Abby Weaves...at a trial!

I've been just running right on by the weaves if Abby makes a mistake/decides she doesn't have time to finish them, not stopping her at all. Well, on the 2nd day of the trial this weekend Abby completed both sets of weaves on the first try. She knows how, she really is pretty nice weaver. Who knows, maybe there's hope Abby.......now if they would just get rid of the table in standard we'd be in business!

NAJ Indy

Indy earned her NAJ title and a leg towards her NA...would have been 2 legs, but she missed a weave pole and I didn't even notice it, so an NQ for that run. she's doing very well......I on the other hand need work. She's such a good girl, my front crosses are not only late, but positioned terribly.

Indy update

Indy's 18 months old now, still very much a baby, but growing up more all the time. I'm so happy with her, she's such a fun girl and a great all around dog. She's always ready to play or do some training, but she's calm, quiet and snuggly at home if there's not much to do. She's far more social with other dogs than I'm used to with the pugs, but it's never distracted her in classes, so that's great! I do have a feeling there will be more papillons in my future, just a perfect breed for me! I had my concerns venturing away from pugs when I got her, but it was a great decision.

Training wise she's come a long way and of course there are some things that need some work.

* weaves and dogwalk and just great, I'm amazed at what she truly seems to understand. Both are fully independent, with nice speed

*Teeter and Aframe are good, but need a little tweaking. Teeter- she's starting to self release when it hits the ground, I went through that with Abby and let it go and that turned into fly offs pretty quick. I need to remember to really reinforce her staying on the board. She seems a little confused by a lot of lateral distance on the teeter too. A frame- I'm such an idiot, I realized we never really worked on a variety of approaches onto the frame with her, just lots of straight approaches, so she seems a little unsure and it seems if there's a discrimination and she doesn't know where she's going right away, she's not sure that she can make it. I did however do some things right, her contacts on the frame have come together beautifully, she understands her job. I have worked on all sorts of exits, pushing off the Frame, front and blind crosses, lateral distance, she does well with it all.

* Jumping she's a fairly good jumper. Not a bar knocker, that's for sure!! She does tend to jump very flat and extended, so I need to continue working on collection skills and improving my timing/deceleration.

Trick training her has been fun. I don't know why more people don't spend time working on tricks. I need to put a video of her finished tricks together.

Some tricks that are still in the works (need work)
* limping on beck leg, without any assistance
* retrieving things and putting them in a small container. she does this, but she still kind of *throws* the toys at the container/me. I'd like to see her really paying attention to what she's doing, but the current version is pretty cute!
* rolling herself up in small balnket, we've got nowhere on this one. I do have a cue though *burrito*

She's entered in just a few trials over the summer. Taking things slow, letting her mature with no real pressure put on her. Just enjoying running a baby dog. something I haven't done before. It was always a race to get to Ex, then a race to get to Ex B. she'll get there, that's for sure, so no need to rush.

WCOTC trial

Went to the WCOTC trial this past weekend. Kittie ran both days and Indy & abby each ran one day. Kittie was her usual self. she's really become very easy for me to run. she has her limitations and plenty of holes in her early training, but I know her and she's very comfortable to run. She's always ready to have some fun out there and tries her best!


Indy was a total weenie! Both runs were ok, but then ruined when she got afraid of something......dogs/people outside the ring, that she noticed when she was on the table in standard and the judges hat in jumpers. this really surprised me at first and then I got to thinking, she really hasn't done much agility outside, and she does still have a certain degree of fearfulness when we're outside hiking. A barking dog in the distance panics her, and she really can't focus. Poor baby, I think it's leftover stress from when she was attacked. This stuff really can stick with them. she just wasn't 100% herself last weekend, yet she ran well overall. Teeter and dogwalk were both great! She really loves to weave too!!

Abby was Abby, fast and bordering on out of control! No Qs for her, but she put on quite the show : )


Here's video of some of Kittie's runs.

A surprise in the mail

I came home to a surprise yesterday. Kittie's invite to the PDCA showcase...or top 20, or whatever they're calling it now. I really didn't think she was in the top 5 for agility, since I barely ran her last year and then I moved her to preferred but she ended up #4 for standard.

Not sure if we'll go or not. The whole thing sounds a little silly. Dressing up in 50's attire.....conformation folks in 50s prom getups and companion event people dressed like the movie Grease (so, are the breed people the soc's and the performance people Greasers??) Bill says I should do it, but I think he just want photos of me in a poodle skirt and saddle shoes.

I wasn't even decided about nationals, Kittie runs terribly on the surface that agility is being held on this year and I definitely wasn't planning on spending the week.

Does anyone know just what the showcase entails? I see there's a required rehearsal. We've been invited before, but have never attended.

A plan to make a plan

I've whined several times about how I want to move out of the city, want less neighbors, should be happy in our cute little neighborhood where you can walk to cafes, indie movie theaters etc......but I'm just not. Well, it's time to start really forming some plans to make things happen. We're starting a serious search for properties within the city that fit the budget (I'm not a fan of having debt, we like to live well below our means) and our list of things we want in a new home, # 1 being no close by neighbors, I also have this obsession with having a mudroom. We have five dogs, we need a mudroom! Also get an idea of things in surrounding counties. We've done this before....and we ended up living in the city. It's a tall order. Even if this ends up being on a 10 year plan, I want to have a real plan for making things happen. Moving outside the city, with a 40min. to 2 hr commute just can't happen right now, but with some changes made it *could* down the road sometime.

any day now.....

Supposedly AKC is voting on all those possible changes, A frame height for little dogs, positionless table among other things. We should know what's going on sometime in May. It's frustrating for me because if they do change the A frame height my dogs will never be able to practice on a 5' foot frame. Where we do 99% of our training the A frame can't be lowered. It may be just fine to "wing it" but I'm not a fan of surprising my dogs in competition.

I just wish there were some proposed changes for the teeter. Indy had another flying launch off the teeter on Monday night. she's not doing it because she doesn't care, she's doing it out of confusion. She was on 2 different teeters prior to this earlier in the week that tipped very differently and she really was confused and that hurts her confidence on the dog walk...."which kind of plank is this?? A teeter or walk, better slow down to be sure". Very frustrating for both Indy and I, it's not fair for her to surprised like that. when you're only 6 lbs some teeters are just starting to give a little as she approaches the end and others aren't moving at all and she has to wait a second, just for it to begin to tip if she's all the way at the end, the way she's been trained (she needs to go to the end, or many teeter won't tip at all). At least she landed on her feet this time.