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It helps to have a Sheltie for the food reward box since they are so good at scarfing down small treats quickly. LOL!
And that troll trail was pretty fun. We ended up going back to part of it later because we realized we had missed finding Rocky (the one caught out in the sunlight) and the tree trolls the first time around.
Will add chair weaves for Kaladin and Find my Face for Lift. She was pretty good at it when done outside of the context of agility and when I did it with 1 jump but then we got busy traing other things. So I should refresh her memory of it without obstacles and then start adding it in after I do late/confusing handling?
The pattern games help her alot and we use them as part of our warm up for classes & trials and in general, but she still has trouble coping with movement going past her when we aren’t doing them. (like entering the ring for a trial when I can’t toss treats for back & forth but the bar setters are moving back to their chairs or the leash runner is moving)
Hi!
Catching up while on vacation in SW Wisconsin. Lovely little cozy airbnb cabin at this Norskedalen Nordic heritage property that has lots of trails right outside our front door.Yes – Kaladin has never liked accelerating ahead of me to the poles, especially when it is an angled entry. We saw that on the “DW in the way” games earlier. I probably should have used the 15ft tunnel, but I downsized to 10ft since I had 6 poles. I didn’t get a chance to circle back to the game last week given the general chaos of us getting organized to leave town on Thursday AM.
And speaking of weave poles, Kristin and I were talking and she pointed out that the Fusion poles have some extra bases near the connection between the 2 sets of 6 and she thinks that is what is throwing Reacher off there. So we’re going to do a weave pole swap where Kristin tries my PVC set to let Reacher practice with more feet on the base and I get 3 sets of her 2x2s so that I can build Lift up to 12 poles on similar base poles. Then we’ll swap back and I’ll work with Lift on my PVC set separately from building her up to 12. (or maybe we will have snow by then and I’ll have to work on her weaves indoors at Fusion)
Fusion UKI trial last weekend –
Kaladin was his usual brilliant self even if he was 1 a-frame contact away from IAC 11 (or whatever number Agility Blender says he is up to. He has oodles of Jumping and Games Qs, but needs 1 more point from Agility). He did 2 lovely DWs though! I was concentrating on my timing and was able to see during the run & via video how the spots where I was a bit late was where he drifted a bit wide. And I still have grabbing some a-frame examples of him on my list of things to do (which may or may not happen tomorrow after we go hike the “Troll Trail” and pose Shelties next to cute little Troll figurines).Ms Lift got to run 2 classes NFC on Saturday in the middle of the day. The weather was lovely (upper 60s/low 70s perfect for an outdoor trial so figures that we had an indoor one with A/c – but it was in August so it seemed like a good plan to plunk a Fusion trial down at the end of August!) so she got to hang out in the crate in my car when she wasn’t running (Show manager perk – I get there early and grab the nice spot that is shaded all day).
I am really happy with her Novice jumping run. I made up my own course that let her open up more and pratice layering. (Courtney’s course was pretty nice but it did have a tighter turn back after jump 2 to head off to the weaves so I changed that since I was going to skip the weaves anyways). I am especially proud of myself for cueing the tunnel-tunnel layer jump line without any Giraffing! (it’s now a verb!) I had warned Courtney about our path but forgot to give the leash runner the heads up but luckily Shelley realized we were going to run right by her into the reward box so we didnt’ run her over.
Then we ran Nov Snooker NFC and Courtney nicely called out numbers for practice even when Lift added bonus obstacles and I purposely put in an extra red jump since it was on our line to 2 in the closing. Really late BC going to the 3rd red started her kangaroo tendencies. Then we got straightend out and both got too excited on the last line where she tried to extend for 2 strides in a 25ft distance between 7B & 7C and took off way too early and crashed 7C (It was a Tari kind of moment._ Before you watch the video, let me say that 1) she’s going to be fine. I scratched her Sunday runs and left her at home and then Dr Julia was able to see her on Tuesday where she put parts of her back in alignment and cleared her for our light hiking vacay as long as we did her stretches. She also sees Michelle for massage on Wed and Dr Julia thought she would be good to go back to playing agility after that assuming Michelle doesn’t find anything concerning. 2) Courtney let us do the last line again and Lift wisely did 3 strides between the #7 jumps on that line. Overjumped a bit but confidently drove ahead of me. 3) you can’t see it well in the video but man was she pissed at the jump bar. She glared at it and I thought she might try to bite it.
