Agility Dog

Sprout AD SG SSA SR SK

The journey with Sprout continues. So far, we've realized a lot of success, but are still working hard at becoming a true team. Sometimes we're in sync and it's poetry in motion. Other times, his overdrive is kicked on so high that it blinds him to my communication or I just can't quite manage to keep up so that things can get a bit hairy. Every trial experience gives me homework for us to work on. No matter what, I LOVE running this dog. The universe certainly bestowed me with a gift when he came into my life last summer.

As detailed in my last post, I started trialing Sprout in mid-March, beginning with a USDAA Intro Trial and then proceeding through a series of UKI trials, finishing his Beginner titles in that venue and now working toward completing his Novice titles. I like UKI for him for several reasons: he gets to jump 8" as his regular height and do a 5'3" AFrame; to keep things lite and fun, especially when first starting out, I could take a toy in the ring and run him NFC; I like the courses - they are international style and not as open as the lower levels in other venues.

We will continue with UKI, but having always been a USDAA person, I wanted to give that a try as well. In USDAA Sprout has to jump 12" in championship, which is what I normally jump him while training, but I was still on the fence about competing at that height. At the beginning of May I entered him in a USDAA trial for one day to see how he'd do. We ran 4 classes - jumpers, snooker, gamblers & standard - and Q'd in all except standard when he had a baby dog moment.

With that success under our belts, I decided to continue to pursue USDAA and run him 2 days each in a couple of trials in June. At the first trial, something was off with him during the first couple of runs as he was knocking bars - 3 in jumpers and then the 1st red in snooker, giving me my first ever 0 point snooker run experience. This had me rethinking jumping him at 12". But I gave him a long massage after our disastrous snooker run and didn't have any problems in the afternoon or the next day, so it was probably something muscular that needed to be worked out. I did feel like we were struggling as a team throughout this trial though; we just weren't in sync. The starters courses are so open, which can make running a tiny speed demon very challenging. We only came home with one Q, in standard, that first day. Things improved the next day where we Q'd in 3 of 4 runs. Here is our best run of the weekend - our first time running pairs where we ran the 2nd half. We purposely took a lot of time at the baton exchange since neither dog had ever run relay before, but I wasn't concerned with making time.

And here is our snooker run from Sunday. I was pretty pleased with this up until the off course jump after #5 in the close. And we hit 37 points right on the dot, so Q'd.

The following weekend I had entered him in the Friday and Saturday of a 3-day trial. This time we really felt like a team for the majority of our runs. We ended up Qing in 7 out of 8 and, on Saturday, finishing his Agility Dog title along with his Starters titles in Gamblers, Standard, Relay, and Snooker.  Here are a couple of his runs from Friday - a fast and pretty standard run and a speedy jumpers run.

And here is our last run of the day on Saturday (also our last run at the Starters level) - snooker.

Next weekend we have some UKI planned and then we'll have some time off to recoup and regroup. We definitely have some things to work on! Agility is always a journey in process.

Advanced classes here we come...

Springing into Action After the Winter of Our Discontent

 

It's been 4 1/2 months since my last post. The reason for that? I blame this past miserably cold and snowy winter - the worst in recent memory. All my energy was pretty much focused on picturing the light at the end of the tunnel, as that tunnel seemed to grow longer and longer, and trying to stay warm in the meantime. My ability to train ANYTHING was severely limited. Too cold to be outside. Too cold to go to the agility building. Even too cold in my basement.

Three of my four dogs didn't seem to mind the cold snowy days so much.










Hokey on the other hand...she and I are kindred spirits when it comes to the winter months. I'm convinced she suffers from a form of Canine Seasonal Affective Disorder. She was miserable for months. She didn't want to go outside AT ALL. Every time, I let the dogs out, it was an ordeal just to get her to take a couple of steps off the screen porch to do her business. She would go right there in front of the screen porch door and immediately turn around and ask to come back in. Inside the house, she spent the bulk of her time leaning up against the heat vents shivering or curled up somewhere glaring and grumping at all the other 4-leggeds. Sometime in late March, as spring FINALLY showed the occasional symptom of appearing, she turned into a different dog. Suddenly she was happy again, bringing me toys to play with and chasing Sprout around.

