Sonic at 8 months

Sonic at 8 months

Sonic is a very active puppy, already 23.25" tall and at least 56 lbs. She is strong. Very strong. I shudder to think what it would be like to walk her on a leash if we hadn't been training consistently since she was 8 weeks old. We practice it just about every day because of our walk to and from the training building.

Our biggest achievement in the past month was completing the 7 "weeks" of Around the Clock Scent Discrimination. Weeks is in quotes because it isn't used as an exact time of 7 days, but rather it defines the stages that Janice recommends. The most I did any stage was 6 days for Week 6, which is the week you take away any cheese on the scented article. We worked articles every day for 33 days straight, something I've never managed before. We have only done them a few more times since, including using some fresh articles the last time we did them.

We have continued to work our field-related obedience, including walking with me vs. formal obedience heeling. The latter is stylized. The former can be on either side, and I  prefer that she is looking forward while remaining aware of where I am.  I continue to struggle with her not dragging ahead of me and pulling on the leash. To counteract the forging ahead, we do lots of sits. These have improved a lot this month. We also work on her finishing to either side, coming with a sit in front, sometimes close, sometimes a bit farther away. I'll also call her directly to heel from a short distance away. She seems equally responsive to my verbal sit cue and a whistle toot.

Cookie-toss sits are improving slowly. She is able to sit with little to no creeping toward me at about 4-6 feet. What I really like is that she is turning herself all the way around to face me before she sits, something Gryff has always been poor at. A straight sit should make accurate casting in the field much easier for her. I've learned that you can do cookie toss sits outside in grass. It just takes patience while they dig the treat out of the grass.

At each meal time for several weeks now, I've been having her hold a 3" bumper while I put the other dogs' food down and they start to eat. When we started this, she was very reluctant to even take the fat bumper, let alone hold one for any length of time. She has progressed to jumping up and grabbing it and sitting while I put the food bowls down for the other dogs. Just this week, I've started requiring her to reach down towards the floor, lift and hold it. This work  only adds about 15-30 seconds onto meal time, and though it is slow, she is making progress.

We have started force fetch, but haven't done much with it in the past couple of weeks for a variety of reasons.

I have started adding her to stay lines in my classes. If you've watched any of the scent article videos, you may have noticed that she flops over in a puppy sit frequently, a common occurrence with Flat-Coated Retrievers. I find that it helps some to put her rear end up on a 1" pad. This shifts her weight forward enough to reduce gravity's effect on her sit. When Treasure was a young dog, she had a lot of trouble holding still on sit stays. I finally realized at least part of the problem was that she was sitting with her hind feet so tightly under her that she was sitting on the outside of her hocks and with her front feet quite close to the back feet. This didn't give her a firm base of support, and thus she kept shifting.  Having remembered Treasure's problems, I've tried with Sonic what helped Treasure, which is have her do a small hop, lifting her front feet a small distance off the floor to try to spread her back feet apart some. We are only having modest success. I think the biggest issue  is that she is very cow-hocked right now, and I think she just can't physically hold a non-flopped over sit for too long. I just have to be patient with her and wait for more maturity.

Our work on field marking has been greatly inhibited by a couple of bouts of lameness. She was sore on both her left elbow and right hip the first time, and more recently, she has been limping on her right front. I had X-rays taken last Thursday but haven't heard from my rehab vet who recommended the X-rays, to see what she thinks. I have not been completely restricting her from running, but have mostly been letting her choose to run vs. encouraging it through our activities.

She was in her 1st real dog show on April 7. There was a Supported Entry by the regional Midwest Waterways FCR club, which means there were majors in both sexes. It was a bit touch and go whether she would be sound enough, but she was. She was the only puppy in her classes – 6-9 month puppy bitches – both in the Sweepstakes and the regular classes. This meant she got to go in the ring 4 times, which was very good practice. The half-limp tail that her litter all seemed to have now vanishes when someone approaches and she wags furiously. We managed credible stand for exams, and her gaiting was far better than in the puppy match in January. She mostly didn't look up at me, and mostly trotted. She had to let loose with some boings during the regular class,  but that's life with a puppy.

We have purposely worked my 20-Treat exercise a couple of times. Since I gave it as homework in my Fundamentals class last Thursday, I made a point of doing it the next day in the grocery store parking lot. It tooke her 20 seconds  to look at me voluntarily the first time, and a total of 3 minutes 40 seconds to look 24 times (yes, we are over achievers, doing 24 instead of 20 :-)). This was better than the 4-5 minutes to do 20 treats a couple of weeks ago. I will try to get her out another time next week (I'm traveling this weekend and next without the dogs), to set a good example for my students.

A few days ago, I had two of my launchers out to do marks with Gryffin. I decided to do a short mark from each one for Sonic, to give her an introduction to watching the extra big throws. She thought the idea was splendid and did both marks very nicely.

She got to do her first X marking drill the next day. The gunner stands in one place, throwing 4 different singles. There are many variations on the order of throws. We did right angle in, right angle back, left angle back, and left angle in. She did a very nice 'check down' on the final mark.

I am hopeful that the lameness issues will resolve soon so we can do more retrieving work in the next month. There are of course many less strenuous activities to work on, but we both want to be out field training. It is hard for both of us to be patient!

2011 Goals review/2012 Goals

Joker (10), Sonic (4 months), Ty (7), Gryff (8)

One of the things I love about the week between Christmas and New Year's is the time to reflect on what I accomplished in the year that is ending, and writing up what I want to achieve in the upcoming new year. 

I found my Dog Goals post from late 2010 yesterday. In it, I listed my 4 dogs, and 4 separate goals for most of them: Lifetime, this year, this month, this week. I forgot all about this document :-).

Java: Lifetime: OTCH UDX RE... already there

Quite unexpectedly, Java was suddenly sick, and we had him euthanized on January 30. I'm glad for him that it was such a quick ending. I have a lot of fond memories from that last month or two, when I was exercising the dogs a lot in the building, and he was right out there zipping around.

Joker

Lifetime: UD RE

Annual/2011

• Finish UD. Finished in May. He earned his 3 UD legs in 8 trials, failing articles the most, and remarkably, failing every exercise except the Directed Retrieve. Remarkable because it was where he made the most mistakes in training.
• Finish RE-- April

Coolest thing was getting that 3rd place for his 2nd UD leg, and earning a phantom OTCh point. I'm very glad that I ended up pursuing a UD with Joker. I think he really enjoyed the learning process, not to mention the chance to earn cookies, and it was fun being more concerned with qualifying than winning. It is helpful to be able to tell people that he didn't learn to retrieve until he was 5 years old. He needed to learn some exercises differently than my other dogs, further expanding my tool box of training options. 

Gryffin

• Get him sound! These next two depend on the 1st. Certainly better, but after a hard month of fall field training, he wasn't very sound. 
• Qualify for and attend 2011 NOI - he needs some # of OTCh points by end of June. Didn't happen, since we didn't show in any regular classes. 
• Qualify for 2011 Master National - he needs 4 more passes by July 31. Also didn't happen, but we DID run in 2 fall tests and pass one. 