I thought that maybe she decided to leave the stride out because I had lost my connection to her but I am still looking back at her when she made that decision. Unless it was my starting to turn forward right as she hit the end of her 2nd stride?
Circling back to earlier posts.
I remembered the other reason why I wasn’t going to enter Lift in the October ISC trial. I still need to register her with AKC! I just haven’t bothered yet since she’s Canadian which makes it expensive and a nuisance since I need to find her pedigree.I did start her on the Purina CalmCare when we got back from the seminar. Did a half dose for a few days incase her stomach had issues with it and then moved her to the full dose Friday a week ago. Too early to see a difference, but I want to see if she settles down on that before I take her to an AKC trial. Right now I feel like I would need to carry her around a lot and into the ring so that she doesn’t rehearse any bad behavior of lunging at movement during transition times. Given the more charged environment at AKC Trials and my own concerns about being in that environement, I don’t think putting her in the ring at an AKC trial makes sense at this point.
Oh and side note, I asked Dr Julia about why there is only 1 dosage size for the CalmCare and she said something about how small and large dogs have about the same length of intestine by surface area – the smaller dogs have more folds in their intestines to fit it into their bodies.Games 5 – Weaves 8/21/25
Definitely should have started with the weaves further from the tunnel. (So much better that way when I came back at the end of the day to try it that way)
Lift
Kaladin
Surprisingly had trouble getting the tunnel…maybe because he had less momentum going into it? When these things come up on course he loves sailing out to the tunnel
Yes! I was really impressed with Ms Lift doing her drills right away in a new place. I think it helped that it was a quieter seminar environment with less people and she got a short walk through the ring to check it out during setup but still. Yay her!
Oh she’s sailed over a few of Kaladin’s 12 in jumps when we were outside playing and they got in her way! I think she was more worried about 10 and 12in in the context of the grid than if it pops up on a course. I can start putting some jumps at 10in when it’s easy and see what she thinks.
UKI – yes you can put things on the ground and I have held the teeter for the elevator game before. I checked with the judge to confirm but they were fine with that. I can’t put her target on the end of the teeter though so we’ll have to have that faded.
AKC ISC – I could put her in J1 and make something up. Maybe even run it without a toy or I’ll forget and throw it and get in trouble.
Sadly it’s USDAA and then UKI outdoors at Animal Inn so no reward box first. She does like running after a frizzer but doesn’t have great skills to bring it back so if I use that at Animal Inn I will probably spend my whole time trying to get it back after the first throw. (she’s only into tugging on a frizzer when we are walking back inside after playing for a while – not in the context of grabbing it after doing an agility thing)
Does the Master Class just run for a year after you sign up?
The seminars were so much fun! I recovered enough to set up the weave challenge drill this morning and tried it with both dogs, but need to get the videos uploaded. (I ended up printing all the UKI trial materials tonight instead of that)
Jump grids – I agree about dropping the adjustable grids for Lift. I can do some other grids that aren’t straight since I she doesn’t do the weird right-drift if she’s turning and sprinkle in the jumping toolbox stuff for the slice jumping. I’m not in any rush to get her comfortable jumping 12in. She’s running perf 8in for now when we do USDAA and I might just leave her there for it. Eventually I’d like to do AKC ISC with her so she’ll be a 12in dog there, but I’m in no rush. There’s a day of ISC locally at OTR in mid-October that I will enter Kaladin in, but probably won’t enter Lift. I would need to feel that 12 poles are solid for her and we haven’t gone beyond 6 yet (I need to find another set of 6 to borrow – figures that a local equipment FB group had a post about 3 sets of 2x2s about an hour after we chatted about that but someone beat me to them.) Plus there’s no food reward box at AKC and I can’t throw a toy.
