Day 4 of the Wine Cluster

It was the last day at the show. It was high to low in agility so Travis was scheduled to run early. Travis did not Q in standard. The course took you straight down the middle with a sharp left turn into a tunnel underneath the A-Frame. The problem is that the handler is stuck on the right side and is forced to rear cross the jump prior to the turn to the tunnel. Rear crosses cause wider turns and more questions, so Travis ended up choosing the A-frame over the tunnel. And then he did a weird thing later in the course... he turned around in one of the tunnels and came out the same end he went in. In Jumpers, he placed 1st again with 20 MACH points. It was not a very smooth run and it literally came down to the last jump. The last few jumps were sort of a straight line, but he was angled in such away that it became a zig zag. The crowd had already given a sorry sigh about missing the last jump when Travis made a hard turn and just barely cleared the last jump for the Q.

In obedience, Katie had Utility 1 again where articles come second. Her heeling was great and for the 4th time in a row, she completed all of the her signals which can occasionally be a problem for her. Articles were also correct and it was strange again because the judge put both articles in relatively the same place - 11 and 12 o'clock. Everything was going very well and I was beginning to think that we might actually qualify, but I also knew that she had not successfully done her directed jumping for the other 3 days, so I was not holding my breath. Well, she didn't even go out on the first go out.... took about 1 stride and kind of gave the "do I have to look". I said "yes". So for part 2, she did go out, but again just came half way back before actually sitting. Definitely need to work on that.

Open also went very well. She was very methodical and maybe even a little bored by day 4. I think in her mind she's thinking that it would be just so much easier to skip the work and go straight to the food jackpots. Its hard having to do 5 minutes of intense work prior to any reward. Anyways, Open came down to the last exercise, the broad jump. The broad jump is a silly exercise in my opinion. Its 4 - boards slightly raised, creating a 48 inch long jump. Well, she ticked the first board with her front feet, so that was an NQ. Again she performed perfect sits and downs and this time in the cold wind.

Around 1 PM we started to pack it up (Stephen doing most of that work - Thanks, Snookums) and as you can see in the picture, the dogs do absolutely nothing. They are the superstars. We haul their stuff in, set it up to perfection, and take care of their every need.

I said goodbye to some of our new friends and encourage 2 ladies to come to the Perry show in April. Maybe we will see them one day.

We left at about 2:30 PM. Stephen drove until 10 or 11 PM or so and I drove until 3:45 AM. The drive home was much easier and we arrived at close to 7 AM. Definitely a worthwhile trip, we had a blast!

Day 3 of the Wine Cluster

It is always interesting to attend an agility trial in another region of the U.S.A. You see a lot of the same........... most competitors are middle-aged women, the volunteers are great, everyone has elaborate set-ups for the comfort of their dogs, and there are always a couple of husbands that build all of the courses, move tents, and other labor intensive work. I find that most trials are held in beautiful areas and some have cute, small, downtown areas. Geneva/Romulus, NY was no exception.

In Georgia, we have a few guys who have standard poodles. I have never considered a poodle to be a man's dog, but in the southeast region there are a few men who consider the poodle to be man's best friend.............. New York was also no exception. This tall, sturdy man with rugged physical traits (see picture on left) even stated on his shirt that his best friend was a poodle. It gave me a chuckle and he too was one of those good guys who was also volunteering and helping out with a trial.

In the Southeast, we are big believers in child labor and often put the little munchkins to work. We often bribe small children to run leashes or scribe sheets. In New York, they are kept in crates.

OK, so its day 3 and the weather is perfect. Today we start off with obedience. Both classes again start at 8:30 AM. I am still not sure who thought that would be a good idea. Most people in Open B, also enter Utility B.... so why not stagger the classes a little. Katie was far down on both lists so I was unable to determine which class would come up first for us. It finally appeared that we would do Utility first (which I prefer). I warmed her up and then suddenly the steward from the Open ring was asking if I could go. Sure, I'll go. Open did not go as well today. I had to call her twice on the drop on recall. She also ran around the high jump when she retrieved her dumbbell. So no qualifying score for us this time. Came out and was immediately called to the utility ring. We lucked out again and had Utility III which means the articles are first. This was the same judge from the specialty. Katie got both articles this time. It was strange because the judge was putting the scented article at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock, but I think she forgot what she was doing because she put it down at 6 o'clock twice. Regardless, I was just happy that Katie got it right. Go outs were icky again, but her heeling was good and she got lots of compliments from everyone again. We came out of the ring and they were literally screaming for Open sit and down stays before I could even give her a treat. Well, I wasn't about to skip the food reward for a utility performance, so I motioned that I needed a minute..... especially since we already were not qualifying in Open and could careless if we did stays or not. Katie once again preformed her 3 minutes sit stay and 5 minute down stay perfectly. Even though we didn't qualify, I was pleased to see that Katie held up to the rigors of obedience. She took it all in stride. We were especially rushed today and Stephen was a huge help with keeping up with what was going on in the agility ring, helping me change arm bands, meeting me after the class with Katie's food rewards, etc. With obedience done for the day, it was back to the agility ring where Travis was waiting patiently for his turn.