Ty

Lifetime: CH OTCH UDX OM2 MH (VERY tall order)

Annual/2011

• Finish UD -- March 2011. She earned her 3 legs in 4 trials. 
• Double her lifetime Open Q's to 6 :-)-- Hey, we tripled her lifetime Open total - she's got 9!
• Earn some UDX legs (I'm thinking 3-5 might be attainable)-- We got 2 UDX legs 
• Advance her field work: specifically, her understanding of water blinds and multiple marking set ups, both on land and water.-- I still can't imagine her passing a single Master test let alone 5 for the title, but she did show some marked improvements over the year before. 

Ty also amassed 140+ OM points, and got an unexpected HIT and Open B 1st in November.

I think the best thing from this year is I feel like we have turned the corner in our training relationship. As Helen said, she's never before been my priority. She's always been in Gryff's shadow. With him retired from obedience, she's who I have to show, and she has stepped up and I think is enjoying the limelight.

My 2012 goals for my dogs

Joker - 10 years old

Having accomplished my LIfetime goals for him in 2011, he is now the resident retired dog  in the family. Playing with Sonic helps keep him young.

Gryffin - 8 years old

Keep exercising him through the winter, with the hope of running several Master tests in 2012.

Ty - 7 years old

• Finish her OM1.
• Earn her OTCh. There, I said it! We'll see how it goes.
• Earn her UDX. I actually think this will be the toughest one of the 3.
• Earn her OM2. Haven't had one before.
• Qualify in a regular class at the FCRSA National. Haven't managed that with her since her HIT Novice B debut.
• Qualify for and attend the AKC NOI (National Obedience Invitational) next December in Orlando.
• Field goals are vague. My pursuit of Master with her will depend on Gryff's soundness. I like having 2 dogs to train in field, but 3 is unwieldy.

Sonic - 4.5 months as I write this

She is such a dream to train! I haven't started a puppy so young for field, since I knew next to nothing about it when I started Gryff, so I have no sense of how good she's likely to be 
in the field. She shows great promise for obedience.

• Show her in conformation.
• Have her ready to match in Novice by the end of the year.
• Lay foundation for scent discrimination so she understands how to use her nose before completing her field basics.
• Get her through field basics.
• WC
• JH
• RN

Whistle sits

Yesterday, I worked on whistle sits with Sonic, which is something she'll need for handling on blind retrieves. I did it very much like I do cookie-toss downs, but using a platform that she has to come back to and stop and sit on. I was probably 6-8 feet away from the platform. I also did some calling her over it, like I do when working the CT down. What was interesting was that she was very good at getting to the platform from one direction, even from off center, but wanted to run by going the other way.

Here's a short video showing her doing the drill. I don't remember that I saw exactly this drill on Pat Nolan's website, but I was certainly inspired by his retriever training for puppies website.

Today, I put out a 2nd platform about 15 feet from the first one, similar to how I add a 2nd barrier to my Drop on Recall work. It increases the options from stop or don't stop to:

1. stop at the 1st one 
2. stop at the 2nd one 
3. stop at both 
4. stop at neither. 

It was fun and I think Sonic enjoyed it and was learning a useful skill.

A New UD

I showed Ty and Joker in Utility B today at the Fulton Co KC trial held at the Toledo KC's building. Ty earned her 2nd leg there in February. Today, the duct tape holding the sheet covering the mirror in the right back corner of the ring attracted her attention, causing some big point losses, but she got herself back on track enough to earn her 3rd leg and her UD. We started with articles, and she dashed out past the pile to go check out the duct tape (I thought she was trying to do a go out), so went out probably 10-15 feet from the end, off to the right, then dashed back to the pile and got to work. She came out of the pile well to my left, and made zero effort to straighten herself. On the bright side, she DID hold the article very nicely until I took it, something that has been a large challenge for her. The out-of-the-way approach cost us 3 points. Ouch! She went somewhat past again on the 2nd approach, losing another 1/2 point. Funny how those things about which you say "but she's never done that before!"** often happen right away again.
   We had glove #1 (same as last month), which she did a fine job on.
   Earlier this week, I decided to try heeling with my left hand hanging down (and, I HOPE, swinging reasonably evenly with my right one) instead of up at my waist. I do think she forged less than usual, so I will definitely continue to experiment with this hand position. In the past few weeks, her signals have gotten tenuous again. They had come together nicely back in February before and during TKC, when I made a change to my sit signal. It was almost like she finally figured the signals out. But then I was away for 10 days, and she was back to insecurity, especially on her sit signal. Fortunately for me, when I was training at TKC on Wednesday, someone pointed out that I wasn't moving my shoulder at all when giving the sit signal. By making sure I open my shoulder up with the hand signal, she has been responding consistently. It's a subtle difference, and it may not last, but she did it today.
   Her Moving Stand was perfect, yeah Ty!
   On her 1st go out, she veered some to the right, again eyeballing the duct tape. Fortunately, the bar on the right was the first jump. Okay, I admit it, I haven't done all that much proofing of her jumping from the opposite side of the ring. Guess what we'll be working on this week? I made much more of an effort to get her marking the center, and her 2nd go out was right on the money. So she finished out the class with a 190 and a new UD.
   Back in 2002, on the day Java finished his UD, Mike MacDonald was there, and he said "I don't care how many UDs you earn, they are each special." That is very true.
   Joker inexplicably failed both articles, but the rest of his class was really solid. I was especially thrilled with his go-outs after retrieving glove #1. In training on Wednesday, I had him retrieve each corner gloves, then did go-outs. He kept wanting to veer to the left corner. I worked on it at home on Thursday, where he was fine, but I figured we'd be lucky to get anything approaching a straight go-out. He only lost 1 point on the exercise, what a good boy! He also needs to work jumping from the opposite corners.
   Ty and I go back tomorrow to show in both Open B and Utility B. Joker gets to stay home watching basketball with my husband.

**This is a quote from the back of my book, The Art of Proofing. Yup, happens to me, too.

More rehab for Gryffin

Last Friday night, I had a consultation with Dr. Chris Zink, a well-known vet from Maryland who was in Ann Arbor to teach her weekend Canine Athlete seminar (fabulous, as always). She felt that Gryff's biggest problem was in his iliopsoas muscles (in the groin area). When she tried to do the standing test, he really objected. So Gryff is back on much more restricted activity, and had the first of a series of laser treatments to try to help reduce any inflammation. We've got 4 more scheduled in the next two weeks before we all go out of town again for my east coast trip.

It's disappointing to have to put his workout routine on hold for now, but if several weeks off will help, we just have to do it. He has been learning to wave, which I don't think puts undue stress on the sore areas. His wave is actually more of a whack with his front paw raised up slightly over parallel to the floor. He usually connects with some part of my leg. Or Joker's head, if he happens to be too close by. Poor Joker.

At Chris Zink's seminar, she mentioned a simple way to teach dogs to wave. "Just put a postIt note over their eye, and then click and treat them when they raise their paw to swipe it off." Here's what Gryff thought of that:

All the proofing he's had meant his feet stayed planted firmly on the floor. Oh, well, he's getting the idea in other ways.

Hall of Fame

I've been working on a Photoshop collage of photos of Gryffin for his FCRSA Hall of Fame page, and this inspired me to create the new collage of photos of all of my dogs for the top of the blog. What do you think?

Gryffin has actually been eligible for the Hall of Fame since he completed his UD and SH in 2007, but I wanted to see how far we could go in our title pursuit. I'm glad I waited :-). Trying to condense our 7.5 years together into a single page isn't easy. I've got a write up done, but need to sit on it for 24 hours. Hopefully, I can get a good print of the collage to send in for the FCRSA HOF album.

