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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.
Games 2 – Independence – Discrimination – 7/7/25
Yes – She’s run at OTR, Fusion, Animal Inn (fun run and 2 USDAA jumpers runs), and now Dog Dynasty (2nd outdoor location and I was really happy with how she was fine lining up relatively close to the entrance plus facing the tent with timer/scribe/judge) Had a leisurely hike at Jay Cooke State Park on our drive home yesterday so decided to look at the Games 2 package this morning.
Kaladin
Looking at the video, I may be turning towards the jump a bit in my “neutral walking path”, but I think Kaladin was already looking at the jump before I did that. In general I thought this went really wellLift
Had some challenges, but pretty impressed with Ms Lifty-Loo considering this is much newer for her. This session was after our morning walk. I think starting her stationed on the cot did help. She also has different treats in the fur lotus tug (I need to get some different tossable treat toys since she thinks the pull apart wallet-style ones I have are pretty hard to get into – she seems to like the lotus style opening better) She is still not a fan with me starting her while holding her collar so I ditched that after the 2nd rep and moved to the wing wrap (not too much better in her book so I wasn’t picky about which way she decided to wrap and just went with what she offered).I stationed her while I flipped the jump to the other side. Probably should have stopped while we were ahead. Unfortunately the video decided to stop itself right before the last rep where she did have some issues getting the tunnel. I ended up moving closer to it until I was level with the jump wing and then she went – Oh -Tunnel!
Lift – Dog Dynasty USDAA – P2 Jumpers – FEO
Entered her in P2 Jumpers at the end of the day so that I would have plenty of opportunity to get her out several times at the new location. Put her in P2 thinking we would be done sooner but mis-read the class schedule which was running Starters-Masters and not the other way around. Ran FEO so I could make up our own slightly more flowy course. (and to make sure I left open the possibility of running P1 again in the future). She was pretty amped up the first few times I got her out for short jaunts around the trial site but was able to do pattern games and recalls. Not at all interested in playing with a toy outside the ring. Trial had a small entry and there is a fair amount of space to warm up and hang out in so she was nicely focused going into the ring. Luckily the thunderstorms went through the night before so we just had some drizzle in the morning and then it got kinda muggy. At least the grass was dry by the time Lift ran. I was late on the blind crosses so she added a stride or two on the turns, but I stayed connected and no LLF moments! I thought she was going to run by #6 so just kept running and she actually made an adjustment and got the jump. All in all, really happy with the run, especially considering it felt like we were in a war zone the night before with multiple idiots setting off fireworks and something that sounded like a cannon next door and a few blocks away. Plus the City of Superior fireworks a few blocks away. Drugged all 3 dogs with Alprazolam which seemed to amp Lift up more for a while where she was frantically chewing on a bully stick for an hour before finally getting exhausted and falling asleep.
Lift – Games 1 Jumping Popout 5 & part of Jumping Course 2 – 7/1/25
This was from Tuesday morning. I stationed her on her cot as we came outside. Not sure if that made the difference or she was just in a more obliging mood.
At 2:00 she coughed up a treat as she was exiting the tunnel (LOL)
I can try to rotate treats more but she’s still not into non food-stuffed toys for agility so kinda hard to mix up toys very much. I’ve been able to sometimes get a single jump with a frizzer or tug toy reward but it’s 1 jump wrap or backside jump to toy and then she’s done with the toy after that.
Switching back and forth more for teeter/RDW training is partly logistics with the yard due to space. I was getting to the downward slope on the teeter and didn’t want to confuse her with that one day and then the RDW going down the plank a few days later.
Lately I’ve felt like the agility training has been going well, but her general house manners have regressed. She is by far the barkiest Sheltie I”ve had – just about anything can set her off into a boingy-barking fit. Usually she settles back down again fairly quickly but sometimes it takes a while for the brains to recover after they’ve fallen out of her ears.
For Kaladin on Jumping Course 1 – I”m not surprised the outside line that kept him in more extension was faster even though he was pretty tight doing the inside wrap. The “S-lines” often are for him even if they are up to 6ft longer.
We’re up in Duluth for hiking today and tomorrow. Then entered in an outdoor USDAA trial on Saturday and hoping the weather forecast for all day thunderstorms is wrong. Lift is entered in Jumpers at the end of the day so that I have plenty of time to get her out multiple times to do things and settle in before she goes into the ring. Then some hiking on the way home on Sunday.