Well, the perfect run streak was about to end. On the standard course, he missed the teeter contact, dogwalk contact, and weave poles. Oh well, at least we got all of the errors out of the way in one run. Jumpers was very good, but there was a section at the end where he needed to go straight, but I was afraid he'd pull towards me and jump the jump closest to me. So I increased my speed to really drive him straight.... well, he went very straight, but was unfortunately angled towards a jump on the far side of the correct jump. It was definitely my error. There was also a very tough weave entrance, but he nailed it.

One other cool thing about today, Corey Fountain and his girlfriend came to see Katie and Travis perform. He lives in NY, but has 2 greyhounds he adopted from Southeastern Greyhound Adoption. I had helped him with some training advice via email and mentioned a few months ago that I would actually be in NY in Sept. He was only an hour away, so he jumped at the chance to see some greyhounds in action and was quite impressed with Katie and Travis..... and hopefully insprired to train his own greyhounds who need it.

Day 2 of the Wine Cluster

Today, I gave Katie the day off. I figured that 5 days of obedience would be too much for a hound, but I was wrong. Katie would have been happy to do another day of it.... she's a machine.

Agility ran high to low. Travis was awesome and placed first in both classes earning 66 MACH points. The grass was a bit slippery and he even fell on his face during one of his jump landings and didn't miss a beat... just got to his feet at full speed. Jumpers was a particularly fun course. There were some tough front crosses that I wasn't sure I could do, but did in fact get them in. There was a straight tunnel down the middle of the course..... straight tunnels tend to work like cannons and your dog tends to come shooting out of them like a cannonball. If you cross behind your dog while he is in a tunnel, they often come out of the tunnel looking for you on the wrong side because they did not see you cross while in the tunnel. This might cause an extra spin or a wide turn as your dog looks to find you. But since I was able to cross in front of him before entering the tunnel, Travis knew exactly where I'd be as soon as he came out of the tunnel. It made for a very fast and smooth run.

It was funny because a girl named Liz said to me "I don't know who you are or where you are from, but we are all just amazed by your dog.... and he's a greyhound!" She was very nice and complimentary. Another lady, Jutta (sounds like Utah), said that Travis was a wonderful dog, but he only ran so well because of my handling. That my instructions are clear and he always knows where he is going. Very nice compliment.

It threatened us with some rain and thunder storms, but luckily never interfering with the agility trial. We finished up around noon and decided to check out two local wineries since we were in wine country at the wine circuit dog show. Again, just beautiful country side. We had lunch at a winery called the Thirsty Owl. Afterwards, we did some wine tasting and Stephen and I each purchased our favorite. The lady at the counter was super nice and told us about some nice restaurants in Geneva.

Next we went to the Goose Watch winery. It had lots of sweety, fruity wines that I liked, so again we made a couple of purchases. The dogs were great and the clouds kept the car from getting too hot.

Finally, on our way back to the hotel. The skies finally opened up and it started to rain. We saw two draft horses (Belgians, I think) being galloped down the road with an Amish "chariot" behind them. It was interesting because there was no carriage. The Amish man was simply standing on a platform being pulled by the horses. It appeared that he had dropped off a load or was simply moving the horses to another location. It was pouring down rain, so I'm sure they were in a hurry.