This process has once again reminded me of the wonderful ride I've been on with Gryffin. I am so fortunate that Helen picked him for me. It is such fun looking back on the highs and lows of the journey together.

A Shocker in Ann Arbor

About 10 minutes before going in the ring with Ty today in our first attempt at Utility, I suddenly thought, "Oh drat... Every one of my dogs has gotten a Q their 1st time in the Utility ring. My streak is bound to end today." (Joker was also going in Utility for the 1st time.) Then I remembered that Tramp (my 2nd dog, 1st OTCh.) did NQ her 1st try at Utility, earning her 1st leg the next day. Okay, just never mind. And besides, who else REALLY CARES???

Ty did show in Grad Open in June at the Specialty, which meant we were training regularly leading up to it, just not quite ready distance-wise on Signals and Go-outs. Joker hadn't had regular training since... March? April? Before? Both had done some Util matches last winter/spring, but VERY crudely. Then I spent all summer doing field work with Ty & Gryffin, with nearly zero obedience practice.

When Gryff cut his hock in September 19, it slammed our field season to a halt. I immediately jumped into obedience training, concentrating on Utility with Joker and Ty. We did two consecutive Friday matches @ NDT, with a productive week of training in between. I made a quick 3-day trip to California two weeks ago, so no training Thu-Sat, and was in Florida last weekend and missed 4 days of training.

On Wednesday this past week, Ty could NOT do her signals - and it wasn't just one of them. She was failing them every which way - on my drop signal, she might down, or sit, or stand and wag. On her sit signal, she might lie there, or sit, or stand up. I was SO frustrated. I'm very glad my friend Belinda was there, because I think her presence helped keep me from completely losing my cool. After that session, I was sure we couldn't pass signals. Okay, so we'd see if she could do the rest of the class. I was pretty confident with the other exercises. Then she decided that immediately after the Moving Stand exam, she needed to just return on her own. EEK! I practiced with a toy behind her to which I'd release her after an exam. Yesterday, on the last try, she started breaking to the toy instead of to me. Progress!

How to solve the signal problem??? I thought back to our meltdown on Signals in March, when she wasn't staying on the stand and was having drop problems. I pulled out a clicker and worked on those two things (stay put and don't anticipate, but DO drop when signaled). On Thursday when I went out to train, I had my temper well under control, and got out a clicker and worked on back chaining - I did several signal recalls from a sit for a click and treat. Then left her in a down, sit, click, toss a treat. We worked our way back to the drop. Her training ended on a definite up note from Wednesday.

Joker has been getting steadily better at the overall class exercises but he is just SO green. I thought he could probably do the signal exercise - he's been MUCH more reliable than Ty, and articles have been solid. The corner gloves are dicey, his moving stand is poorly understood (stop is good, return usually okay, but the exam... OH the exam... "Oh, you are coming to pet me? Let me come closer so you can do it sooner!"). My biggest concern, though, has been Directed Jumping. Three weeks ago, he was failing the exercise in multiple ways - not leaving me on my send command; not waiting long enough after the sit; and taking the same jump twice. My husband Fritz even came out one evening and called commands for me, which caused both dogs to make mistakes.

I finished up feeling SO good about everyone's training that day. Gryff had his first really full training session - during my California trip, he'd injured himself and was on three legs again. I hired my son Ryan to leash walk him while I was gone in Florida. Gryff was absolutely fabulous training Thursday. He was entered in both Open and Utility both days. I decided to give all the dogs a brief run in the agility yard. And Gryff ended up on 3 legs again :-(. Can we say dumb owner? We ended up at our local rehab vet Friday morning. She feels the injury is in his lower back, and suggests we see a chiropractor. Given that that couldn't happen until next week, I opted to have her do an acupuncture session. I've never seen one before, and it was fascinating. The needles that were in the muscle on the right side of his spine (the sore side) were twitching and dancing and bobbing. Once done, he did trot out (vs. the hopping he was doing on the way in). It wasn't a totally sound trot, but definite improvement. I was instructed to apply heat, massage, and ice a couple times a day. He is totally acting like his regular crazy self, which is a bit frustrating, but it does make me think that he can't be hurting TOO much.

We had order I in Utility today, which meant Signals first. I was in with Ty first (I did not show Gryff today), so figured we'd be able to relax after a prompt NQ. She had a significant lag on the fast and then didn't sit on the halt, but the rest of her heeling was fine. And she DID HER SIGNALS! I told the judge, "Well, that was unexpected!" Her articles and glove (#2) were all fine. Okay, would my bandaid hold for the Moving Stand? Her stop was quite good, and OMG, she stayed still when the judge stepped back! Decent finish for another passed exercise. Her 1st go-out and jump were fabulous. As the judge passed in front of us to switch sides for the 2nd half, she asked if my heart was pounding. Oh, yeah :-). Great 2nd half, and our first leg!

Joker was in Exc. B rally, and earned his 2nd leg with a 1st place 99. We went into the Utility ring about a 1/2 hour later. When we were ready to start Signals, oh, drat, he was looking forward, and when I started, he didn't. I immediately gave him a verbal command to heel. It's an expensive error, but not an NQ (it cost us 5 points). The rest of his heeling was quite nice (well, for Joker :-)), and he also did his signals. Good boy! He plugged away through articles, the glove retrieve (dangling it by a finger, but holding without dropping), and the Moving Stand. OMG, could we have another Q? He looked out well, and dashed off on my go-out cues. Oops, he pulled up shorter than I like, and I gave him a fast sit command. Jump was fine. Second go-out, same pulling up short. Not 10 feet past the jump short, but still far from where I'd like to see him. He waited for my command, I took my time, and then... he took the correct jump, came in and ... another Q for my team!

Ty ended up with a 190, 4 off the Signals, and then crooked turns, fronts, finishes on most everything else. Joker had my first ever score in the 170's :-) - a 178. He lost 9 on the Signal Exercise (ouch!), which would have been -4 had he started with me as he usually does. He lost 8 on DJ (another ouch) - I didn't ask the judge how she deducted, but I'm betting 3 points per go-out, plus fronts and finishes.

I am still in shock... even though we have been cramming for this for the past month, there are just so many things that could go wrong. I wasn't that convinced when I sent in my entries that either was likely to pass, but how can I pass up this once-a-year opportunity to show in my building? And yes, we have a HUGE home-court advantage. They aren't ready to go elsewhere yet, but this gives me a good read on where they are.

And oh my gosh, they each have a Utility leg!

Tennis ball time

I am admittedly inconsistent about keeping my dogs fit. I haven't taken them for walks or runs down our rural road in quite a long time. I've been really sick for over a week, which means I haven't had the energy to train. But I have had enough to run them with our trusty Chuck-It tennis ball thrower. I didn't have the Chuck-it recently, and I was embarrassed at how short my throws were without it.

As we headed out to the large fenced field (we still call it the agility yard in my family) on the front of our 4 acres to give them a run this morning, I started musing about the rules of The Game. First of all, I'd better have at least 3 balls along, or it just won't work. Ty is a tennis ball hog - if possible, she gets two of them and plays keep away with them. Then Gryffin stands there and barks loudly and uselessly. She does not take pity on him. Often, as Gryff races off in pursuit of a ball, Ty pursues him while still carrying her two. Sometimes, she drops them both and wants me to chuck them. She's remarkably adept at grabbing one ball in her mouth and then capturing a second with her front paws, and then gathering it into her mouth somehow. She's often just as happy racing big circles as persuing a Chucked ball.