First storm of the season - I'm not going out there

Different storm - same scene playing out all winter. LET ME IN!!!

Spring is here at last! Time to play and celebrate!

The worst thing that happened this winter was that Sprout developed a case of demodex.

Hair growing back after a few treatments

He'd had something going on since late fall, but the way it presented at first was somewhat atypical for demodex and looked like allergies. For the first couple of months, it was confined to his armpit area, but then in mid-December it started to spread. He was finally diagnosed on New Year's Eve day. Then I ended up spending a good part of New Year's Eve night at the emergency clinic; I very nearly lost him after his first treatment. After that, we switched him to a different treatment, but I was still nervous with each successive one. He was never himself for about 24 hours after each one. His last scraping in early March revealed no more mites and his hair has grown back in most places. However, I still worry about it returning; his hair hasn't grown back in his armpits yet. So I continue to give him medicated baths once or twice a week and I apply Goodwinol ointment to his armpits every night. I watch him like a hawk for any evidence that he might be losing hair again. I'm also worried about an underlying immune issue that may have caused the outbreak in the first place. Skin issues aside, he's as active and happy as ever.

Speaking of which, Sprout has made his official trialing debut and is now a titled agility dog!

Loot from his first trial where he went 3 for 3

We just wrapped up a whirlwind debut tour of 4 trials in 5 weeks - 1 USDAA Intro trial and 3 UKI trials. Our first trial was a last minute decision on my part. I had read an article about USDAA intro only trials and decided to check the events calendar on the off chance there might be one coming up in this area - and there was! Soon. Luckily I had already registered him with USDAA. It's not really worth it for me to travel to a regular USDAA trial to run him in the 1 or 2 intro classes that might be offered in a day, but a trial dedicated to just intro classes is a different story. The only thing I wish was a little different is, unlike UKI where at any level you can decide right then and there to take a toy into the ring and announce that you are running "not for competition", in USDAA Intro you have to pre-enter as an FEO (For Exhibition Only). I wanted to enter at least one run, preferably, the 3rd or 4th, as an FEO so I could bring a toy in the ring and keep things lite and fun for him his first time out. Winter being what it was and having an effect on our contact training and maintenance as a consequence, I decided to pre-enter standard, the 3rd class of the day, as our FEO run. He had some really great runs for his first time out, including a smokin' 51 point snooker run, and Q'd and placed first in the 3 non-standard classes. Unfortunately, I don't have any video of any of those runs. But here we are practicing between this first trial and the UKI trial the following weekend.

The following weekend we started Sprout's UKI career. I really like UKI for him because he only has to jump 8" as his regular jump height (as opposed to 12" in USDAA) and the A-Frame is only 5'3" for the little guys. I also find the courses challenging from a handling perspective, which I really enjoy.


He did really awesome once again - Qing and winning all his beginner classes.  


Here is his jumpers run from that trial:

The following week, we did a small UKI trial on a Friday. Once again, he smoked the beginners courses, Qing and winning all 3 AND finishing his very first agility titles - the UKI beginner titles in both the Speedstakes and International programs.

Here are a couple of his runs from that trial:

And, after a week off, this past Saturday we completed our last UKI trial in this cluster. He's now moved up to the novice level. The courses are the same as beginners, but now refusals count. And in UKI runs have to be clean in order to earn a qualifying run. We Q'd and blued in jumpers, gamblers and standard. Sprout has always made some growly, whiny noises while running due to excitement, but at this trial he graduated to throwing in the occasional bark. Silly. Here is his gamblers run. You can hear one of his barks as he is landing off the jump between the 2nd set of weave poles and the dog walk.

