Happy 2009

Well, it is here! 2009. The year of bright new things. The year of promise. The year of health and fitness. I'm so excited. So many things to look forward to.

I have many agility goals for 2009, I can't keep the smile off my face.

In 2009:
-I will run Fin in her FIRST agility trial.
-I will work hard to qualify for the Nationals with both dogs (USDAA)
-I will NOT run Fin if I'm having training issues (will go back to basics at fun matches - then get back into it)
-I will continue to get Tazz in shape and see where that journey takes us

Other goals, related but not agility:
-I will consistently loose weight and gain physical strength
-I will clean my office (ok I know that isn't a huge thing, but if you could see my office, you'd understand).

Today Mom was still here (from new years eve festivities) and we had breakfast and played scrabble. She won, but it was a fun, close game. I headed off to the gym and she off to home. We had to drive up the Peninsula to take back his new TV (LCD pixels were not working). After the gym, we drove up and no muss, no fuss, Video Only replaced the TV with a brand new one and home again we went.

TV is now set up and Kel is enjoying it. It is one nice television. I'm happy because now I'll be able to watch my agility runs on the big screen! Kel's happy because now he can actually see what he is watching.

I've only got 3 days left before I go back to work.

I'm going get up early and work out so I have the entire day to get things done. I'm working on refocusing Fin on targeting as she is loosing her criteria. I'll post video.

Tomorrow I'm also going to watch Susan Garrett's weave video. I hear it is really well done.

Best of the New Year to everyone. I hope all your agility dreams come true.

Six through Eight!

What happened to the weekend. Zoowza. So many shelties, so little time.

Family came first. Before Blog. Visits and christmas plays and birthdays ....with a little dog agility thrown in sorta Summed up my weekend.

So for the Sixth Day, leave the dogs at home for a night off and head out to a holiday play. There are lots of community theaters doing little christmas stuff.

Here's a plug for the South Valley group. They are doing "It's a Wonderful Life" and tickets are available. They've got two more weekends of shows. If that ain't enough for the 6th day, my husband is in the play! http://www.svct.org/ The shows are in downtown Morgan Hill. I recommend Sushi before the play at AOI.

For the 7th day a very good recommendation: http://www.shadeusa.com/beach_umbrellas.htm#Solartek

I LOVE my solarteck umbrella. It beats the regular umbrellas by leaps and bounds. Well worth the price. When I'm at a show, many people come up to me and want to know where I got my umbrella. The solar shade cloth creates a much cooler level of shade. If you put two umbrellas up next to each other and compare, the solar shade one will give you a measurable amount of coolness. I have two and use them to supplement my eazyup as well as for shade at ringside.

For the 8th day, http://www.coolmedics.com/ how about a cooling pad or colling jacket. It isn't too early to think about the upcoming trial season and keeping your dog the coolest!

12 days of an Agility Christmas

So I was wondering when the 12 days of Christmas were. Do they start of Dec 12? What are the 12 days of Christmas anyway?

What I found out is that the 12 days of Christmas actually start the evening of Dec 24 and go through the Day of Jan 6. I'm thinking we should be giving gifts this whole time, our companies should pay us holiday pay all 12 days, and we should have a 12 day agility marathon somewhere warm. (Not likely to happen.)

Instead, I'm starting a new "12 days of christmas" agility related. Each day (1-12th) I'm going to talk about something related to our sport of agility that one might consider as a stocking stuffer, or christmas present. These are things that are training related or just plain fun. I'll also throw in stuff about me and the dogs as well in the blog. I can't help myself.


For December 1, I'm going to talk a little Susan Garrett. She's got a new DVD coming out soon.

I've taken a number of Susan's clinics. My club (http://www.smartagility.com/) has had her out twice for weekly seminars. The first time I saw Susan was in 2001 in LA. My dog Maddie (now 10) was nervous at the venue and didn't want to come out of the crate. That was ok with me as I probably gained more information from watching all the other handlers. Since then I've attended a few more of her seminars and I'm genuinely impressed with her devotion to her dogs and the consistency with which she focuses her training.

Whether you are a Susan Garrett fan or not, you can not deny that she is a great dog trainer and has something to teach us. Her new video should provide good information. She is currently selling a "preview" to her video in the form of a PDF document. Most of this document should be included with the DVD, but you can get this now in an e-document for $14.95. The video is out around December 10.