Speaking of NFC/FEO & food reward boxes: I’ve got a series of trials coming up soon and am not sure what I want to do with her at them. I started her on the Calming probiotics earlier this week, but am expecting that will take several weeks (I think Purina said up to 6weeks) to see how it affects her (fingers crossed that it really helps). She loves her lotus ball or fur tug when it has food in it, but she’s not into a plain toy reward at home most of the time much less in public. She’s not quite ready to try 6 weave poles at a trial even if we had a class with them (maybe snooker occasionally?). She’s doing great with the “going down” teeter games (it’s almost horizontal) so we’ll start the elevator game soon, but I havent’ started on fading the target on the plank yet so I’m not expecting that we’ll be doing elevator games in public for a while.
This weekend is Fusion UKI (has the reward box) where she is entered in 2 classes each day (strategically picked to be later in the day so she has time or Dean can drop her off later in the day) She’s in Jumping & Snooker on Saturday & Jumping & SS on Sunday (Courtney Moore is judging). She’s 5pts away from her Novice SS title so I think I am going to NFC SS even if it’s a perfect course for her since I don’t want her in Senior yet. For all of the classes, I’m waffling on whether I should try a short course with no toy and then run out for a party or if I should do a few short sequences and use the reward box (either with or without a toy as a marker).
Then we have a hiking vacation. And then I’ve got the MAC USDAA Trial followed by the MAC UKI Trial. Both are outdoors in Animal Inn’s fenced ring and she’s entered in 2 classes on 1 day for each of them so she’ll stay home the other day to decompress. (I’m chairing the UKI one and I’m the Board liaison for the USDAA so I’m there both days with Kaladin). The UKI one has the reward box so I’ll probably use that since outdoors is still harder for her. For USDAA I can run FEO but I’m not sure how much it benefits her for me to throw a toy which she will chase but probably not pick up and then run to her leash and out. I think if I throw a toy with no food in it more than once in public, she’s going to start to get really pissed. She’s in P1 Jprs & Snkr for USDAA so chances are it’s all jumps and tunnels.
After that flurry of trials, she’s got 6 weeks off and then there’s UKI at Fusion near the end of October. Then probably another 6 weeks off for her since she’s definitely not coming to the Open. So the Fall is definitely going to be mainly about working on contacts & weaves with some jumping exercises mixed in. I saw that Shape Up has their RDW level 2 class starting up in mid-Sept and I am considering auditing it.
What do you have planned for the Fall/Winter?
Dr Julia checks measurements each time she is in and Lift has been even between sides. Sometimes her measurements fluctuate a bit due to fur, but we’re not seeing anything asymmetrical. I’ll video from the rear next time and give her more space for the adjustable jump. I am pretty sure she is not drifting to the right when running courses. We had joint x-rays done at 18 months when she was spayed. Everything looked good according to our regular vet and Dr Julia.
Looking forward to seeing you this weekend.
Julie
Beyond DW to weaves- 8/10/25
Lift
She hasn’t done very many weaves after a tunnel so my plan was to see if she could send ahead of me but without me actually stopping back by the tunnel. However she looked so good we took it a bit further. Given Kaladin’s issues with sending ahead to the poles, I worked on more distance and independence with Lift from the beginning so of course now I need to balance it with me moving closer to her or going ahead of her. (LOL)The white PVC weaves have the round PVC on the base so it’s a very different picture than the flat, metal 2x2s. I’ve been adding them in gradually since the first time she saw them, she did them but was a bit slower and when I asked for them a 2nd time she decided they were really weird and started popping out at 3 or 4 (and they’re all in 1 piece so I can’t offset poles 5&6 on them). We’ve done a few sessions where I ask her for 1 set on the 2x2s and then 1 on the PVC and then finish on the 2x2s. She’s started to figure them out which is good since I need to combine them with the 2x2s to go beyond 6 poles!