In other news, I'd tried to enter Poppy in a nose work trial the first Saturday in April at the same site where Ollie's was held last September. I was particularly interested in trialing her at this site because of her aversion to golf carts; there aren't any in use at this Gettysburg site. I don't remember when the entries opened, it was months ago. After they closed, she was waitlisted. Since she ended up at number 19 on the waitlist, I'd given up hope for her doing any nose work trials anytime soon and hadn't been practicing much over the winter. Then 3 weeks before the trial, just as Sprout was making his agility debut, I got an email saying Poppy had been pulled off the waitlist and had a slot in the trial. YIKES! I had to cram a lot of practice in. Luckily, it was like riding a bike to her; she wasn't even rusty. So my one "free" weekend in the middle of Sprout's agility trial tour, turned into a nose work trial weekend for me (5 weeks of trialing in a row - I've never done that before!). This being my 3rd nose work trial, having already not passed once with Poppy, and having been to this particular site once before with Ollie, I was much more relaxed. Just like at Ollie's trial, the order was interior, container, vehicles, and exterior. She was insane during her interior search, which was in a less creepy area than Ollie's had been, but still involved A LOT of arcade game machines. I let her off leash this time, since I didn't have to worry about antique furniture, and she spent the first 40 seconds or so bouncing up in people's faces, trying to find a way back out of the search area, and generally running around like a nut. Most of her pictures from that search have some blur to them. And we won't mention the crazed look in her eyes. Finally she settled down and started to work. She found that hide in just over a minute. The first comment on her score sheet was "A LOT of energy". HAHAHA! Understatement! Later in the morning, we did our container search. She buzzed right through that and found it in 9 seconds, which earned her a 2nd place. Then came the heartbreak. Yes, it was SUPER windy out, but that wasn't the reason why we didn't pass vehicles. I am 100% responsible for her not passing. I was too quick to call it when she started lingering on an area and for the first time I heard "I'm sorry, no". Oh well. I pulled it together quick. I had to because we immediately had to move on to the exterior search. Well, apparently I DID really pull it together because she smoked that search - 6.46 seconds! Good enough for first place! So, although her title remained elusive, once again, we didn't go home empty handed. Poppy certainly has her moments of brilliance. I think we're trying for a record - the most placement ribbons at NW1 trials without actually finishing a title. We'll keep trying to get that title ribbon to add to the placements she's racking up. Gotta love that crazy gal!

Now What? I taking a little breather and figuring out the next steps for each dog. I have a

couple of demo days coming up. The first I just show up with a couple of dogs, and do agility with one and nose work with the other. At the second, I'm actually running the nose work station at a dog activity day event, so I'll be giving talks, demos and then offering a short intro to nose work session for anyone interested in trying it out with their dog.

I'm figuring out Sprout's agility trial schedule. I'd like to get in some USDAA here and there, so I think I'm going to enter one day of an upcoming trial at the beginning of May, then take the rest of the month off to focus on training. June looks like a very busy month for UKI and some USDAA and I need to figure out what trials/days, I'm going to be able to do. I probably won't do a lot of trialing in July or August due to the heat, but we'll see what comes up.

Hokey heeling along

I'm planning to train Hokey for rally/obedience in the hopes that she'll like it enough for
me to enter her in those classes at this year's JRTCA Nationals. She seems to like heel work and she's 100% food motivated and the rules will allow me to bring food into the ring in my pocket. So we'll see how that comes along. In the meantime, now that it's warm enough again, I'm starting to bring her along to the building with Sprout so she can do a little agility once again.
 
Hokey is loving nose work. I think mainly it's because she gets an instant payoff. I have her working on odor only now and think she'll be ready for an ORT sometime in the near future. Ollie and Poppy will continue to practice nose work. I'll be interested in seeing how the element specialty trials play out. I'm really interested in doing some of those. And, of course, I want Poppy to finally get that NW1 title! I got involved in nose work specifically for her sake and Ollie (AKA Mr. Perfect) swooped in late to the game and got his title first time out. Out of all my dogs, Poppy is the dog I've struggled with the most and I really want this title for her.


The warmth of Spring is finally here.  Time to get BUSY!!