My goal is to get out the agility yard to start The Game with as little barking and fussing as possible. Gryffin and Java are the noisy ones, and they wind each other to ever higher levels of noise. Not something I cope with gracefully. It helps if I can get the black dogs out the door before the terriers catch on.

Gryff and Ty returning...

Bologna Tongue is what we call this look.


Ty with her pair of balls.


The terriers mostly just run around, sniffing good smells, eating grass, and peeing on stuff. Sometimes, Java will steal a ball or chase and bark, but mostly, these days, he sniffs. Joker sometimes stalks the Flat-Coats - stares and I supposed points them. He jumps at them as the sprint past after a ball. It never appears that they notice his subtle attacks. He often gets sent flying. Why does he keep doing it? It's just part of The Game.

Delicious

One of the best parts of accomplishing a long-sought goal is that delicious feeling when it pops into your consciousness that IT'S DONE! I DID IT! I have found that the bigger the goal, the longer this popping occurs.

Last Sunday, January 24, 2010 morning, my Flat-Coated Retriever boy Gryffin and I won the Utility B class at Oakland County Kennel Club. This first place netted us 14 OTCh. points. We needed just 9 to go over the magic 100 needed to finish his OTCh. title. So he is now:

Ch. OTCh. Grousemoor Gryffindor UDX OM1 RE SH WCX; RL3 (AND 2 MH legs, lest anyone forget :-)).

The completion of Gryff's OTCh. means that I have now earned that elusive title on five dogs (Tramp, Rio, Treasure, Java, Gryffin), alternating Flat-Coated Retriever and terriers. The dogs have ranged from 5.5 years old (Treasure) to almost 7 (Java). Gryff is right in the middle at 6.5+. With both terrier boys, it was mastering either fronts or finishes that got us over the top finally. All except Treasure finished their title from a Utility B class. The first 3 all earned a High in Trial that magical day. Rio also earned High Combined.

I am not one of those elite trainers who brings a dog out in Utility, earns the UD and a mere countable-on-one-hand weeks later, have finished my OTCh. The journeys, while having their differences, have shared certain similarities. Each journey has been laced with our share of ups and downs, victories, times when we were also-rans, and NQs. Things go right for a while, then something breaks. We fix that, and things go right again for a while.

Of the 6 dogs with whom I've earned a UD, Gryffin was actually the youngest, finishing at 4 years 4 months. He earned the largest chunk of OTCh. points the first weekend after he finished his UD, winning a big Utility B class with a 198, which was worth 24 points. This was in October 2007. We mostly showed just in Utility over the next 6 months, in part due to Open stay issues, in part to solidify Utility for him. His OTCh and UDX took the time they did because we've taken off the last several summers from obedience to pursue advanced field training. When we recommitted to obedience in October 2008, he started qualifying consistently in both classes, and cranked out UDX legs 2-9 with very few NQ's, also garnering points for the new Obedience Master title at a regular rate. At the end of that streak, he earned 3 Open B 2nd places in a row. Although we suddenly started NQing in Utility, he finally earned that elusive Open B 1st place, plus a High in Trial. Frustratingly, the following weekend, he started failing the Open stays, blowing several placements in Open B. He finally completed both his UDX and OM1 on the same day in early May.


We showed one more time in the early summer, at the Flat-Coated Retriever National, where Gryff won the Utility B class for the 3rd year in a row, then went back to the fields for a glorious summer and fall of field work. We ran in four Master Hunter tests, and earned our 1st two passes of the needed five in glorious back-to-back weekends in September.

I didn't really get my head back into the obedience game until late November. We amassed mostly NQ's in the fall obedience trials, but by our last weekend at the Cleveland IX trials, I felt like we were back in the game, working as a team and enjoying our time in the ring. We even won a runoff for 3rd place in UB, netting us 2 more points.

I had some surgery the Tuesday after the IX trials, which meant a big slow down in our training. We didn't even attempt a fast until the Monday before the Livonia and Oakland trials. As I slowly recovered, several friends helped me out, between coming over to train and provide distractions, putting out articles and jumps, and driving me and Gryffin to some matches and trials.

I really appreciate all the cyberspace hurrahs we've received. The friendships made along these journeys are what make it all worthwhile.

Gryff is my first boy FCR, but he probably won't be my last. I decided a while ago that if you don't have a sense of humor, you shouldn't attempt to train, let alone trial, a boy FCR. He is a clown, and lives up to the "Peter Pan of the dog world" nickname. Some of his craziest NQ's have also been some of my most enjoyable memories of trialing him. His constantly wagging tail, quick sits, and leaping finishes are so much fun. Thanks Gryff, for a wonderful journey. Now, how about some ducks?

Note: The first photo is by Cathi Winkles, the second by Karen Taylor.

Joker & Ty Utility Training Update

As field training has been winding down, I've been managing more obedience work, particularly articles with both Ty and Joker.

I start my dogs off with Janice DeMello's 'Around the Clock Scent Discrimination', because I like the enthusiastic attitude it helps to produce. However, I've had a few of my own dogs and several students who were flummoxed the week the cheese goes from a microscopic dot to none. Joker was one of these confused critters. He would go out, pick up an article at random, and then turn and sit facing me. I finally got around to setting up a tie-down mat and I'm happy to report he seems to be grasping the idea. After 2-3 sessions with the articles tied tightly, he seemed to get over his anxiety about the whole thing, and is dashing out to the pile and back to me with a wagging tail. He's made enough progress that I loosened the ties on about half of them. I do 4 retrieves each time we do it, 2 of each type. I'm using a platform for the front to try to subtly work the front without having to work it. He's only occasionally tugging a tied one. I'm lengthening our distance from the pile, and need to have more and different people scenting them, but I'm hoping we're over the worst of his confusion.

He's got a pretty decent idea of directed jumping, the moving stand, and the directed retrieve. He is showing me what a nuisance it is to train a dog for Utility without a solid foundation of heel position - his pivots have been pretty ghastly, which make getting to the correct glove harder. I do see improvement on the pivots, though. I'm not looking for perfection, but I do want him close enough to heel position that he has a decent chance of following my mark signal. He dashes out and back to the glove, and mostly doesn't drop the glove on my foot anymore .

I now think signals are his least understood exercise. He's had the down and sit concept up close for most of his 8 years, but I only taught him the signal stand about a year ago. Somewhat to my surprise, he seems able to stand at a distance. I started counting steps when I leave him, and he doesn't really get signals, at least not the sit, much beyond 8 steps. Given that it was only 5 steps in mid-November, I'm happy with his progress.