Kaladin
He nailed the first rep where I softened the angle a bit. The weaves are also a bit offset to the right of the tunnel opening as opposed to a straight 90deg shot from the tunnel exit. Then when I moved the angle back to be 90deg, he started questioning the entry more. (including the time where I thought he had them and was running out of breath so paused in my “poles-poles-poles” litany only to have him turn away right at the entry. He was much better with the weaves this time than the first time I tried them, but I think I should have mixed in more reps of me running in a bit closer to keep his confidence higher as he really got slow about sending out and then once he got the entry, his actual weaving was at a normal speed.
On the switch aways to layers: When you said closer to the jump do you mean while still keeping some lateral distance, but going further towards the take off side of the jump? Otherwise I feel like I would need to pull back out away from their line to complete the layering.
I was thinking about getting the a-frame out of the shed so that I can introduce Lift to it and to work with Kaladin on it, but decided to wait to see the Games 5 drills to figure out where to put such a big piece of equipment so that it’s not in the way) We have made great progress on the teeter in terms of mountain climber (with some drops) and the bang game, so took a pause on RDW work to focus on the first part of teeter going down where the board starts horizontal and starts dropping more. She decided that was super-fun to do right before meal times with raw food in her toppl for a reward. My plan was to do the next part of going down where she runs down the board to the end which is on or close to the ground. Then to move to the elevator game and add back the RDW. (I didn’t want to have too much of running down different planks at the same time even if they were in separate sessions) However I discovered earlier tonight that while she is super happy about moving up and down the tilted board and jumping on it, she doesn’t have a strong enough understanding of her front foot target at the end of the board. She was racing down the board and stopping just short of the target. (aside from the one where I had her too amped up and she careened right off the end of the board). I think I need to go back to the travel plank and refresh her front foot target before doing more teeter going down or starting the elevator game. So I am debating about getting out either the low DW or the a-frame. (I can fit both in the yard but then don’t have much space left for camp drills) Is the wider a-frame enough of a different picture that she shouldn’t get confused with it if I go back to the downhill teeter stuff soon?
Lift – Adjustable Grid – 8/9/25
Took several weeks off from jump grids and then tried one again on Saturday. Nothing found in chiro or massage appointments, but she’s still drifting to the right for this grid. She starts in the middle of the bounce jumps and then starts moving to the right. Her actual jumping and striding look pretty good though.
Switch to Layer -8/7/25
Did these on Thursday morning but just getting around to posting them.
Swapped out the weaves to a jump so I could run Lift on these too.
For the 2 hands cue, I’m not sure I have done that with either dog before (or at least not consciously). My theadle wrap cue is 2 hands with arms bent so I experimented with straighter arms but I’m not sure how clear that is to them.I wanted to balance the switch to the tunnel with driving out to the jump and a RC, but it wasn’t a great angle so it was a bit rough with both of them but neither thought it was the tunnel.
Lift
Kaladin
He got a bit confused about the proximity of the table when I asked for the wing wrap. Good thing I had completely moved the DW plank to the fence.
Lift & Kaladin – Beyond DW to Jump – 8/7/25
Look Ma, No arms! (Well except to throw the rewardLift
Don’t think I got the “right” cue out early enough for the first balance rep but she nailed it on the 2nd try.Kaladin
Jump is still in closer than for Lift but he’s looking more confidentFusion class 8/5/25
Lift got to join Kaladin in class tonight because some regulars were unable to make it. Going into the ring and starting is still “an area of opportunity” for us, but I’m really proud of her here because the 2 dogs before her were Lisa Hennen’s Keylor and a very excited Malinois so there was a lot of energy swirling around. Not sure how easy it is to see at the far end of the ring, but I dropped her lotus ball (with a meatball inside) behind me on the circle wrap. I tried for a “small giraffe” in my arms when layering the weaves. (and Holly Sikora, sub teacher, burst out laughing when I said you had commented I was handling like a Euroean via my armpit)
No video for Kaladin but he nailed the weaves layer on the back line (tunnel- jump – tunnel to right turn slice jump). In his first turn, he didnt’ drive well to the end of the teeter so in the 2nd turn, I surprised him with part of a meatball for his first teeter which was so fast that his back end slid off and he had to hop it back onto the board – but it was a great effort. We did the line into the teeter again right after that and he was fast and stuck the landing – more meatball!