 

The Contact Zone

I am currently in the midst of training Sprout to have great performances on all three contact obstacles. I'm training running contacts for both the A-frame and dogwalk and a 4-on teeter. Because I live in a city home with only a small yard, I don't have space for my own contact equipment. In order to gain access to equipment, I rent an agility building once a week to train. Right now, this means those particular training sessions are very contact focused; basically, I work one contact obstacle then take a short short walk break and/or run a short jump-tunnel-weave sequence before moving on to the next contact. One hour per week, may not be ideal, but it's what I have to work with and I believe I'm making the most of it and being rewarded with good results for my effort.

A-Frame: This is the one contact obstacle where I was able to do the ground work at home. I am using Rachel Sanders box method, which I previously used to train both Poppy and Hokey's running contacts. I started Sprout by running him straight through the box laid out on the ground. I decided in order to get him a little deeper into the box and to get a better bounce, I needed to raise the back end a few inches. The cardboard insert from toilet paper or paper towel rolls works great for this, although you can also add some PVC extensions. I like cheap, quick, and readily handy myself. I worked all 3 of the stationary positions on both sides of the box:

Next I added the jump grid to the box. These are two low jumps that precede the box. The 2nd jump is placed exactly 9 feet from the back edge of the box. This simulates the down ramp of the frame. Running through the grid teaches the correct striding up over the apex of the frame then one bounce before the contact zone and then a 2nd bounce into the contact zone and off the frame. It's building muscle memory for the real thing. I did have a little bit of trouble getting the correct striding from Sprout early on; sometimes instead of the two bounces in 9', he was adding an extra stride - so two little strides then a bounce through the box or sometimes he was missing the box altogether. By messing around with the jump heights and their distances from each other, I was finally able to get a consistent 2-strided performance from him. Once the consistency came, I was able to set the jumps as I normally would have. The following clip shows us working the grid over a few different days. Again, I worked the 3 stationary positions on each side and then, once he was proficient and giving me a consistent performance, I added some motion and obstacles.

Then came time for the real deal. First, I set up the grid right next to the frame and ran him through it a few times. Then I set the A-frame pretty low and transferred the box to the down contact. I set a jump bar on the apex in case that helped him get the idea of leap over the apex; I had done this with Hokey and it had helped her. I'm not sure if it really helped Sprout or not. I didn't use one in subsequent sessions. If you look at the pictures above from our most recent A-frame session, you can see that he is now consistently leaping over the apex and catching a lot of air in the process - and getting a nice two bounce descent. For him, it seemed to come as a natural progression as his confidence increased and his drive accelerated. Here is his first session on the frame. I did raise it a little bit during this first session.

Here is Sprout's 2nd session a week later with the A-frame a little higher. As you can see, he's putting in some solid performances.

And here is Sprout's most recent A-Frame session on a still higher A-frame. Just look at him FLY! His confidence and drive are really starting to take off and he is sailing over the apex and putting in two solid hits. It can be hard to really see what's going on, but the pictures above are snapshots taken from this clip. He is catching some major air!

My plan from here is to continue to move to full height and to continue to get this kind of performance on a consistent basis, then fade the box. What is truly awesome is that NOT ONCE in any of these training sessions, has he missed bouncing through the box. He's 100% when it comes to hitting the contact on the frame so far. I am so pleased with his progress to date.

Teeter: In a previous post, I had shown a clip of the end behavior work I'd done in preparation for training the teeter. Finally, it was time to work the entire obstacle, starting with it set low, of course. Here is part of our first session (after training Hokey, I often forget that I can use a clicker with Sprout, even when it's in my hand!):

And here we are a couple of weeks later, with the teeter a bit higher:

So far, each teeter session goes like this: the first time, run like mad just past the fulcrum, then as it starts to drop suddenly panic and put on the brakes and look like a back-peddling cartoon character, end up in the contact zone, but not down close to the end. The 2nd and maybe the 3rd time through "Oh it's that scary thing that moves when I run across it. I need to be cautious." = a slow performance and a less than stellar contact performance (i.e. in the upper part of the yellow instead of down near the end of the teeter). Then the confidence builds and builds and by the end of the session he's got tons of teeter drive. My plan is to build his confidence while gradually raising the teeter to full height over several weeks. I also hope I can get him out and get him some exposure to other teeters.

