Study on Weaves

I took a seminar from Moe Strenfel last year. One of the things she said was to video the weaves and watch in slow motion. She had a ton of video that she shared and seeing the dogs weave in slow motion showed issues that were invisible at speed.

It has taken me this long to figure out how to do slow motion video. Although my skills are minimal, I finally figured it out.

Although my eyes are not trained, what I see are good weaves. She is a bouncer, but clearly understands the decell before the entrance. She bounced her shoulders more than I expected, but not overly so.

If you see different, please let me know.

I'd video Tazz, but his regular weaves are sorta slow mo so we don't really need to see video for that :)

The True Story

I have told many people that I broke my toe carrying laundry. No one believes me. Ok already, I'll tell the true tale.

Three weeks ago this past Saturday, around 10pm, my boyfriend backed his truck up to the back of the mobile home. He took the window out, tossed the couch through the window into the bed of the truck, grabbed the TV remote and sat on the couch cause he wanted to do a drive in movie. Unfortunately for me, the fumes from the truck came in and got me good as I was passed out on the floor of the living room after slugging down some primo box wine and smok'n some major kick ass weed.

The idiot had put the dog in the cab of the truck, and at some point in the evening, Ugly jumped onto the gearshift, putting the truck in neutral and causing it to roll down the hill taking the back end of the mobile home with it.

The shock of refreshing air hit me and I jumped up and ran to where I expected the couch to be and fell out of the end of the house landing in an old raccoon nest...well not so old as the raccoon was pretty pissed. I did look up in time to see the end of the mobile home bounce once in the air and then tumble over the side into the gully. That was a sight you don't see every day, I tell ya.

Luck was with me and I still had my cigarettes in my breast pocket. I lit one up to ponder my situation but unfortunately, the house blew up around me.

Later, as I smoked my cigarette and drank some liquid courage in the back of the police car, the medic told me I was lucky. All I came away from the experience was a broken toe, some singed hair, and one heck of a hangover.

Ugly did get out of the truck before it went over into the gully. He found me smoldering in the ruins of my house. Somehow the fridge ended up laying next to me and Ugly fetched me a bru just like the boyfriend taught him to do.

My boyfriend was found in the gully, lying on the couch with the TV changer still in his hand. Seems he slept through the whole thing. He sure is a keeper, that one.

Weekend Update

We had a fun time at the Nunes Agility Field in Turlock this weekend.

Temps got in the high 90's on Saturday, but under the shade was comfortable. We tried hard to enjoy the heat and not complain as we know we don't have too many of these wonderful warm days left.

My toe is still healing, but I'm getting around much better. Laura ran Fin and will run her for the next couple trials. It is good for Fin and good for me.

These are her runs from Sunday. I felt really good about her jumping and mostly she had good structure and function. I did find an early take off from her Jumpers run. It was the second jump in the 4 jump leadout. I included it in the clip above in slow motion. It isn't terrible, but certainly she took 3 strides and jumped a bit early.

Standard was nice and I found no problems (except if you want to talk about the A frame and teeter ... always something to work on!).

Although we missed going to our favorite resturant, we loved being home on Saturday evening and spending time with our husbands.

Next weekend is a "overnighter" up in Woodland. Can't wait.

Broken Toe Exercises

Just because I can't run doesn't mean that Fin gets to sit on her laurels. I'm keeping her busy. I am limited and am not moving too fast these days, but taking the opportunity to work on stuff that is movement independent.

We have some basic Salo Grids we are working on, in addition we start this week on adding the tunnel. These first four set ups start with easy and move to more difficult.

• 5 jumps should be set for your dog (fin is 5', my friend BC is 6')
• 5 jumps should be set at 4" or 8". DO NOT RAISE THESE JUMPS.
• single jump sitting out there can go up or down
• Start with the first sequence of heading toward the tunnel. Do not progress until dog is nice and even in the 5 jumps to the tunnel. Once dog is working nicely running toward the tunnel, move on to the next sequence of them running from the tunnel to the five jumps
• To mix it up, make the jumps at angles.
• Use your toy or food target.

I'm also working on weave entrance and distance from the teeter. The numbers represent my standing position. I'm not able to run, but I can hobble a little so I do show some movement. I have on friend who sits on her chair drinking wine doing something similar to this. Her dog has total understanding of weave entries.

Lead out pivots is also on my agenda. A simple one is below. I'm working on this then moving the jumps to make it more difficult...working both sides.

If you guys have some good lead out pivots you've seen recently, send them along to me!

A Fun USDAA Weekend

Big regionals this weekend. Friday was setup and I was in charge of vendors. We had some really amazing vendors this weekend and I made up a nice "avenue of vendors" for the entrance to our trial. I was there about 5 hours on Friday and unfortunately over did it a little.

Went back on Sat, but only stayed for a couple hours as I needed to get the "broken toe" in the air rather than on the ground.

Sunday and Monday Fin was entered and Laura ran her. Sunday, some nice runs, but small mistakes in each run kept her from Q'ing. I felt that each run she seemed to be getting more confident.

Today (monday) Fin seemed to be running alot more confident. In Snooker blind crossed Laura to an off course ended her run early, but she made up for it in Jumpers and Standard. I think her jumping is looking alot better and she seems much more confident.

These runs give me hope for our future. We've got a couple more USDAA trials this month, I will keep her at 12 inch performance and see how she improves each trial.

Fin ended her day with a massage and a nap. Now she is sound asleep on the stairs (one of her favorite places).

Thanks to Laura Pryse who ran her for me. And thanks to all my great friends for all the help this weekend. Seriously good times! (except for the Wasp incident...that, not so much fun...thinking of you both Laurie and Susan!)

US Agility Team Blog

The US Agility team has a blog! Click here.

Excellent resource and will probably get busy as it gets closer.

Fun Successful Weekend

Spent the weekend with some really fun wonderful people at the SMART agility trial. Although I went there with the gloom of broken toe, as the weekend went on, I was realized how stupid I was for feeling sorry for myself. There was great joy in watching Laura run Fin. Fin had a fabulous time, and so did I.

Although we are still having trouble with the "going around things," she is getting better. On Saturday she took the hard stuff and had trouble with the easy stuff! On Sunday we moved her to 12 inches to make things easier and she seemed to do better.

Next week she is only in 12" so we'll see whether she keeps improving.

She was checked out this weekend after all the runs and she checked out totally pain free and healthy. Such good news, and worthy of the happy dance.