I finally had Ty spayed last month, so her progress has been slowed because of that. I have her articles tied together in 2 sets of 4 articles. After using a tennis ball to reward a good delivery, she started working with a great deal of speed, but still mostly accurately. At home gloves have been mostly a no-brainer. Her biggest training lack is her signal stand stay. I put a small barrier out (same kind we used for drop on recall training) and stood her behind it and was dismayed to see how far across it she stepped as I walked away. We've spent a lot of time this past week working on 'stand still'. I put her on a 6-foot leash to reduce her sometimes wild leaping about that she offers. I do know where this lack of clarity comes from - I've used her for a year or so to demo clicker training the first night of my Fundamentals class, and one of the strongly reinforced behaviors is 'lie down and cross your front paws'. In the process, she also offers 'lie down and roll onto a hip'; 'lie down and put chin on the floor'; 'leap backwards out of the down', and probably others I'm forgetting about. So in trying to get her to simply stand still, she would start going through her repetoire. The use of the leash and clicking her for quite short stand stays has helped her make progress. While she does a decent signal down (a bit too much butt shift to my left, but not overwhelming), she also almost always immediately does her pop-up sit on her own. So I have also been clicking and treating her for holding her down longer, especially with her chin on the floor.

Both dogs do very nice full-length go-outs to a visible target here at home. I've done some work with Joker moving to targetting on a stanchion. Given the generous size of my training building, they've both done go-outs to several different backgrounds. All of Ty's field training blinds have given her a very strong response to my 'look' command (I want her to focus straight out when I say the command, and maintain that look). She just doesn't always wait for me to say 'go' :-). Joker's response isn't as strong, but he's getting there, too. He was showing a LOT of right arcing on go outs earlier in the week at a park, so I think I need to use center guides for him for a while.

Both need reminding via a side step on the first jumps we do each session, but are jumping full height confidently. I haven't started jumping them from off center (for corner go-out disaster recovery, something I'm a strong proponent of).

Both dogs have a reasonably good stop on the moving stand, though I've not done much having other people exam either one. Both can do a decent call to heel.

It's fun to be teaching/solidifying some new stuff that isn't Open :-).

KRD on Water

What, you ask, is KRD??? It stands for 'Key Relationship Drill', and it's a drill I read about in Evan Graham's book 'Secret of the Pros' while vacationing in early August. I did the drill several times (5 or 6) on land in August. It consists of one mark and several blinds set up in key relationships to that mark, including a blind that is tight behind the gunner (left orange line in upper photo), another that is well outside the arc of the fall (where the mark lands) (right-most orange line in bottom photo), another between the fall and the outside-the-arc blind (left orange line in bottom photo), and finally one under the arc made by the throw of the mark (right orange line in top photo).




The photos show the set up. The white blob was a stick man (white shirt on a hanger on a post) from which I threw the mark, and the mark landed about in the middle of the channel. For explanation purposes, I am numbering the blinds 1-4, left to right (the orange lines). I actually had white stakes at blinds 1 & 3, and my orange-noodled stakes at 2 & 4. After the dog retrieved the mark, I ran the blind behind the gunner 1st (blind 1). Both dogs have done blind 2 before a couple of times, most recently on Tuesday morning, which means they both were thinking about that blind when I wanted them to do both 1 and 3. We did blind 4 (right most one) next. Both of the dogs kept thinking about blind 2. I did blind 3 and then 2 with Gryffin, then repeated them 1, 4, 3. Before I did the drill with Ty, I had her do blind 3 from the left shore first. Though she didn't take an especially great initial line, at least she got in the water and started to swim. I then had her retrieve the mark, and then did the blinds 1, 4, 3, 2. When I reran 1, after first heading towards 2, I think it took only 1 or 2 casts, and then she was on the right line. Interestingly, Gryff wasn't quite so easy on his reruns. Ty had more trouble rerunning 4, but 3 was quite good. I really wanted to redo 2, but ran out of time and had to leave.

I will probably go back and do a similar set up tomorrow, but with the mark thrown from the other shore, right to left.

Ohio Valley Retriever Club Master test

I went to Coshocton, Ohio this weekend for the Ohio Valley Retriever Club's Master test, judged by Clarence Klaus and Bob Meyer. I could have run a test in Michigan again this weekend, but I wanted to see how we would fare away from Omega Farms, where we trained all summer.

The 1st series was in a field with lots of interesting features: hills, cover strips and clumps, small bushes, large shrubs, and some trees. We had two land blinds to start. The right blind was to the left of the middle flier station, which was mostly hidden behind a very large and tall hedge of shrubs that hid both the flier and left gun stations, and about 2/3 of the way toward the left mark. The left blind was quite a bit to the left of the left mark.

As I expected, our first blind was a bit shaky. I expected it because he's often a bit independent when we first have to handle in a test. He left on a reasonable initial line, but between the cover strips and the hill that he wanted to square, he kept getting further to the right. His first whistle sit was more of a squat, accompanied by a "Huh?" look on his face. He eventually got a nose full of the blind since there was a light breeze from left to right, and I then got a fine response to my left over to the blind. The 2nd blind was better in the team work department, though he was showing a preference for fading right on that one, too.

The marks were thrown right, left, middle (flier). The right one was thrown coming in right to left, landing in front of a large/tall bush. The left and longest mark was thrown coming in right to left, landing to the left of the huge hedge and giving a little bounce as it landed. The middle flier was thrown straight left to right. Our flier landed nicely right in front of a bush, making marking it very easy for me :-).

Head swinging has been something of an issue with Gryffin this year as we've been running more multiples. I'm very happy to say that he stayed completely focused on the right mark until the duck call sounded for the left mark. However, as soon as that duck landed/bounced, he swung his eyes back to that exciting flier station in the middle. He left on my release to the flier with hard-charging enthusiasm, flew up the hill to the bush, screeched to a stop and returned with it.

Partly because he didn't give a strong indication of preference on his return, I opted to pick up the longer left mark next, perhaps because I knew he'd gotten such a long look at the right mark. I can't quite say why I made the decision - it was one of those quick choices you make in the heat of a test. A lot of handlers had their dogs do the right mark next, followed by the left mark, and several dogs ended up getting sucked to the right blind and needing to be handled to the left mark. In any case, he rocketed away on an excellent line to the left mark, but passed the bird just a bit up wind, went past, and disappeared behind the hedge. I was concerned that he'd circle around behind the hedge and reappear at the flier station at the other end of the hedge, so kept scanning for him over that way. Fortunately, he reappeared, and after a bit more of a hunt, found the bird. His pick up was veeeeery slow - was he out there trying to give mouth to mouth??? - but he finally picked it up and delivered it. His long hunt on that showed in his heaving breathing as he delivered the bird. I gave him an extra couple of moments to catch his breath, cued him up ("Where's your mark? That's right. Good.") and sent him off. That long look paid off, and he had only the briefest of hunts before finding it. He picked that bird up much faster and delivered.

One of the judges commented that I was the first handler to handle the gun like I was out hunting. I responded that, to me, that is a high compliment, since I don't hunt, and I'm just faking it in what I hope is a safe enough manner when handling the gun :-).