Dogwalk: I'm still in the early stages of training Sprout's dogwalk. So far, I am planning a running contact performance. Unlike with Hokey and the foam tiles, I didn't do any ground work with Sprout. Instead, the last month or so, I've spent time each week letting him get used to the dogwalk by walking him on leash back and forth and letting him turn around. Then I've worked the down ramp by having my partner restrain him while I get him excited and then, when he's released, I throw a toy for him to run down the ramp and through a hoop I have set up at the end of the ramp. I had originally made the
hoop for Hokey's running dogwalk contact training and found it quite helpful since I was really at disadvantage trying to teach a solid running contact without the ability to use a clicker or any other sound to mark the correct behavior. I found the hoop taught her to run straight off the end of the ramp without leaping off while keeping her head low. She was able to retain the behavior after I faded the hoop. I'm hoping to have the same result with Sprout.

This past week was the first time I worked the entire length of the dogwalk with him (after the retrained ramp runs). Here is a clip of the result:

I'm pretty happy with this. I think his confidence will continue to build off this and his drive and speed with increase as a result. Once I feel satisfied with that, I'll start to fade the hoop and see if we retain the contact behavior I'm looking for.

JRTCA Nationals - AKA Mudfest 2013

Did you ever want to find out what it would be like to participate in a trial held in a bog? No. Neither did I. But that is precisely what this year's JRTCA National trial felt like. Let me back up and tell of my journey across the water from south-central PA to western MD.

This would have been a more practical mode of transportation than my Forester

The trial started on Friday, but I didn't have much planned for that day. Sprout was pre-entered in lure coursing and then I planned to run both terriers in the tunnelers agility warm-up, which is a pay-at-the-gate type class. Lure coursing ran until 3 and tunnelers normally starts around 3. The drive SHOULD take a little less than 2 1/2 hours, so I figured as long as we left town by 11 or so, we'd make it there in plenty of time for the lure coursing run and then we could do our tunnelers runs. Unfortunately, that day also happened to coincide with record rainfall for this area. Water and flooding everywhere - and the rain just wasn't letting up. York County was especially hard hit. As a consequence, traffic was horrible and travel was treacherous. At one point on Route 30, somewhere west of York, we came to an area where there was a lot of water on the road, but still passable. It just so happened that when I was driving across, an 18-wheeler was coming in the opposite direction. There was more water on that other side of the road than on mine and as the truck passed me, it sent a tsunami of water over and under my vehicle. I made it through fine, but my check engine and a couple other lights on my dash came on. It was running as normal, but it certainly made me nervous to continue driving it. I had no choice at that point. I wasn't about to turn around and drive through that water again.

Not my Forester, but a reenactment of exactly what I saw. Not good.

We ended up getting to the trial site a little after 3. I was disappointed since that meant I had missed my lure coursing run. As I got out to walk the dogs and get my bearings, I noticed that lure coursing was still running. I wasn't sure if I needed to check in first, but I figured it was worth a shot at trying to get my run in. Unfortunately, because of the chaos, I didn't get any pictures or video of Sprout's attempt at lure coursing, but it looked kind of like this:

Okay. Not really that bad. But the start of the course did involve running through some water and mud. The track was basically square around the perimeter of a field. It started at the lower corner, turned then went up a gradual incline where there was an agility tunnel to run through, turned again and ran along the top of the incline where there was another tunnel to pass through before turning again and heading down the slope to the finish. Sprout started out well. He chased the lure through the water and mud and up the slope. Then the momma's boy part of his brain kicked in as he got to the far side of the field; he realized I wasn't with him and how far away from me he was and panicked. He had two back-to-back runs. The first time he ran back to me as he got to the first tunnel. The second time he made it through the tunnel then panicked at he approached the far corner. He tried jumping over the temporary fencing to cut across to me. The people running the lure tried to get him to chase it again. He started to, but then gave up and came back around to me. So much for our adventures with lure coursing. I thought he'd really like it, but apparently he didn't like it as much as being with me. Hokey seemed interested seeing the lure running. However, she is kind of a princess when it comes to wet and muck and I didn't want to immediately turn off her interest by trying to run her in those conditions. Maybe another, drier, time.