On our way back, we stopped at Seneca state park for some Katie training. I was especially hoping to improve her go outs which she did perfectly as always when we train. This park was so beautiful. Perfect green grass fields everywhere, with trees, and a lake. It was huge and it would be wonderful for everyday training, tracking practice, or just walking the dogs........ of for a Greyhound Specialty (hint, hint to the GCA). But then it started to pour down rain. After a few minutes, I finally finished up training rain or no rain and let the dogs have a fun time playing in the grass and fetching their toys. The place was empty so I let Travis do huge galloping loops as he ran with his bumper. Luckily, we had just leashed the hounds when a park ranger drove by. I'm sure there were rules against this.

Day 1 of the Wine Cluster

The Wine Cluster dog show was held at another venue - Sampson State Park in Romulus, NY. This was about 25 minutes from Geneva and simply a beautiful drive each morning. I did not realize NY could be so rural. It was also interesting to see glimses of the famous white deer. There was a military base at one time with many acres fenced in. At some point, something odd happened and some deer were born white. When the herds were thinned out they culled the brown deer. This encouraged more white deer to be born and now there is a fairly large herd of white deer living on this abandoned military base - http://www.senecawhitedeer.org.

Stephen and I set up our area the day before. The show provides large tents for everyone to crate under and we were able to occupy an excellent spot.

This morning the agility trial ran Low to High and both of Katie's obedience classes started at 9AM. This made for one big conflict of needing to be in 3 rings around the same time. I had planned on running Travis first thing in the morning, so I had already walked the course, but the judge was not very accommidating and suggested I come back later to see how my conflicts were going. So I headed to the obedience rings with Katie. The judge in Utility was great and he let me move to the 2nd dog in the ring. So around 9:10 AM Katie and I entered the Utility ring. We lucked out again and had the Utility I rotation which is the same rotation used in all Utility A classes, so this is a very familar pattern to us and articles come 2nd. Heeling and signals were great. This time she got one of her articles right..... the first one in competition since May! So I was happy about that. Her go outs started to look pretty bad. She goes all the way out, but then she'd come about half way back before sitting instead of sitting promptly when I ask. The judge was very complimentary of her since overall she worked very nicely. Spectators were also impressed and commented on her.

Soon after it was our turn to enter the Open B ring. Katie was wonderful, impressed the judge, and scored a 192. We tied a Dalmation for 3rd, so we were called back for a run off. The judge said he'd never had a greyhound in a run off before. We did not win the run off, but we still placed 4th which is great for Open B.

With obedience out of the way, it was back to the agility ring. Stephen bought me some time and had moved Travis down so he would be the last 24" dog. It wasn't our smoothest course, but Travis ran clean and placed first earning 38 MACH points.

A few hours later and time for Jumpers. This course ran very smooth and we ran clean for a QQ, 2nd place, and 21 MACH points. A Terv had been just a partial second faster than Travis.

Happy with the days results, we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest and dinner.

Greyhound National Specialty

We woke up at about 5 :30 AM (which is actually sleeping in almost an hour for us:-). We got to the show site nice and early (maybe 6:30 AM). We were the first ones there. I practiced articles with Katie since that has been our biggest problem and I did some heeling and signals. Soon, Kathy Helmke arrived and I finally met her in person.

Utility B started at 8:00 AM and Katie was, of course, the only entry. We lucked out with Utility III which has articles as the first exercise. I thought doing them first would give her a better shot at getting them right...... or if she did get them wrong, at least I had other exercises for her to do and we could still end on a good note. Well, the ring steward was not very experienced and she ended up unzipping all of the pockets on my article bag and she dumped out all of my articles including 3 extra. So then she removed the extras, but then I realized the 2 I had used earlier that morning were in the pile and they are also blank (they are suppose to be numbered). Finally, she pulled the right articles from the pile. I was quite pleased with myself because I did not let this bother me. It was no big deal. Well, after all the effort to get it right, Katie rushed and ended up just grabbing an article on both attempts without looking. Oh, well.....

Travis was next in Open B. I had promised Travis a few years ago that he would not have to do anymore obedience once he earned his CDX..... UNLESS we go to a Greyhound National Specialty. I kept my promise. We did not practice any obedience until I knew for sure that I was coming NY. Travis can be quite sloppy when doing obedience and he is not nearly as eager to work on details like Katie is. So all that practice was leading up to this one 5 minute performance. Well, he was great and scored a 195 out of 200. His one major fault was changing sides during heeling for one loop of the figure "8"s.