I, of course, couldn't resist and have the preview PDF. What I found was great weave pole drills and some good ideas for record keeping (a definite failure of mine). Some drills are very straight forward (we all do drills like these), and some that I wouldn't have thought to try. I personally love someone giving me a drill. I like that much more than trying to think of it on my own. So I use clean run for multiple different drills during the week.

For me, this is another resource to use when my brain can't think of something fresh. Is it worth the $14.95? Well that's up to you. I'm enjoying it and will probably get the video when it comes out as well.

Visit: http://www.clickerdogs.com/ to read more about Susan Garrett and to look at the upcoming DVD (probably will be featured on another day :) ). Perhaps you'll find a stocking stuffer or two for your agility friend (or yourself).

And for those who really want to procrastinate, a few early weave training videos with Fin from back in July. She's coming along nicely doing some very difficult weave entrances in sequences: http://kvk9.blogspot.com/2008/07/weave-training.html

Fitness for Agility - more soup

Ok, so I'm taking this soup thing seriously.


Yesterday I wanted to do a mock minestrone soup. I really don't know how to make minestrone, but I was looking for that hearty flavor that we find in a minestrone.


Tossed some chicken broth in the crock pot with beef shank and porchini mushrooms (mom says I could have just used water as the beef would make it's own stock. Added garlic and onion and let that cook for about 4 hours.


I took out the beef and found there was alot of fat. Didn't want that so I skimmed it off added zucchini, carrots, more mushrooms and cut off the meat and tossed that back in. 2 more hours on low.


Raised the level to high and tossed in some white beans and string beans. The result was fabulous. Very hearty soup.


Kel said it was the best yet! Yum. No picture. Laura says soup pictures look like intestines not yummy at all. I'll refrain from showing more intestines on my blog.



Instead, you get to see sheltie pictures from halloween (thanks to mom for the costume!):

More Agility Videos

Ok, I know, BORING! But such is life of an agility person.

We had our trial in lovely Dixon, CA. The fairgrounds there sported an especially nasty little stickers that the dogs kept getting in their paws. This sticker had two very sharp pointy ends and when you tried to take it out of their paws, it stuck you. Just lovely.

Dixon also is known to be a little windy. Friday night when I arrived I had no idea. I got up bright and early to the sprinklers that were watering the plants and lawn outside my room. When I opened my door, the wind was so stong, it blasted me with the sprinker water (VERY COLD). I quickly shut the door and wondered what to do. I considered the window in the bathroom, but figured the dogs could make it, but I'd probably break a leg. So we opened the door and ran. No potty for them, just get in the car before the tornado lifts us up and takes us away.

When I got to the show site it was still dark, all the camping spots seemed to be taken and I parked pretty far from the rings in an area I thought would be quite. Well it was quite because it was a garden of thorns! The poor dogs. I moved the van on Sunday, but Saturday we were carrying dogs back and forth.

Lunch was exciting. In my quest to eat healthy, I tried to make a turkey with salad roll up sandwich. All I will say is that it is difficult to make a sandwhich in the wind. I ended up eatting a little bread, and Turkey/cheese rollups as my lettuce was blowing across the field.

We had our ups and downs. The best run of our agility career was the second run of the day on Saturday. Masters Standard. Tazz and I clicked. I did nothing wrong and Tazzie actually was a little speedy!

After the run, I found out I didn't Q. I said, "oh well, such is life." But when I found out that we were EIGHT seconds over time I was totally upset, I could see .25 seconds, or even a half a second, but we really ran well and NO way could we be EIGHT seconds over. I watched the video again and again looking for areas we could save time. I started to wonder whether this was the right sport for Tazz and I. I tried to just shrug it off, but I'll be the first to admit, I woke up a little depressed on Sunday morning. What I found out once we got to the agility trial made me feel really good. Turns out that there was a problem with the measuring wheel. They made the adjustment and Tazz "Q'd!!!!" Whew!

Here was our first gamble attempt. Notice my warm fuzzy hat and multiple layers. It was chilly AND windy. Tazz had a pretty good opening for Tazzie, but once again, that invisible string that attaches us kept him from gong into the tunnel for the gamble. It was a doable gamble "IF" he went in the tunnel. No gamble on Saturday.