The queen of speed. If I can get her to chase a lure, she'll be a force to be reckoned with.

I wandered around until I found the check in building and picked up my packet. There I ran into a friend who informed me that the tunnelers run was moved to the next day, so we left and headed for the hotel.

At least Saturday dawned a little brighter. It was nice to see the sun here and there throughout the day between the rain showers. I was kicking myself that I didn't enter Sprout in Agility I. Yes, he would have to do the A-Frame and DW, which I've only begun to train, but I think I could have easily "faked" an obstacle performance of each. I think he would have rocked. Instead, while I waited for the tunnelers course to open up and Hokey's Agility II class, I decided to try brush hunt with Sprout. He had no clue whatsoever about what he was supposed to be doing. He probably needs a proper introduction to rats. Who would have thunk he wouldn't just go out there and immediately hunt down a rat in a cage? Oh well. It was fun to try.

Sprout wandering aimlessly around the Brush Hunt area

Next came our tunnelers runs. I ran both dogs twice. I started with Hokey, who did pretty well, although about halfway through she paused for a little bit. I thought maybe because she was suddenly confused about why we were doing so many tunnels.

Then I ran Sprout twice. He did well with his first run. Excellent for his first time at a trial, especially with the multiple distractions such a excited dogs at the brush hunt area nearby and the less than idea footing due to the wet weather. He, too, seemed a little confused about why we were doing so many tunnels in a row, but took it in stride. He had one off course tunnel entry in that first run. His second run included a couple moments of distraction, but he worked well and was fast and this time got around without going off course. So proud of him!

Then I did a second run with Hokey. That's when things started to go awry. She stopped after the 1st tunnel and refused to go on as I encouraged her to continue. Then she took off back to the gate. She did come back and start working again, with a couple more weird glitchy things, like stopping to bark at the judge, but then she did finish strong. I'm still not sure what went wrong. Something freaked her out - the mushy footing, trialing outside for the first time, the general atmosphere? Maybe she was sore somewhere? Who knows? Being at the hotel was a new experience too and she became somewhat obsessed with the light and shadows under the door. So maybe the entire experience was just too much for her to handle at this point.

Things went even worse in our Agility II run. I got her to the line and released her. She ran around the 1st jump and over to the fence at the opposite side of the ring (where the gate was). I got her to come back to me a few times, but was unsuccessful at getting her to take any obstacles. She was definitely having a meltdown. Poor girl.

We ended the day by taking both dogs to the Thunder Tunnel area. Both dogs were introduced to the rat in the cage that would be at the end of the tunnel. Sprout, Mr. KILL ALL THE THINGS, completely surprised me by acting terrified of the rat. He's my highest prey drive dog at home, so that threw me for a loop. Hokey, Miss Nearly Zero Prey Drive, at least showed some vague interest (and Sprout got slightly more brave seeing her checking out the rat).

The women running Thunder Tunnel were SUPER super nice and encouraging. I can't say enough good things about them. Sprout went first. He did the entire tunnel with A LOT of encouragement. He'll do just about anything for me. What a brave boy!

Hokey made it clear she wanted no part of doing the entire tunnel, so we just had her do the short section from the ball pit to the end a couple of times. She was a good girl.

Sunday, the final day of the trial, started out gloomy and got worse - drizzle to rain - as the day progressed. Hokey was entered in Agility III in the morning and Colors in the afternoon, but I wasn't sure if I was going to attempt to run at all given the even mushier footing and her quirkiness the previous day. I walked the Agility III course and decided I had nothing to lose by at least attempting it. It did not go well. Again, when I released her from the startline, she ran to the fence on the other side of the ring. This time she wouldn't even come back to me. I wasn't going to push her anymore. It was disappointing since I know what she is capable of, but she'd made it clear something was bothering her and that she didn't want to work. I scratched her from the afternoon class, but did stick around to do a "fun run" in the rain with Sprout so I could at least end things on a good note. It was a game called Dare-to-Double, which I gathered comes from Teacup Agility. He did great. His greenness showed a little bit as he was reluctant to take the long tunnel that curved away from the inside of the ring when I handled it from the inside, but then he did take it when I went out and did a front cross and stayed to the outside. I was told that our score would have been a Q in a Teacup trial. So proud of my little man and how he handled everything. It's hard to believe he's only been with me and in training for 3 months!