The first series didn't finish until 4 pm. The 2nd series was set up in the only spot at Woodbury that I've trained at. It was a simple land/water double. We had to sit on a cooler in front of a bush. There was some fairly tall cover 6 feet in front of the line which kind of blocked Gryff's view of the land bird's fall, though he leaned in towards me to see the fall through the flattened path through the cover. It was thrown in left to right from behind a large bush, landing in some cover on a spit of land with some shallow water behind it and a big rock and trees on the right end of it. The right mark was thrown right to left off the dike that edges the pond, landing with a splash. The entry was a bit vague, and several dogs chose to run to the right of the true line to the bird closer to the shore, some even on the shore. Gryff did fade a bit that way, but not too badly. When I lined him up for the memory bird, he locked in, and when released, arrowed straight to it. Here's a picture of the memory bird in the 2nd series:


There were still just over half the dogs left (34 of 45 starters) to run the 2nd series Sunday morning, which meant we had a leisurely morning. I got mostly packed up, then went across the street to the field and set up a split casting drill. The field that appeared relatively flat in the dark actually had a nice slope to it, which meant a chance to practice angling up a hill, which neither of my dogs is particularly strong at (dogs like to square a hill, as Gryffin had done on his first blind on Saturday). I got some nice work from bored Ty, then ran Gryff on the drill. As often happens when we do drills, he started out a bit on the slow and tentative side, and then got stronger and ran harder and harder. We ended on a beautiful straight line angling across the hill to the right pile of bumpers. Good boy!

I was hoping that the concentration on water work we'd done since our last test would pay off in the 3rd series, which I knew would have to contain at least a water double, a walk-up, and an honor. Considering a week ago I wasn't sure Gryff would be recovered enough from his mystery illness to even start the test (he was ill when I got back from a judging trip to Wisconsin Labor Day weekend), I was very happy to be even getting to attempt the 3rd series.

Since I was conveniently driving by, I stopped to take a look at the set up for the Senior land series, because Ty and I are entered in our first Senior test next weekend. While what gets set up is dependent on the land or water available and what the judges decide, it's always educational to take a look. The grounds are outstanding in what they offer for testing (not to mention training). I'd love to go and spend a week camping and training there!

The 2nd Master series had finished and all but one dog advanced to the 3rd series, including us. I found where the water was going to be, and heard mutterings about what the judges were setting up, including possibly a pair of in-line marks on the left side of the pond. Having trained on in-lines on land the previous Thursday, I felt at least somewhat prepared. Turns out the mutterings were wrong :-). The swampy pond was below the road level by 20-30 feet, so there was quite a steep hill to navigate getting to the last holding blind. The test consisted of a short walk-up, with the marks thrown left, middle, right. There was plenty of separation between the middle and right mark. Here's some fuzzy pictures taken on my cell phone camera (better than nothing!):

This smaller pool is just to the left of the chopped-off cattail path visible in the next picture.

The 2nd mark fell in open water beyond the last strip of cover that was beyond the cat tail path.

The double trees on the left in this picture are on the right in the blind picture:

The test was taking 8-10 minutes per dog, so by the time the series got under way, it was after 11 AM. As expected, we got to the line shortly after noon. We did the walk up, the birds went off (rather more rapidly than in the 1st two series), and after hearing our number from one of the judges, launched Gryff for the right mark. His duck landed just in the front of a cat tail clump, and he went swimming past it without apparent recognition. He got to the next clump, then circled back behind, clambered through and got his duck. He picked up the left bird without any particular problem, and when I lined him for the middle bird, he looked out well, and charged into the cat tail path. He did a brief check when he got to the grassy strip before the open water, but then off he went for the 3rd bird. It was probably his best water triple with ducks he's ever done! Nice time to turn it up a notch, Gryff-man!

There was a dry shot to indicate the blind shot from the same station as the go-bird, and it really got Gryff up and ready. There was a decent little channel just to the left of the line to the blind to aim him at. I got Gryffin to the back of the cover fairly quickly, but had several stops and casts to get him through it and not going into the channel to the right. We also had some horsing around on the shore on the opposite side. I suspect that I would have lost control at the end of that blind 2 months ago (i.e., get the dog almost there and then have him disappear into cover high enough to not be able to handle him). After delivery of the blind duck, we went to the honor spot, and he was, blessedly, rock solid on that, watching the next dog's marks fall with interest but apparent understanding that he was done.

As we climbed up the hill to go back to the car, I didn't know if the effort was good enough to pass and earn our first Master leg, but I felt it was our best 3rd series of the 3 tests we'd run.

The 'water' was so icky (can you say smelly swamp?) that it was turning the goldens and yellow labs black. Someone mentioned a cleaner pond a short walk down the road, so I grabbed a bumper and Gryff and I went down there to rinse the worst of the muck off him. He thought fun bumpers and some more swimming were a fine reward for his efforts in the test.

The test didn't finish until just after 5 pm (!), so in the meantime, I went and found a secluded place and trained Ty a bit, teaching her a nice Master level blind via backchaining. It was nice to give her a chance to do something more than just the casting drill in the morning.


After an interminable wait while the judges decided who passed, the awards were passed out. Yes, we passed!!! That little scrap of orange ribbon with 'Master Hunter' on it (the club ran out of rosettes, so will be mailing them) shows me that it isn't a dream. It made the four hour drive home zip on by.

Next up: no resting on our laurels, we've got Hamden next weekend!

Ty's 1st Cold Blinds

We finished up field training early at Omega Farms today because of bad weather rolling in, so I stopped at the Firestation (there are some fabulous fields behind it) to check on how high the cover has gotten (high!) and to run a couple of blinds. Ty has run marks on this hillside several times, and has done several taught blinds, which is what I figured I would do. I hiked out and planted the blinds, then got her out. We got to the top of the hill, and I thought "What the heck, let's see what happens if I cue her up." Lo and behold, off she went (it didn't hurt that I broke the initial path down to the bottom of the hill between the bushes, but I was a good blind planter and wandered my way up the hill after that). She got hung up on the big wide bush halfway up the hill on the left, so after several bouncings around the bush, I hiked down the hill to get closer, but got her the rest of the way from there. She did the 2nd one with me staying at the top of the hill. Considering how high the cover is out there now, I'm even more happy.



If you look carefully (and imagine the path at the bottom of the left picture continuing up the hill), you can see an orange stake in both pictures near the center and top.

Yeah, Ty! All the homework is really paying off.

Adele

** A "cold blind" means that the dog doesn't see what they have to retrieve thrown, so you have to handle them to it.

Saturday Field Drills

I went to the fields near the local airport to do drills with my Flat-Coats this morning. Lining drills became the theme. I started out with one pile for Ty, to work on a stable response to a sit correction. Even a 1 medium creates a bit of a hot spot, but I can see improvement and much less panic in her response. She's also confident enough on her handling on land now that I can stop her quite a bit to handle her through those hot spots.

Next I did wagon wheel with both of them, building distance for Gryff and seeing a lot of improvement over last weekend when I did it; closer in for Ty, who hasn't done too much WW. Interestingly enough, both seem to have more trouble going to the closer-to-us white bumpers than to the farther away orange ones.

Then I put out two back piles, and three stick men on a diagonal, with 25 yds between them (so a lopsided M). As an extension of both the Split Casting drill we have been working on the past several weeks, and the wagon wheel drill, I worked on sending and casting to the back piles from various locations, with the stick men in between me and the back piles to create suction.

We packed up and went to a pond, and I set up something similar there for Gryff to work on, with 3 stick men along the shore and orange stakes farther up the shore (maybe 10-15 yds) with a pile of bumpers at each. I worked on lining and angle back casts as we had on land. Another benefit was the tall cover along the shores, with a few obvious and tempting gaps. It gave me a chance to work Gryff on driving straight through the cover coming out of the water. Since Ty's water work is on hold until her e-collar response is stabilized, I just did fun marks with her, but required her to go in and come out through the cover along the shore.

It was a fun and productive morning.

