Trial Goals

After every trial, I look at how well we did or how well didn't do, and decide what I need to work on in my training.  I did the same thing after the trial we just had and I have a few training goals in my mind to work on over the next few weeks.  This post is NOT about those training goals.  It is about something personal I need to work on when I am at a trial.  That is taking care of myself.
When I am at a trial, I get so wrapped up in what is going on - pottying dogs, getting ready to run, warming up dogs, cooling down dogs, volunteering, visiting friends, watching people run their dogs, etc, etc.  I get so wrapped up in all of this stuff, that I forget about eating until I start to feel ill.  I also never drink enough water and so by the end of the day I have a headache from being dehydrated.
My goal for future trials is to take the time so sit down and eat properly.  That does not mean grab a couple snacks (although I really enjoy snacks), instead I need to eat some real food.  And drink more water or energy drinks.  And eat breakfast before a trial - I am really bad about eating breakfast.

Bernese In CKC Agility

This is a bit of continuation of my thoughts from my last post and how few Bernese actually participate/qualify in agility trials in Canada. I looked up some CKC stats and last year (2009) there were 34 agility legs earned by Bernese. Out of those 34 qualifying runs, 19 legs (56%) were earned by my 2 dogs.
Understandably, most people do not get a Bernese Mountain Dog with the intentions of doing agility with them but there are many people who have been very successful competitively with their Bernese. As a matter of fact, just this past weekend, a Berner earned an AKC MACH4. That is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any dog to achieve.
I think most people think of Bernese as big, lumbering, lazy dogs but in reality, they were traditionally used as an all purpose farm dog who would work all day with it's owner. Bernese may be lazier now than when they had to work on Swiss farms all day, but I think the majority of them still really love to work, especially since that means they get to spend time with their owner. Bernese are really all about the connection they have with their people and agility as well as other dog sports are a great way to fulfill that need.

Compliment

I am not the type of person who seeks out attention or public recognition.  Some people thrive on being the center of attention, but that kind of stuff makes me a bit uncomfortable.  However, this weekend at our agility trial, I was extremely honored to be given a Judges Choice Award by Christina Saunders.  She used myself and my dogs as an example of a team that can compete in agility and enjoy agility even though I do not have one of the typical agility breeds.  (There are very few people competing with Bernese in agility and Bernese are almost never seen at the higher levels.)  She mentioned the people she sees that make excuses in training and trialing because they have a breed that is not a Border Collie or a Sheltie and she complimented the way I train and handle my dogs.  I just run my dogs for who they are.  I have had a judge in the past make a mean, off-handed remark to me about Bernese in agility, so to have Christina give me her judges choice award based on the breed that I run, that means a lot to me.  It really does.

I guess I don't think about this stuff too much.  I just have fun with my dogs and don't use their breed as an excuse for not being able to accomplish something. I am proud to run my big Bernese in agility.  I owe much of this to Sarah and Amanda.  They never have any "breedist" attitudes in class and problems are always training issues, not breed issues.  I know not all instructors or schools are like this and I always feel so lucky to have such supportive instructors and agility friends.

Go!Dog!Go! Agility Trial

This weekend, our agility club hosted our annual agility trial.  It sure is great to have a trial at home and not need to travel, even if the weather was rainy on Sunday.  The best part of the weekend was seeing the group of new students from our club participate in their very first trial.  This group started training last spring(2009) and they have been working so hard to get ready for this trial.  All the hard work paid off and they all did great!  I was so excited to see them run and see their dogs have a great time out on course.  I think the handlers had a good time too and if they were nervous, you sure couldn't tell.

For my own dogs, I couldn't have been happier with them.  The cooler weather sure does make a difference in how they run.  I have also been feeling more confident on course lately, so that may make a difference as well.

Maggie was entered in 5 runs over the weekend.  She ran well in all her runs - she was fast but didn't get the zoomies and she tried very hard.  She had great times in her 2 Masters Standard runs, but had weave faults in each.  She tried very hard in the 2 Masters Gambler runs and had lots of points in her openings, but distance work is hard for her, and although she tried hard to figure out what I wanted her to do, she did not get the final gambles.  She did have an awesome Masters Snooker run and earned a 'Q' for her efforts.  Yay Maggie!

Bosley worked very hard this weekend, and was under time in all his runs (even Jumpers).  He had an awesome Advanced Standard run, but then knocked the very last bar - it was totally my fault too.  There was a very odd finish line, so I decelerated at the last jump instead of running straight through, so Bosley pulled up and knocked the bar.  His second Standard run was very nice too, and he "Q'd that one and was 11 seconds under time.  He was the only dog who qualified in that run.

Bosley's Advanced Gamblers runs were really, really good.  I used to dread running in Gamblers, but I have worked hard to get some distance with Bosley, and he rocked it this weekend.  He 'Q'd his first Gambler run with 48 points.  The second run he 'Q'd with an amazing (for Bosley) 76 points where he managed to do the 12 point mini gamble twice.  This one had a tricky final gamble and only 2 dogs were able to get the final.  So now Bosley moves to Masters Gamblers (yikes!).  We will need to work on more distance in the weaves and get him more confident turning away from me.