Kaladin – Games 1 Jumping Course 1 (modified) – 6/29/25
I was going to do some of the jumping popouts and then realized I could set the course with some tweaks – I replaced one tunnel with the tree since it works nicely as an obstruction, made the other tunnel 10ft, used 6 weave poles, shortened up some distances (esp vertically) and combined jumps 4 & 12.
I accidentally made 6-7 harder the first time by thinking 7 was a backside. Later we tried different handling options for the correct 6-7. I also wanted to test sending to the poles and he hit the 2nd opening twice when I didn’t escort him in more. (it’s hard to see with the shade)
Laughing at your comment about no breathing -nothing but verbals on the layers. I was just thinking about whether I was too loud and cueing the jump too much for layers but I guess we have the answer here.
Lift
OMG – so glad to hear you’re not quite sure what she was protesting about either. There’s just so much going on her little brain with poprocks and who knows what else.She got the day off from agility training today. We did some toy play inside and now she’s out cold on the living room carpet…well she was until I dropped my phone with a loud clatter and she jumped up to complain at interrupting her nap for a hot second before moving to a dog bed to continue her nap.
My plan for tomorrow is to run her on small parts of the jumping course or some of the pop-outs. Kaladin has class tomorrow night and while I think there’s space for me to bring Lift, I think we do better when I only have her to focus on and am not constantly swapping dogs out to the car (so neither rehearses bad waiting (aka FOMO) behavior in a crate near the ring). So Lift is going to continue to get a break from doing much training at Fusion for the next month or so. (they have a lot of 3-day AKC trials there in the summer because they have AC and OTR does not- so there isn’t much opportunity for me to book ring time and dropping into classes is hard to line up my schedule and a class/instructor that I want to drop in to) Plus, we have so much to train at home with camp, weaves, and RDW stuff and at some point I need to pause the RDW a bit (or get it to a better place) so I can switch back to the teeter. I feel like going back and forth will confuse Ms “I am very Literal and hae lots of rules”.
And speaking of Ms “I’m judgey and I have lots of rules”, I’ve had some interesting groups chats off and on with my 2 agility friends in Canada who have her litter mates (both boys). There are definitely some genetic (and/or early puppyhood experiences triggering genetics) that are at play with these 3. The small boy, Zeplin, seems to be more extreme than Lift in some of his “lack of pre-frontal cortex” and FOMO moments. (he’s the one that will add in biting his handler’s butt with his LLF moments) Wyatt (the Kaladin-sized one) is more moderate in temperament but also still has a ways to go in “growing up”
Here’s part of what she posted for his 2nd birthday so I reached out to say Dean and I were laughing…in commiseration with her.“Today is Mr. Zeplin’s 2nd birthday! I think I find it hard to believe he’s 2 because he still has the mental capacity of a 6mo. So far, I think he has 2 brain cells, but they dont always work together. I’d be extatic if a 3rd joined the party.
This boy is the sweetest, cuddliest, friendliest @ssh*le you’ve ever met. He loves everyone, but needs some anger management courses every once in a while. I couldn’t imagine our lives without him (though there are days he’s lucky he’s still here!)”So we’ll keep plugging away at training and remember to enjoy the journey. Thanks for all of your support. It’s been invaluable!
Kaladin – 4 Corners – 6/28/25
Yesterday I pushed the 2 jumps on the other side of the tree out further -15ft from center of tunnel to center of bar – for Kaladin. Any further out and it would have been too squishy from the deluge earlier in the week.Had some issues with the end of sequence 5 where he went around jump 11 – I think I was rotating to the right arm for 12 too early.
Lift – 4 corners – 6/29/25
Lift says her hooman did move the layering jumps in closer (11 ft from center of tunnel to center of bar) try harder to stay connected, throw the reward sooner, and not pull her off lines but that she still had some LLF moments.I am wondering if the recent weather is a factor. In the last week we’ve had several downpours and then the air pressure got weird again yesterday and we had some pretty bad thunderstorms overnight which kept waking all of us up. Tari was very sensitive to air pressure changes and I’m wondering if Lift has a touch of that too. Tari used to be clingy when the pressure dropped in advance of a storm. Lift doesn’t get clingy but I feel like she has been more on edge. had less impulse control in everyday life, and had less resilience in training.
I left almost all of the session in the video so you could see the transitions. I did crop out about 20sec of her happily hunting for a cheese fragment in the grass while she was behind the tree.