Each dog got a placement ribbon in the tunnelers practice run, so at least they each got a memento to bring home. I think it's pretty cool that Sprout's first ribbon is from a national event. I got an expensive car repair bill that I have no idea how I'm going to afford. My take home from the trial is that Hokey needs a little break from agility, so we are working on some other things right now to build her confidence back up and cement our working bond again (watch for an upcoming blog post on that). But I'm already looking forward to going back next year and rocking agility with Sprout and potentially doing some other things with Hokey. I'm just hoping for much better weather and definitely better driving conditions.

Look What Sprouted...

Who is this???

I feel terrible for neglecting this blog for the past month and a half, but life has really gotten busy. I've been working overtime hours at my job and the dogs, including a foster and now a new guy (more about that in a minute), have been keeping me very preoccupied.

Catching up with the gang:

Hokey's training is going well. Her contact training is now in the polishing stages and we're running full courses using all obstacles at full height. I've taken her to a couple of workshops just to get her out and working in some new places. I really love running her! I've not entered her in any more trials since sticking our toes in the water Memorial Day weekend and probably won't bring her out again until fall. Summertime is just too hot. I haven't given trialing too much thought. I'm disappointed that we still don't have an answer on jump height changes from USDAA as was expected the first week of July. I'm reluctant to enter her in any USDAA trials until I know what's going to happen. I may just stick with CPE or perhaps give UKI a try, until there is an answer. I did join the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America and sent in paperwork to have Hokey "recorded". I am planning to do agility with her at their Nationals in October.

I found a way to be able to keep doing a little bit of agility with Poppy! A friend of mine has her own little home-grown agility venue called Super Sport Agility. She holds tiny trials that are run very differently than trials in other venues; nested courses are set up once for the entire day; they account for for 3 different classes and several different levels. Up to 4 dogs per hour can come and run the courses and then the results are tallied up at the end of the day. The teeter is not really used, the other contacts are lower and you can choose to jump your dog at whatever height you want to jump them at; classes are only placed according to level and jump height is not factored into it.  It's PERFECT for Poppy because it is low stress on her both mentally and physically. Everyone has to start at the beginner level. I gave it a whirl in June with no expectations considering we don't really practice and she hasn't done any "real" agility for more than 6 months. Not only did she Q in all 6 runs for a "perfect weekend", placing 1st in 4 of them, she finished the two beginner titles AND was High in Trial dog. I'm so glad I've found a way for her to be able to do a little agility and be successful.

Poppy with her loot from the June SSA trial

Poppy and Ollie continue their training in nose work. There have not been any trials in this area, but there are a couple coming up in the fall. The first one will be at the end of September in Gettysburg. The entry period for that one occurred last week. Even though I am only allowed to handle one dog per trial, I threw both dogs into the pool for the draw in the hopes that at least one of them would be picked. Given that there haven't been any trials in the area, but there have been several ORTs, I figured the number of teams vying for the 38 spots would be large. I'm happy to report that Ollie was selected! Poppy ended up #8 on the waitlist, but since Ollie got in, I told them to remove her. Unfortunately my classmates ended up #23 and #25 on the waitlist which was a bummer. I was really looking forward to doing our first trial together. The next trial in the area will be in October and the draw period for that will be next month. I'll only be throwing Poppy into the pool for that one. Crossing my fingers she'll get in.

Adventures in Fostering:

My cutie pie foster, Clark

It's been a little over a year since my "failed" attempt at fostering brought Hokey into my life permanently. I decided I'd give it another go. This time I succeeded! Clark was brought up by MAJR, along with 4 other dogs, from a bad hoarding situation in rural VA. Here is a picture of just some of the hoard. That is Clark in the front leaning up against the fence with another dog's paw on his back.