I plan on trying the switch aways at home later this week. I’m not sure that I trained a 2 hand arm cue for it, but I’m betting both dogs will figure it out.
Lift & Kaladin – Tunnel/Jump beyond DW & Switch work for Kaladin – 8/4/25
Lift –
Started with a tunnel for Lift thinking it would be easier and she decided to go for bonus points and take the other end of the tunnel! I had only curved it a bit so she wouldn’t run into the fence on the exit. Maybe it’s because I did the tunnel first but she nailed sending to the jump even up to 18ft away. She got a break before the jump when I tried the tunnel with Kaladin. Forgot to do the balance rep with the turn…which is probably going to be an important distinction to show her.
Kaladin –
Bit easier for him with the tunnel but had to move it closer (about 12ft out). Interestingly he can send from a stand still at the same spot that my DW is at, but had more trouble going from tunnel to tunnel. I’ll see if I can draft Dean into being the frizzer tosser next time and also try the lotus ball with a meat ball in it or something.Kaladin – Switch to Layer – 8/4/25
Did this after a break (while Lift did her sends to the jump). He had questions at first and then it clicked with him. I think I also cued switch too early on the first rep. His switch cue is pretty decent – especially for a switch to a tunnel. He does a lot better with lateral distance on the weaves than sending ahead of me.
Kaladin – Beyond the Dogwalk – 8/3/25
I was pretty sure this was going to be a challenge for him so I started out with the jump a bit closer in and then moved it even closer and adding the frizzer as a target (forgot to hit recrod on that part) before pushing it back out again. I didnt’ want him looking back so was trying to throw his frizzer earlier. I’m not sure that he would have taken the jump without having the frizzer sailing over his head.
I also knew that the weave poles would be hard because he has trouble sending out at a distance (especially the 90 deg entries) with me hanging back even without obstructions. So I had the weaves about 15ft away and also moved them over a bit to soften the entry. I ran out of yard so had to improvise the weaves angle to go the other direction.
Lift got off the waitlist and into Jacque’s Speedy Jumpers seminar this morning. She didn’t think much of me telling her she was done training for the day and was not going to try the Camp drills in the afternoon.
Really sorry to hear about Voodoo. I never got to meet him, but always loved to watch him in the Ag Univ videos
Independent Backsides- 7/28/25
Set this up for the other direction and squeezed it in before the thunderstorms rolled in.Kaladin
Used cheese for the circle wraps. Decided I should balance with the front of the jump and Kaladin went for extra credit with backside slice. Goof!
Lift
She got cheese in her lotus ball and seemed happier about the circle wraps this time.
Games 3 Independent Backsides – 7/27/25
Kaladin
I think he might have driven over the jump a bit more if I had managed to toss the frizzer back behind me more instead of dropping it so that it became a dead toy. Although it was already rather muggy at 8AM this morning so that was probably a contributing factor.Lift
I trimmed out her getting food out of her lotus ball, but left the rest of the transitions in.
My first thought looking at the Classic SS map was that it was above Lift’s pay grade. In fact all 10 – 8in dogs E-ed on it. Just checked and the Q rate overall was 10.6% (19 of 178 dogs). About as many had faults and the rest E-ed. I was so proud of her finishing strong after all the kerfuffles in the middle.
Lift – UKI Ocean Commotion Classic – 7/18/25
Here’s Lift’s brilliant E on her single run at the CT Classic last weekend. Considering the new location (after 22hrs over 2 days in the car to my parents in NY) and the fact that the run was fairly early in the morning, I’m really impressed with my little Scottish Jumping Bean. Started out really well until I forgot to layer a jump and my extra step to get around it sent her off course. Then shenaningans ensued until she finished strong and ran right to her leash. (That’s my brother-in-law cheering at the end).I did manage to get Lift out several times each day and she even worked for a tug toy on the practice jump for a few reps in 2 separate sessions so yay for that!
