog's information online. As far as I know, AKC and USDAA both offer this feature. USDAA charges a $20 subscription fee for 2 years of access. I gladly pay that much for access, and to support my organization of choice.

User Suggestions:

• From Elizabeth Z:
  

  I use the "Manage my Dogs" feature on www.akc.org and this way I can verify (after about a 3 week period following a trial) my dogs titles and Q's earned. I always check the site before I enter the next trial so I know for sure what we are striving for as far as titles go. I then have the green Q ribbons to know what we got for that particular trial.
  You can also follow your friends dogs too, who are registered with the AKC, with their online record keeper.
  I used to go by the ribbons on the wall. I would drape them in the orders recieved and then I could see when there was a new title ribbon or notice when a Q was needed. This got to be too long.....it circled my ceiling and soon needed another room! I had to box up the ribbon idea and look for something easier.

• Comments: I did the same thing when I started. Keeping track of so many ribbons is tedious, and not a very good record keeping practice.

If you have any suggestions on how you manage your dog's information, post a comment and I'll add it to be above list!

This Weekend: Fletcher

This weekend, we are headed off to one of our favorite places to trial: Fletcher, NC! The Blue Ridge Agility Club always knows how to put on a good trial, and we're hoping to continue the success we had at their trial last May (1st place in Performance Grand Prix that gave us our first round bye at SE Regionals, which lead to our qualifying for Nationals).

This will be the first time we've competed at the indoor arena at the Western NC Ag Center. Given the cold temperatures expected this weekend, it will certainly be nice to be indoors. Our trainer, Deb, will also be making the trip with her dog Ike, so we can bug her with our obsessive handling analyses instead of always bothering Susette. :-)

In other news: Carolina Piedmont Agility just announced some of their future trial dates for USDAA and AKC. In addition to the January USDAA trial in Raleigh, they will be hosting TWO AKC trials in Charlotte at the Charlotte Sports Center. Both trials are after April, when the new Mixed Breed classes can be offered, and it's been confirmed that they will be holding Mixed Breed classes. The Charlotte Sports Center is a great venue, and has a great indoor playing surface. I should know - I played indoor soccer there for many years in high school & college. It's great to see more trials in the popping up in the Charlotte area!

Wish us luck this weekend!

Davidson News Story!

Our good friends at DavidsonNews.net has posted another story about Harley!

Brenda Barger has become a great fan of Harley and has been posting updates about Harley and our agility accomplishments in her semi-weekly "Around Davidson" column. We greatly appreciate not only the exposure she has given to Harley, but also to the sport of agility.

Here's a listing of all the stories so far:

• Watching Harley jump, a Blackburn baby, grads (6/23/2009)
  
• Popcorn rally, Alaska travels, dog jumping and more (10/1/2009)
• Honors for Cubmaster Christopher, June Kimmel, and Harley (12/10/2009)
  

Distance Work

Tonight's class highlighted an issue that Kristen and I were all too aware of: Distance work. 


Admittedly, Harley is a very clingy dog by nature. She's not clingy in the regular kind of way. She's quite independent, and is completely happy doing her own thing. However, when you're doing anything WITH her, she wants us to be close. As a rescue dog, I can understand where she comes from. She's shy, and doesn't like strangers to approach. When she's near us, she's in her comfort zone. Agility has been a sport where she can come out of her shell - most people we train and trial with don't believe us when we tell her she's shy.

That is what makes distance work so hard for her. Thankfully, tonight's lesson gave us a crash course on how to motivate her to send out to jumps.

For those of you who might not know what I mean by distance work, here's a short summary: While running a course, a handler's job is to try and pick the most efficient route for both dog and self. Most of the time this is pretty straight forward, but if you have a fast dog, it's challenging. Practicing distance work allows you to put more distance between you and your dog while maintaining control of their direction through verbal commands and body language. By adding distance, you can make your route shorter, which helps keep pace with a fast dog.

There are classes in most venues that require distance work: USDAA has Gamblers, AKC has the FAST class, NADAC requires distance tests in some of it's standard courses, and there are probably several others in other venues I haven't come across. Since we primarily run USDAA, we are most familiar with the game Gamblers. Simplified, a Gamblers run consists of 2 parts: opening and closing. In the opening, you have x number of seconds to get as many points as possible (each type of obstacle is designated a point value). At the end of this time, a buzzer sounds and you have y number of seconds to complete a closing sequence. This sequence is numbered, must be taken in order, and the handler must remain on the opposite side of a line on the ground, about 5-10 feet in Starter/PIs. Failure to complete the obstacles or stepping over the line results in a fault, and a non-qualifying score. As you progress from Starters/PI to Masters/PIII, the distance between the line and the obstacles increases. You can see now how valuable distance work becomes!

Kristen, Harley and I have progressed in Gamblers to PIII, the highest competitive level, admittedly by mostly sheer luck of the course designs. Harley's distance work has been inconsistent at best, and getting better at this has been a training goal of ours for quite some time.

Deb setup a very nice course to gradually get our dogs to learn the 'out' command. When handling at a distance, using a word to tell the dog to leave you is a must. This word, like all the agility obstacle commands, needs to be consistent every time you say it. In Deb's course, she set up a tight double-pinwheel with 7 jumps (shown below). The dog would complete the pinwheels in a figure-8, while the handler attempted to stay on one half of the course while using their 'out' command to send the dog to the outer jumps before turning back towards the handler. The handler's objective was to not cross over the red line draw below. After a few repetitions to pattern the dogs to the course, the pinwheel would become larger. More repetitions, and then larger more.

Harley's first go at it was a bit embarrassing. She just didn't know what we were asking her to do. She'd start the pinwheel, and at the 'out' command, she'd just stop running and start casually walking towards us. After I admitted failure, Kristen tried with similar results. Finally after supporting her a bit more, blocking her return route with a wing fence, and breaking out the ultimate motivator (the blue racquetball), the course sunk in. This then allowed us to start moving the jumpers further apart. Using our out command, she got better and better. I was surprised at how fast she was catching on! By the end of class, she was reliably sending out to jumps on a full-blown course that incorporated the double pinwheel at the center.

There was a magic moment near the end of class when Harley started to come back to me and I yelled 'OUT!' while pointing to a jump. Harley then altered her course and took the jump. Why do I think this was a magic moment? Because she thought about coming toward me, recognized the command, and changed her direction accordingly. This told me that she didn't merely memorize the course, but she was learning and recognizing the command.

Training Pop Quiz: Does this mean mission accomplished? Harley is now an expert? NO! While she is beginning to learn the out command, there's a lot of work to be done to hone and maintain this skill. Harley now knows what to do on that specific course. The hard work comes in generalizing the command so Harley can apply it in a variety of different courses and obstacles (Gamblers course designers frequently like to put contact obstacles in their closing sequences).

Looks like I'll need to start building some more jumps so we can do our homework!