Then it was Katie's turn again and her attempt at Open B. She too did great and scored a 195 1/2 out of 200. She was docked a few points for adding an automatic finish after the broad jump.
We luckily had a break before sits and downs. Kathy Helmke entered 2 greyhounds in Open A. One immediately left the ring and ran to her husband. The other one did great and scored a 192. The judge combined the 2 open classes and had us do sits and downs together. Obviously, they performed their stays perfectly since I already told you their qualifying scores.

I was hoping to win High in Trial, but Kathy Helmke was able to earn a 196 and a 196 1/2 in Novice B with her 2 movie stars (they are the greyhounds that will be featured in the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts).

I'm disappointed to say that I was a total dork and did not take a single picture at the specialty. :-( A photographer was there so I'm hoping to get photos of obedience since I do not have many of those. However, I really wish I'd photographed the site and some of the show greyhounds. Two of my favorites belonged to Cynthia Swanson. They were year old, pretty, parti-colored females. Nicely balanced and just the right size for performance (in other words, not too tall or overly angulated).

There was a scarey moment when a black, male greyhound who was very spooky got loose. Remember the site is unfenced and on a busy road. I tried to coax him over by squatting down and turning away and even running away from him, but it didn't work. He started running for the road and Stephen had to block him and basically scare him away from it. Finally someone caught him. I hope he isn't bred since he has such a spooky temperment in my opinion. He was even too scared to lure course because of the sound the machine makes.

Kathy introduced me to some board members, so they would know who I was when my GCA application comes up for approval.

Another interesting thing, there was a blind man showing a greyhound. Another man would guide him around the ring when the judge called to see the dog's movement. He also had a Bernese Mountain dog as a seeing eye dog. I would have liked to have asked him about this since I would consider a BMD a poor choice since they do not live very long (8 yrs or so). They are huge. I wouldn't consider them the easiest to train and would not think they'd have the energy for a day worth of work. I would have liked to learn more.

New York or Bust!!!

We slept in on Monday morning, packed, took Katie and Travis for a quick hike, and then left for Geneva, NY around 2:30 PM. The drive up was particularly rough because we drove separate cars. Stephen drove a mini van with 3 greyhounds for a friend who was already at a convention in New Hampshire and I drove the Volvo with Katie and Travis. I do not find driving for hours very comfortable, I sometimes get some weird nerve pains in my right leg. We tried to sleep for an hour at one rest stop in Ohio, but it was too warm to get comfortable. My best friend, Anna, from California called around midnight. It was great to chat with her for an hour. A few hourse later, we stopped at a gas station and the temperature was nice a cool. I'm not sure what time it was, but we slept there for an hour and 20 minutes. I have to say that the toughest part of the drive was between 6 and 10 AM. I kept wondering how in the world was I going to find the energy to train the dogs when we get to Geneva. Anyways, it took us about 19-20 hours.

We arrived in Geneva at the Greyhound National Specialty site around 10 AM. Kathy Helmke was on the money with her description....... not fenced, very busy road, next to a lake with water fowl, and noisey railroad cars. Members of the Greyhound Club of America were already showing up and the tent people showed up soon after. I felt a little rushed, but everyone was very nice and didn't mind me practicing with Katie and Travis. Stephen helped me set them up for a short sit stay practice. In open obedience they are required to do 3 minutes sit stays out of sight so we hid behind someone's car for that. Travis actually failed and I had to correct him for lying down. Otherwise, they both did great as expected.

We checked into our Motel 6 at about 2 PM. Check in is at 3 PM, but we finally settled on a 2nd floor room just to get a room sooner. Its funny how you get a 2nd wind and find the needed energy when you have to. Once in the room, I took a shower and finally settled in for a long needed nap.

Final Preparations

Well, we are getting down to the final preparations for the New York show. Tomorrow, I'm taking Katie and Travis hiking. Both of them are working really well except Katie is still having problems with articles. It seems that she cannot function if the article exercise follows other exercises. If I get out the articles, she can do them. But if we work on some heeling, retrieve a dumbbell, and do a moving stand first... then she seems to fall apart. Everything else looks great. I think she will do especially well in Open. Even if she fails the articles each day, it really doesn't matter. She has her UD and working through this problem is probably going to end up being good practice for me. "Train without ego" is very important. Also if she fails, I just need to bite my tongue and pretend like it was all good when we are in the ring. She just needs to relax, be happy, and get her confidence back.