Pattern Blinds

Pattern blinds are a set of blinds, usually in sets of 3, that you teach your dog one at a time over the course of several days to help them learn to run long, straight lines.

While I have taught Ty several blinds this spring, and she's done some blind drills last year and this spring, I haven't really done a set of 3 blinds consistently. With the progress I saw during our trip out east, I was eager to get serious about some pattern blinds with her.

I decided going to the Ann Arbor Airport property was a good bet. It's only about 3 miles from home, and there are actually 3 different areas I can potentially use for pattern blinds. I taught her the first one (the left of the 3) on Sunday. It went pretty well. Then I set up a launcher and ran a mark and then all 3 blinds with Gryffin. He had a TERRIBLE time :-\. He was convinced he had to go back to the mark. Now, this is NOT a new concept for him. Clearly, he needs more work on it!

I got Ty back out, let her run the mark and then redid the blind. It was a pretty messy affair, too, but she did eventually get to the blind bumper.

We squeezed in a short session yesterday morning (had to be short because of horsing around getting the flat tire fixed...). Ty did fine on the blind she'd learned Sunday, and then I taught her the loooong right one (I think it's 180-200 yds). We finished up running the left and then the right again. She's still fuzzy about switching between different blinds, but is improving. I ran the blinds with Gryff (no time for the launcher) with somewhat better results than Sunday.

Today I taught Ty the 3rd of 3 pattern blinds. I'm really happy with her progress.I ran the left and right ones with her first, then taught her the center one, then reran the outside ones again. I'm pleased with how well she's stopping on my whistle and mostly taking good casts. She seems to be getting the idea to change direction when I stop her. Then I put out a launcher for Gryff, ran the center blind, did the mark, then ran the outside blinds, then the center one (under the arc). He did much better than on Sunday, though still interested in going back to the mark's location. Then I finished up rerunning the center blind with Ty past the launcher, then did the mark and the two outside blinds. It's cool seeing the many weeks/months of basic work starting to gel for her. I plan to go back on Friday for another session, maybe even with both of my launchers out.

Finding training places

Yesterday morning, before leaving the Super 8 motel for home, I did some drill work with the dogs behind the motel. There was a nice hillside on which I did some T work, to give them some work driving up a hill, as well as doing overs across the face of the hill. Then I did a longish but otherwise uninteresting sight blind (one with a white trash can marking the end of it) with Ty, which went well.

I finished up with a connect-the-dots blind with Gryff. The pictures show the blind. There is a corner of a gravel parking lot (complete with a school bus), followed by a dried up pond bed that was about a foot lower than the surrounding grass, with some weeds in it (the higher cover you can see beyond the gravel), followed by having to go by the large bush on the right. I had the white trash can out for Ty.

With a connect-the-dot blind, you leave the dog at the line and go to a point along the blind where the dog is likely to veer, and call them to that point and then resit them. Then you go to the next likely point of confusion and call the dog to that spot, and continue to do this until you are close enough to the end of the blind to send the dog to retrieve. Then you sit the dog at the end and teach them the return path in a similar way. I left Gryff and called him to the first edge of the pond bed, then left him there and went to the other side and called him there. Then I sent him to the blind from there. When I resent him from the baseline, he went nicely into the pond bed, but started veering right (away from the weeds), so I stopped him and cast him. It was a fun little blind to run with some interesting factors.

I tried something similar with Ty, but it was too much for her - she kept wanting to veer to the right of the weeds in the pond bed and she was having confidence issues when I was trying to cast her, so I moved the white can and bumpers closer, to the far edge of the pond bed. That worked much better for her.

This workout was great to get in with them before starting the long drive home.

WCX test

I spent Friday at the National's WCX test in Eastern Connecticut, running and successfully completing the test with Gryffin. Ty couldn't run because of coming in season, which is too bad because she's the one who hasn't ever run one before. Gryff passed a couple of WCX's at least 3 years ago (1 pass is all it takes to earn the title), but failed the two we have run since then.

Normally, our WCX test consists of a triple on land with distances of 60 & 80 yds for the outside marks and 100 yds for the center mark, and if I'm remembering right, normally all 3 marks are thrown in the same direction, either left to right or right to left. Yesterday's set up didn't look like that at all :-). The flier station was the long one and was on the left, going right to left. The middle station was the short one, going left to right, and the right station was the middle distance, also left to right, with a road to cross. I was actually happy to see that set up for Gryff, because I think it was more like what I will likely see in a Master test, which is what we're really aiming for.

I had a nice compliment from one of the judges - when I stepped out of the last holding blind to go to the line, I had Gryff sit before proceeding to the line, which helps with control and also gives him a chance to have a brief look at what's out in the field. She said that is a good idea to do that.

In spite of my heart going like a trip hammer (this was our first test in a year), I took my time and did my best to make sure Gryff was looking where he needed to be before sending him for each duck. He was nice and steady at the line, always a pleasure to see. He did have to hunt for a while on each bird, but stayed in the appropriate area well. One of the judges said something about an intelligent hunt on the last bird, using what little wind there was to help himself come up with the duck.

We finished the land triple at 9:30 AM (we were about 1/4 way through the group of 36 dogs) but didn't run water until 3:30 :-(. The judges had to wait to finish the land series for several exhibitors who were running in other stakes, and then they changed the water test twice before settling on the one we ran. We had a no bird on our first trip to the line. This means that something happens to make the test not fair - sometimes a gun doesn't fire right, or a launcher doesn't release, which is what happened for us.

The test consisted of a water double, with the memory bird landing with a splash in some reeds just in front of a large flat rock to our left. The go bird was tossed off a point of land on our right in open water. Gryff had a nice straight swim and return with that bird. I got him facing the rock for the memory bird, and sent him off. He was on a great line until about half way out, did a head check towards the go-bird station, then veered towards the island that was to the right of where the memory bird had landed. He swam between a couple of big rocks near the island, then hooked in to the left and came up with the bird pretty promptly. We finished up with an honor sitting on the road above where we'd run from closer to the water.

I hung around to watch a few more friends run and to visit just a bit more, then left to head west about 5:30, though the test was far from over. I wanted to get some miles under my belt before needing to stop. We ended up spending the night in Amsterdam, NY at the Super 8 there.

Day 2 of obedience at the 2009 FCRSA National

On Tuesday, I showed Gryffin in Versatility, where he earned a leg towards that new title. We had to do the Novice Heel on Leash & Figure 8, the Novice Recall, the Retrieve on Flat, the Broad Jump, the Moving Stand, and the Directed Retrieve. He got 2nd place in the class, 1/2 point behind Chris Van Byssum and Eagle.

Next up was Brace. Gryffin was kind of blah in both classes, and didn't start on the Figure 8 for some reason. I got all the way to the end of his leash before I really realized he was stuck, so had to give another command. On the start of the 2nd 8, I got smart and said, "Gryff heel" since Ty was chugging right along. The 2nd one was much better. The off-leash heeling went very nicely, garnering nice comments from judge Tibby Chase. On the recall, on my "Dogs come!" command, Ty rocketed in and Gryff sat like a lump. When I realized he wasn't moving, I gave a come signal to Gryffin, at which point Ty dropped :-). This video doesn't show all that. Ty had come into a nice front by the time Gryff arrived. He fortunately came to the correct side of Ty. Their finish was not so great, but at least they were both there to do it . We were 2nd of the two braces thanks to the recall. Here's a link to the YouTube video of our performance.