Bosley ran nice in both his Advanced Jumpers.  The Saturday run, he knocked the first bar, but did well on the rest and finished 4.5 seconds under time.  In Sunday's run, he ran fast the entire course, even through the twisty parts, and he got his first Advanced Jumpers 'Q'.

Bosley was also entered in Advanced Snooker.  We had a great opening and needed to get to the end of 6 in the closing to qualify.  Bosley knocked a bar in the #5 sequence so we got tweeted off.  Not sure why that bar fell, but it was raining when we were running so maybe that was why.  Regardless, we were so close, and Bosley ran great.

Only one more outdoor trial left this season.

There's An App For That

Not too long ago, I downloaded a fitness app for my Iphone. It is just a simple GPS program that tells you how far you have walked/hiked/ran and how long it took you. It records your progress and it also maps your route (which is very cool). I thought it would be a fun app to have, but I always forget to turn it on when I start our walks. The other day, I was taking the dogs for their quick evening walk around the neighborhood and I finally remembered to turn that darned app on for once. I was very surprised to find out that our "short" walk was actually 5km (3 miles) - granted, it is all on sidewalk with no hills, so it doesn't take us too long (40 minutes). Now I am curious to know how far we go on a "regular" walk, which is on average 75-90 minutes (when the weather is cool enough, of course). Hopefully, this app is a good motivator for me and the dogs to walk longer distances and try out new hiking routes.

**** A couple people have asked which app I am using. It is the Sprint GPS. I can't remember if it is a free app or not. If not, it was only a couple dollars.

Find The Berner

Birthday Surprise

Four years ago today, a little baby Bosley was born.

Here is Bosley the day we brought him home at 9 weeks old.

Here is Bosley now:  grown up and handsome.

Today we got up and went for a nice birthday walk.  It was very cool outside this morning, so we got to take an extra long walk, which rarely happens in the summer.  So that was a nice birthday surprise for Bosley.

We then came home and took some birthday pictures.

There was another birthday surprise today.  I thought Bosley should wear his backpack on his walk so  I put the pack on him and when I opened it up to put in some bottles of water:  Surprise - there was a toy inside.  A while ago, I lent the pack to Wendy as she was thinking about purchasing one.  I let her try out the one I have to see how her dog Coulee liked it, and as a thank you, Wendy left a toy inside the pack with a thank you message attached.  Bosley is not much into toys, but Maggie has been playing with it all morning.

New toys make Maggie very happy - thanks Wendy!

Agility At Spruce Meadows

This weekend we had the pleasure of playing agility at the world famous equestrian centre Spruce Meadows. The Alberta Kennel Club held it's annual summer show at Spruce Meadows for the first time this year. It is such a beautiful venue -everything is so pristine. There are even people in big golf carts who come by to drive you, your dog and all of your gear to and from the parking lot. Very fancy!

Here is Bosley posing next to one of the horse exercise paddocks. There were horses in it earlier in the day, but they were gone by the time I got out my camera to take pictures.

In addition to the thrill of competing at Spruce Meadows, Bosley had a really good weekend. He only had one run that was a bit pokey, but the rest were great. One of his standard runs was 13 seconds under time, which is huge for Bosley. His weaves were really good - he is finally getting used to the 24" spacing. He did miss 3 weave entries today - one because he was distracted by something outside the ring and the other two I thought he got, but he missed at the last second. More weave entry work coming up for Bosley. He responded nice to my handling and even did a beautiful serpentine today. He had some really nice runs, and besides the couple of flubbed weave entries, I was super happy with his performance all weekend.

We came away from the weekend with 3 Qs - 2 Standard and 1 JWW. (We should have had another standard Q, but for some weird reason Bosley stopped to sniff the table before he jumped on, so we had a refusal.) So in 2 weekends, Bosley has earned 6 Excellent B 'Q's. I am pretty amazed with that actually. Now I really want to do more CKC agility - but there are no more trials nearby until next summer. Bummer.

Here is Bosley outside the agility rings. Look at that beautiful grass we got to run on. It was perfect - no lumps or bumps and no gopher holes! I can't wait to go back next year.

The funniest part of the weekend was the huge crowds that would come and watch. We are not used to this in agility. Everyone would cheer when the dogs did something good and they would "awwww" when a dog would knock a bar. They would laugh when handlers messed up. Bosley got lots of cheers for his weaving - I don't think people expect a big dog to be able to weave like he does. The spectators really enjoyed watching and it is fun to see the reactions of people who are not involved in the sport. As competitors, we get so focused on watching the handler errors and the technical side of the sport, that sometimes we forget to watch just for the fun of it.

Summer

It's Summer!  Break out the sunscreen.  Put on those sunglasses.  Soak up some rays.

Get me back in the air conditioning!!!!