Travis has looked great all along. I hope that he can sharpen up his sloppy obedience for just one day next week... preferably Wednesday.

Perfect Weekend

Travis just had a perfect weekend at the Canine Capers agility trial at Wills Park. He ran so smooth and consistant. It is such a great feeling to walk a course, determine your plan of action, run your dog exactly the way you thought you should, and have everything go perfectly. I am just so proud of him. All in all we picked up another 53 MACH points and QQs #3 and #4 towards his MACH 2. That would be very special if he was the first MACH2 Greyhound.

The 4 day agility trial in NY couldn't be coming at a better time. He's at the top of his game... can't wait to show him off.

The Useful Utility Dog!

What can't a utility dog do?

Water the grass........ do water conservation laws apply to dogs?

Take out the trash. Scrub the tub. Hold your purse while you are in the bathroom. For the record... that is not my everyday purse. Arts and crafts with a glue gun. Actually, my friend, Faith Wallace, made this for me.

Collect firewood.

Paint!

What can't a Utility Dog do? Just about nothing :-)

No worries, Katie was not harmed at all during the photo shoot and in fact earned herself lots of treats amusing her mom.

Hiking

I am trying to be less anal and take Travis and Katie hiking about 2 days a week instead of training. It makes for a nice short break during the week. We often join Stephen, my husband, and his 3 greyhounds. Yes, they are off leash (big greyhound rule breaker!!!), but they all have been systematically trained to recall, we are on private property where it is allowed, and we keep the dogs between us. One person keeps the dogs in front and the other person keeps the dogs behind. The greyhounds are absolutely not allowed to run ahead of us. That to me is the most annoying thing about hiking.......encountering other dogs belonging to other people well before we ever see their people. The beauty to keeping the dogs behind you is #1 You are the pack leader as Cesar Milan would say. Thus making all of the decisions about where, when, and how fast. #2 I see wildlife, other dogs, and people first. I saw a mother possum with 3 babies on her back the other day and I was able to quickly turn around and distract the greyhounds while she passed.

Why Do I Avoid Dogwalks in Training?

I have this theory with Travis. Generally, Travis strides onto the dogwalk and his stride takes him through the yellow contact zone. Occasionally, he will take off just right and stride ride over it and miss the contact completely, but that is just the luck of the draw. The habit I do not want to see develope is Travis adjusting his striding to the dogwalk as if it is a jump. In other words, he sets himself up to jump on the dogwalk. If he does that, he will most certainly miss the contact. The more dogwalks he does, the more comfortable he will get and the better he will get at jumping onto the dogwalk (something I don't want). So we practice the teeter instead. Since the teeter moves, it has to be approached a little more cautiously and its best not to jump on it or you might land on the part that is going to send you crashing down. Travis who has no fear or problems with either obstacle will simple hop or trot onto the teeter and very rarely misses the contact. I believe that his teeter approach transfers over to the dogwalk when it does come up in competition.... thus the reason we do not practice dogwalks anymore.

Practice on Mats

Travis and I have been working hard on getting ready for the AKC Agility Invitational in Dec. It seems like we are preparing so far in advance, but it just dawned on me that it is only 3 months away. The Invitational is a special agility event that invites the top 5 dogs of each breed. Travis will be the only greyhound in attendence. I am nervous because this will be the first time I have ever flown one of my greyhounds and he will be flying all the way to CA. Luckily, we will be traveling with our friend, Anne Jones, and her ridgeback, Kira. They competed at this event last year, so they will know their way around. The other great part is my best friend, Anna Rhodes, lives close to this event so she is going to provide us with transportation and it will be great to see such a great friend again.

So back to preparations... the main difference between this event and most other agility events is that it is held on mats instead of dirt or grass. I definitely do not want to fly all the way to CA to find out that Travis and I do not run well on mats. So we have started to seek out local places that provide agility on mats. Well, the best place we have found is Play Dog Excellent in Chattanooga (at least 1.5 hour drive one way). So Travis and I have been making our way to this facility about 2-3 times a month. I think that we are improving. Our second run is always better than the first. Hopefully we will get the hang of it in the next 3 months. There is also a warm up class the day prior to the Invitational, so that will be a good chance for us to get a feel for the actual competition mats. Its a FAST class, so we get to make up our own course and avoid dogwalks which will be good for getting in the practice we want.