This was our steeplechase. A couple late crosses kept us out of Q range, but he really had a nice ending.

The rest of the runs we had our ups and downs. His jumpers run on Sunday looked good but a little slow, I was really trying to run fast to speed him up and left him in the tunnel. In his quest to catch me, missed a jump (I felt that the tunnel to jump was a straight line, but in watching other dogs I see you really needed to support the jump).

Fin was a joy. She played chuck-it. Got to walk around. Played Tug. Worked at the practice jump. Met alot of people and dogs. Ate half my sandwich that blew off my chair on Saturday. Wrestled with her BC buddies. Made her mama happy. She is such a happy soul.

A long windy weekend that maybe wasn't our best, but we came home with that Standard Q and that was worth the sand blasted skin, ouchy stickers, raw lips, and lost salad makings.

Well we are coming up on a year!

I can't believe how far I've come. I have actually stuck with something (writing in this blog). There are many memorable blogs, but I think my favorite is also one of the first. "Garbage day - http://kvk9.blogspot.com/2007/08/garbage-day.html." Have I learned anything since that post? hmmm yep. Does Mads still bark every Thurs? Yep.

I also brought Fin home a little over a year ago. She arrived at the house on July 13 2007.

Such a sweet little bundle coming home from Florida flying under my seat and not making a peep (that has changed...the peeping I mean). My girls are definitely the talkers and Fin once going is very difficult to stop. Now at 14 months she is speed and energy, my little joy on springs.

Tazz wasn't doing his teeter a year ago, now he does them with gusto. He also went through a table faze, now is better and seems to enjoy it more.

Kel didn't have a job a year ago and now he works 5 minutes from home and enjoys his time there.

I worked on a project for HP a year ago...oh yeah, I'm still there.

Broke my toe a little less than a year ago...no broken toes now!

Weighed about 15 pounds more a year ago...good to see improvement

Lots of memories. I am very happy to have started this blog.

Murphy's Law of Position Cues "The Threadle"

Threadle: You have taught your 180s and 270s perfectly and you get on a course and there it is...the dreaded threadle. Sending your dog over 1 you scream the dogs name whilst lifting your opposite hand in the air, stopping momentum and turning into your dog...then watch your dog ignore you and do a perfect 180 taking the backside of 2. The dog of course is having the time of his life. The correct handler position after this happens is to crumple to the ground and cry.

Right now I'm working on teaching Fin "the Fish" Whisner to threadle. Somehow I forgot about this most wonderful cue until Laura set up a small course and asked me to do it. "Ahhhh," I said, "I forgot about threadles but doesn't she do a nice 180!" Laura frowned of course and shook her head and said, "Since you never taught Tazz to threadle, I figured you'd forget with Fin." This is why we call her Laura "The Wise One" Pryse.

Actually it is fairly easy to teach. You just have to practice ALOT! I do ground work (either circle or straight), raise my opposite hand running backwards and feed. Fin got it right away. Then I did it on 180 jumps where first I did a bunch where she had to take both jumps of the 180 and then I called her through using my threadle arm. She is doing them like she was born to it. We'll see what happens when I put a few jumps together and she is speeding along :)

Next Murphy's law will be Serpentines! Why, when you use the same arm on a Serp it is totally different than a threadle...position woman! position! (aren't you excited for the next installment)

Jumping with Road Kill

Fins new favorite toy is a disemboweled squirrel. You will see me using it as our tug toy. Forget the expensive riot sticks and rope tugs, just give her a 10 year old toy that the dogs have pulled all the stuffing out of and we've got ourselves a motivational toy!

Well we've started a few sequences. We still have alot of one jump work to do and LOTS of circle work, but we are having fun and that's what counts.

I'd like to improve on the number of steps she is taking between jumps and get her focus on the jumps rather than me...but that will come in time. She is still pretty intense on wanting to focus on me so I have my work cut out for me.

The fire is still going in the hills. In the first video you can hear the helicopers above us taking water to be dumped. The wind seems to be blowing the smoke away from us so we took advantage and spent time outside. It is 35% contained so that is really good. Lots of people still waiting to get back to their homes.