Team was a hoot, as it usually is. We had really good heeling & Figure 8s, but Ty sat during the SFE, and only two of our dogs did the recall correctly. All 4 dogs on the first place team did the drop exercise correctly. For those who haven't seen the exercise, all handlers leave together, and then one at a time, call and drop their dog about half way. Then all call their dogs to front at the same time, and then finish on the judge's command. It is the make-or-break exercise, typically. One of the teams first handler called and got all four dogs at once :-). Anyhow, we ended up with 2nd place and had a lot of fun.

2009 FCRSA Obedience Day #1

Day 1 of the FCRSA National for me included Utility B with Gryffin and Open B with both dogs. The day dawned chilly and breezy but bright and sunny. Gryff was scheduled to go 4th in Utility, with the class starting at 9:00 AM. The first 3 dogs all Q'ed, which can be a good omen or a bad one :-).

Gryff had a nice solid performance - very much how he performs inside - and won the class with a 195.5, good for 6 more OTCh points (his total is 88 now). The UB ring was pretty decent, with ruts only in one corner. Of course, we had to heel into and out of that corner, and that's where glove 3 was placed, fortunately not in the rut, but on the grass above it. We did have to do the fast up hill, and that was also the go-out direction.

Open B was scheduled to start at 10:45, but didn't actually start until 11:30. Ty had very nice individuals EXCEPT for the Retrieve over the High Jump. I accept 75% of the blame for that, because my throw was not very long, and it bounced a bit to the left. She jumped out, picked it up, turned left, and 2.5 strides later, was past the jump. It didn't look like it even occurred to her that she was wrong. I was far more disappointed with myself than with her. But she was in good company - all 7 dogs in the first group NQ'ed the individuals! Ack. We petitioned the judge to skip the stays altogether, but he wouldn't go along with it :-). Ty held her sit stay (hurray!), but when the boy dog next to her came over and invited her to dance, she accepted the invitation. Oh, well. The judge said he would be willing to rejudge her, but since Gryff was in the one and only later group, I declined.

Gryffin was as poor in Open B as he'd been solid in Utility. He did a sit on recall, had a hideously long sniff instead of retrieving over the high jump (this in spite of me hollering FETCH... NO! FETCH... GRYFFIN GET IN HERE! etc. to absolutely no response). I was admittedly really PO'ed at the boy. I actually had enough time to wonder if he was going to pee :-(. Thanks god he didn't! And to cap it off, he went down on his sit stay. However, a very bright spot for the stays was that he was next to my friend Chris's neutered male Eagle and never looked twice at him. Two years ago, Gryffin was next to Eagle, fell in love with him, and broke the down stay to visit him. Ten months later, when we got together to train, Gryffin had not forgotten his unrequited love. Neutering is a wonderful thing :-).

HIT went to Chris McCluer and her OTCh Remington Twelve Gauge Shot Gun OA NAJ, with a 198.5 from Open B, and HC went to my friend Chris Van Byssum with her boy Eagle.

Last night was the annual Ring of Honor, in which special dogs are honored. Past winners of BISS, BOSS, HIT, and our Steady Singles competition are invited, as are new and former inductees into our Hall of Fame. Since both of my dogs have won a Specialty HIT, they were both included.

Today is for fun - Versatility with Gryffin to start us off, then Brace with the pair of them, and then Team this afternoon with Ty. Unfortunately, it's shaping up to be a much warmer day, darn it, but at least all stays will be in sight and shorter!

Let the odyssey begin!

I left Ann Arbor Friday morning to head east for this year's Flat-Coated Retriever National Specialty - all Flat-Coats for 8 days of Agility, Rally, obedience, conformation, and field events! We are currently in upstate NY, staying with a friend for a couple of nights, and days of field and obedience training and visiting.

I stopped at Cabela's Friday to buy 6 more small orange bumpers (a certain black boy dog managed to eat the ends off several over the winter >:-() AND a gortex rain suit (training in the rain last Wednesday confirmed the need for one).

I needed two stops for naps yesterday, which was frustrating but necessary. Also had a bit of a detour in Cleveland when I exited too soon, stopped for gas, then couldn't get back on the highway easily because of a closed entrance ramp. Yuck.

I got to Jane's at 6:00 PM, and after some visiting, I did some water work with both dogs. Afterwards, we had a lovely and social evening, with several local dog friends coming over for dinner.

Saturday morning, the dogs woke me at 5:15, oh joy. Finally really got up at 6:00 to let them out.

We went to a local park so Jane could walk her nearly 15 year old Gemma while I did some T work with Ty and Gryffin. After a quick trip to Jane's to drop off Gemma, we headed off to join a couple of other trainers, Todd & Beth, for a day of field work. We did a land series first. We used ducks for the marks, which really helped both of my dogs. I ran a single and then a double with both dogs, and we were far more successful than earlier this week. Gryff also did a decent job on the two blinds. The first blind was between the right and middle marks. The second was to the left of the left mark, which had been thrown right to left, angling back. As expected on the second blind, Gryff wanted to go back to that left mark, but was at least making an effort to change direction away from it, not just immediately sucking to it. I did see a problem developing today in that he's popping when he's really close to the bumper at the end of the blind. I guess I've been insisting on a sit because of poor casts near the end of the blind, and I'm creating a habit.

We moved over to water, which was a lovely technical pond owned by a local field-trialer. So many options! The left mark was a fairly straight-forward "across the pond and out onto land" mark. The other two used the two points that stuck out from the right side of the pond. The closer mark was off the end of the closer point and the farther was launched from the back of the farther away right end of the cove, with the duck landing beyond the second point. With Ty, I had her do the right mark first, and she did a lovely line across the two points to the duck and returned nice and straight across. Then we ran the left mark followed by the middle one, and she did very well on both.

I had her honor for Jane's Nellie, and because of Nellie's noise issues coming out of the holding blind, Ty had a VERY, very long honor, and started to break on the go-bird of the double. This is very unusual for her, although we haven't done a ton of honoring on the water, so it was an excellent training opportunity.

With Gryff I ran the two right marks as a double (they were in a so-called hip pocket configuration, which means the long mark is thrown sort of towards the short mark so the dog has to run somewhat close behind the short gun station to get to the long bird). Well, "bad boy arc to the right" Gryff made a way-too-big arc to the right and got out on the first point way to the right of the gunner (when he should have simply gone past with the point and gunner on his right), so I corrected him for that (a nick on the e-collar). He was then understandably reluctant to cross that very spot to get to the memory bird, so had a terrible line going out to it, but returned correctly. He did the left mark decently, and then we reran the right mark to give him a chance at success (and he did fine) after the correction and over reaction.

We finished up with a couple of blinds. The water one had a very sharp angle entry, which he did well, then out across the first point and back into another section of water and then out onto land another 30 or so yards. The land blind was about 150 yds, through a couple of trees with a mound of dirt between about 40 yds from where I started from, which he got over pretty well, but then veered around the left tree. Dang trees :-). There was a lot of open uphill field between the two trees and the bumpers, with another big tree to the left near the end.

After an afternoon nap, I did some more swim-by with Ty, where she is showing excellent progress, and a related drill with Gryff. Jane has the perfect little rectangular pond for this.

While the day started out pretty chilly, it ended beautifully.