Really, you wouldn't know he came from such a terrible situation. He fit into my house like he lived here all his life. And, stranger still, my dogs ALL loved him! He and Poppy became BFFs. Hokey picked on him endlessly, but he just let her and they enjoyed chasing each other around the house and yard. Even Ollie liked him!

The Odd Couple

Astounding rare Hokey behavior

Two Bros Bonding

Here are Clark and Poppy acting like complete hooligans until Hokey finally says "enough"!

He was great fun and we all loved having him here, but I knew his permanent place was elsewhere. After 3 1/2 weeks in my home, he found his permanent family via a mutual friend. They love him to pieces and he will be treated like royalty for the rest of his life. The picture on the right was sent to me by his new family about a week after he left. Looks like he's settling in just great. Talk about a Cinderella story complete with storybook happy ending.




The BIG News

So, that brings me to the latest and greatest news - there is a new canine member of the family! After Clark left, I decided I wanted to foster again right away. Meanwhile, I've not-very-seriously-at-all been thinking about adding another male to the household. The week Clark got adopted is actually one of, if not THE, busiest times for intake at animal shelters across the country. ACCT in Philly had 900 (!!!) animals come in through their doors over the period of one week. The influx was so large, it made the TV news. Since the shelter only has space for 600 animals, you can only image the heartbreaking decisions that were having to be made by the shelter staff. MAJR pulled 3 jack russells: two that had been owner turn in from the same person and one that had come in as a stray. The one that came in as a stray had no clue that the shelter was a scary place and that, without rescue, his demise was imminent. To him, life at the shelter was one big party and everyone there was a great friend. He quickly became a staff favorite due to his attitude. After hearing his personality described to me by the MAJR person, Ardis, who evaluated and later pulled him, I requested him as my next foster dog. He was with Ardis for a day and a half. She fell in love with him and nearly kept him herself. I took him knowing ahead of time that I might be interested in adopting him.

It turns out he is 100 kinds of awesome and is here to stay. I named him Sprout. He is 8 1/2 lbs of busy, happy, joy. He LOVES to play with toys! He loves to snuggle. He's smart as a whip, responsive, and so eager to please. I think he may be the easiest dog I've ever worked with. And I had promised myself my next dog would be "easier" for a change. Here he is learning down for the first time; he definitely didn't know it beforehand. This is less than 5 minutes after I trained it by luring and clicking. He got that in probably just over a minute, so I decided to go ahead and just put in on command. It's already 10x faster than Hokey's down.

And here we are playing with my "baby" tunnel. He's learning it's all part of the fun and games. 

So far, two of my 3 dogs like him. Poppy is ecstatic to have another playmate that will endlessly wrestle, play bitey face, and tug with her. And Ollie is always grateful to have a dog in the house that diverts unwanted canine attention from him. Hokey is the sole holdout and was my only hesitation in deciding to adopt him. She loved Clark. I think it was because Clark was a little wus and let her boss him around and bully him endlessly. She would hump him and bark at him to the point that I was nearly being driven mad. This picture shows her groveling after getting in trouble (the shakey no-no finger came out with a vengeance) for ceaselessly humping and barking at him. Although I'm sure she was back at it less than 5 minutes later.

This next picture shows Hokey being a scary crankasaurus because Poppy and Sprout are playing nearby. Unfortunately I've seen this face and the "I'm shooting lasers from my eyes while I act all sullen and sulky" look all too often in the past week since Sprout came to stay here. I'm pretty sure it's because he let her know almost immediately that he wasn't going to put up with her bullying crap the way Clark did. He HAS learned to give her respect and keep his distance, so hopefully that will help to ameliorate things. Every so often the bee in her bonnet will fly away and she'll actually play with him and have a good time despite herself, so I'm hoping she'll get over herself soon.

But I'm such a cute princess

I sure am looking forward to working with this new little guy. He is already such a joy!

The expanded family