Ch. Kabree Mad About You RA

Image by neilfein via Flickr

I’ve been offline for almost a week, camping and trialing at the annual Wine Country Circuit at Sampson State Park in Romulus, NY. After a couple of false starts earlier this summer – shows I’d entered but was too fatigued to compete in – Madison finally got her chance to shine in Rally Advanced. And shine she did, earning her RA with a 3rd and a 4th place and qualifying four straight times. In the rain.

Rain and M. don’t get along. My princess doesn’t like to get her pretty spotted toes wet. Apparently, it really doesn’t rain in California (where she was born) or Virginia (where she lived with her other ‘mom’ Lisa Ross before she moved to central NY.) M. will eagerly race to the back door and stop in her tracks when she discovers rain on the other side. She will refuse to enter a tunnel that has a puddle in the entrance. She walks on the sidewalk when the grass is wet. After a miserable FAST run in a deluge at the CNY Sheltie Club trials in early August, I promised her that she would never have to run in a downpour.

But Sunday, it wasn’t pouring. The grass was wet, and there was some spitting intermittent rain, but these are facts of life here in central New York. There was no hint of a deluge. M. moved in a happy heel position from the car to the rings, bouncing and forging most of the way. Hmm. Okay. I told the little girl to stand up, step up and heel. And for most of that full-of-sits Rally Advanced course, she did — she even sat in heel position and dropped (twice.) On the last three signs, M. made me work for every sit (even the judge noticed her dirty looks!) Finally we got through the course, and my little princess worked the whole way ’round.

FAST was less successful — Friday, her push-to-the-right had disappedared. Saturday, pushes to the right were working, but I stepped on the piece of tangled fly-away plastic tape that was serving as the bonus line. Still, each of M’s five FAST runs has been a bigr improvement over the previous run. She’s running less like a green dog and more like a focused agility dog. So on we go — and hopefully, we’ll add a FAST leg or two in the next couple months.

Meanwhile, my princess has decided to heel – beautifully. When the girl puts it together, she puts it together with flair — flip finishes, hand touches, and a constantly wagging english cocker tail. Now that she has her RA, we’ll spend a few more shows in Rally Advanced working on precision and accuracy before I move her up to Rally Excellent.

Backyard agility

Image via Wikipedia

M. and I are running in FAST next week at the Wine Country Circuit in Romulus NY. So to our regular practices (we’re also in Rally Advanced A) I’ve been adding some simple backyard agility practices.

I was inspired by a tweet from @agilitynerd who linked to some of his backyard practice sessions.

Agility Nerd’s blog is one of my favorite practice resources. For M., I broke the practices into two sections: 1) left-side weaves to threadle to right-side weaves, and 2)
selected jumps to alternate sides of the tunnel. Then I had her run the full practice as left-side weaves / jump / near-tunnel entrance / circle round to jump / threadle / right-side weaves.

She’s nailing her entrances, so fingers crossed…and more practice…for a successful pair of FAST runs.

Backyard agility doesn’t need a lot of equipment. My tunnel and some of my jumps are from Pac ‘n Go and I supplement them with jumps and cavalletti from Max200. My weave poles are plain electric fence post rods from Tractor Supply Co. My entire setup fits into a low deck box, and can be assembled and taken down in five minutes.

Train on!

Weaves — On. Her. Own.

When I remember to let my little spotted princess process and think… I get spontaneous weaves.

This morning, on the damp grass that gives her the wet toes she hates so much, Miss M. did four poles from a right side send. On one signal. At the end of the poles, after a click and a treat and while waiting for some more input from me, she decided to re-weave her four poles.

On. Her. Own.

Back at the entrance where she’d have to weave on the right, she wrote her own story again, offering a set of clean and continuous weaves, and then turned expectantly to me for the click and treat she assumed was coming.

On. Her. Own.

M’s capacity to process a skill when she’s given a couple days off from practicing that skill continues to amaze me. Now if I could just remember to keep tapping into that ‘quiet’ processing time so that we get back to 12 weaves, from the left or right, on one signal!