They ended up with 490 runs Fri & Sat & 540 on Sun (before some scratches as people gave up and left). Pentathlon Gamblers (152 dogs) on Sunday took more than 4hrs because of scoring issues where they were trying to do math and had multiple people hand scoring and comparing numbers while the dogs were running so they kept taking pauses to work out discrepanices – all this because they wanted to save paper and wanted to score directly into the computer. (Nic got to sit it out as they had 2 other UKI Judges stepping in so he “only” had to judge 400 runs that day). The secretary switched up the heights for each class but never swapped the groups so Kaladin was always in Group B that ran 2nd. And somehow with all the confusion over a different height order in each run, he was either the 1rst height or at the very end for every class. (usually the first for the first class and then the last for the next few so we had super-long days. Thank goodness he actually won the Pentathlon Finals on Sunday night by a Sheltie nose. They ran that small to tall so we managed to leave (with our loot) at 7:30PM while they were still running the large dogs.
Games 2 – Threadle/Push Wraps – 7/9/25
Kaladin
We did better on these than I was expecting given that it is one of our weaker skills.
3rd rep – I think I started my “in in in” verbal and other cues a bit late as he was landing from the previous jump, but he got it – maybe because I used his name too. Am I getting too far ahead of him on these? Hard to tell with the angle but I think I am past the jump as he is committing to the wrap on some of them. The one where he threadle slices I think I was moving too soon and coming in on his line a bit so he flipped the other way.
Lift
I started her on a station (way at the other end of the yard from turning on the video). She was boingy-ier heading into the exercise but I also cued a bark in there. We were using her new smaller lotus ball that is fabric instead of fur covered -and new beef jerky treats. She liked both. I also got her a clam shell lady bug yesterday but she is finding that one a bit harder to open so we’ll practice with it some outside of agility first. I have a fur pouch that pulls open too but she hasn’t gotten the hang of how to hold onto it and also get her nose into it to open it -it’s a pretty tight velcro.
Not surprisingly these were hard for us. I didn’t do much with threadle wraps earlier in MaxPup and we haven’t gone back to them for a while. I think I’m seeing my feet turn into her line on the first rep which probably contributed to her going over the front of the jump. I’m also wondering if it’s better for me to show more motion along her path to threadle wrap vs being closer to the jump and more stationary. Since she was clearly confused about the threadle wraps I moved to the push wrap which went beautifully the first time and then fell apart when I balanced it with the front of the jump.
Question on your earlier comment about cycling training skills for young dogs. Did you mean differnent skills on successive training days like day 1 weaves, day 2 rest day 3 RDW, day 4 rest day 5 handling
or did you mean a few training sessions of 1 thing and then the next few something different? I’ve been doing the former but now am wondering if you meant the latter. And of course there is the logistical issue of having teeter & DW plank out at the same time in my yard or finding the time to move them in and out…This might be it for us for Camp stuff until after our CT road trip at laest for Lift. It’s supposed to rain on Friday and Lift has a “Speedy Jumpers” seminar with Jacque Hoye at OTR on Saturday. We leave Monday morning to head east and won’t be back until July 23. I’ve got some time at my parents in NY on the way to the CT Classic but sadly they don’t have agility equipment (go figure!) and I’m pretty sure we won’t have room even for 1 jump in the car…although maybe the foldable fabric wings in the roof top carrier with a 4ft bar…hmmm…. Lift is entered in SS Challenge at the Classic but they had a bit of an oops moment with the online entries (or didnt’ understand that UKI counts entries and not runs so that Pentathlon is counted as 1 entry instead of 5 runs over multiple days). So they got way too many entries and just sent an email saying they had to cancel (and refund) SS Chlg #2 and Consolation SS. So poor Lift just lost 50% of her runs for the weekend.