Bully Stick Baton

I have been working to try to get Bosley moving a bit faster in agility. To motivate him, I use his most favorite treat in the world - the bully stick. I had Bosley entered in a CKC agility trial this weekend and the bully stick made the trip with us. I played "Pass The Bully Stick Baton" with Cindy for each of Bosley's runs - as I was entering the ring, I would pass the stick off to her and as I was leaving the ring, Cindy would pass the stick back to me and I would toss it to Bosley. It worked well and Bosley had an awesome weekend (for the the most part - I will get to more in a bit) and was under time in every run except for one, and we had a good excuse for that one.

The weekend was full of challenging courses with difficult weave entrances. Some of the courses really made you think and you had to handle your dog well to be successful. I was happy with my handling for the most part. I had a late cue that sent Bosley to a wrong tunnel mouth, but overall I was happy and I was really pleased with how Bosley responded to my handling.

The very first run of the weekend was a JWW with a very tough weave entrance and there was a lot of discussion during the walk through on how people were planning to handle it. Not many dogs got the entrance and there were some interesting handling choices. The only way I could figure out to make the entrance nice for Bosley was to do a lead out pivot (the weaves were the third obstacle). It worked beautifully and Bosley got the entrance and 'Q'd his first run of the weekend.

My favorite run of the weekend was the last JWW course of the weekend. The course was tight and it almost made me dizzy but it really forced you to handle your dog. It felt like I did about 20 front crosses but I think I really only did 5. Bosley did a great job on this course and all the front crosses really kept his lines tight. Bosley was 1 of only 2 dogs that qualified on this course - there were lots of off-courses and lots of lost handlers. Here is my drawing of the course - it is not exact but gives an idea of how the course flowed. Can you figure out where I put in 5 front crosses? **(My handling choices are at the bottom of this post).

Bosley had one qualifying Standard run. It was a nice run except Bosley got stuck in the chute. I really hate the long CKC chutes and this one seemed quite heavy and I saw a few dogs get tangled. I sent Bosley in the chute and when I looked back, he was stuck. I was just reaching to grab the end of the chute when he popped out on his own and we finished the course - he was even 6 seconds under time with the few seconds lost in the chute.

The rest of Bosley's runs were nice and he had some really fast straight lines. A bobble here and there, but overall one of the best weekends Bosley has had.

The weekend was not without mishaps however. First, there was the chute incident which I already mentioned. Bosley was over time on one run and that is because he broke the weave poles. He missed the entrance on the weaves but he hit the poles so hard that a pole went flying. I thought it had popped off the base but the judge came over and the pole had actually snapped right off. So I stood there, not sure what we should do and the judge said to send him back through the poles (with one missing). Bosley was funny and weaved through as if there were actually a pole there.

The biggest mishap happened on the very last run of the day. It had just started to rain and there had been a big drop in temperature. Bosley knocked a bar on the second jump because he needed to sneeze right as he was taking off. Since we NQd, I thought I would just run and see if I could really get Bosley moving. I got him moving all right - right over the top of the A-frame for a crash landing on the other side. I forgot about the higher, steeper CKC A-frame and when he went over the top he couldn't collect and fell. He fell hard but landed flat on the side of his shoulder, so luckily he didn't get hurt. It was very scary for me. A lesson learned - know when to push for speed but never sacrifice time for safety.

** Front crosses: 7-8, 11-12, 14-15, 16-17, 17-18

Agility Fun Match

The dogs and I spent the day at an agility fun match. It was a perfect day weather wise - cloudy with a bit of a breeze to keep those pesky mosquitos away. The match was lots of fun and several Go!Dog!Go! students that will be starting to trial this fall were there and they all did great! We have another awesome group of competitors coming up - I can't wait to see them all at their first trials.

Maggie and Bosley did well today and had fun. They each did a Masters Gamblers, a Snooker and a Masters Jumpers. Maggie was speedy and had lots of fun. She knocked a couple bars, but overall did great! She had lots of enthusiasm and tried very hard all day.

Bosley had a very good day. He was fast in all his runs - he loved his bully stick reward (he will run fast for that)! He did an awesome threadle in the jumpers run (yay) - he doesn't always get those, so I was happy. I was most happy with his Masters Gamblers run. First, he is not even in Masters Gamblers yet - he just got into Advanced. Second, the gambler run was from this years Ontario Regional Championship and it was HARD. He got the mini-gamble twice and . . . he got the final gamble! I was so happy with him, I didn't expect him to get the final at all.

Here is a link to the Gamble: Regionals Gamblers Course

My new shade tent worked out well, expect that I didn't take into account how high my x-pen is, so the x-pen would not fit all the way to the back. Crates will fit perfect or I will need to buy a shorter x-pen to fit better.

New Tent

I bought a new little shade tent today.  I have a nice, big tent that has lots of room to fit many dogs and friends, but last summer 2 poles broke during a storm.  I want to get the poles replaced because nothing is wrong with the rest of the tent, but until then, I thought it would be nice to have a small tent for day trips or fun matches.  

I found this little beach tent that should work well.  It is easy to set up and will easily fit an x-pen or a couple of crates and a chair or two.  It has a front and back door for nice airflow and it is silver on the top so I hope that helps reflect the sun.  It will be a bit of shade and shelter anyway and since it didn't cost very much, if it doesn't work out, I won't be out a ton of money.

The dogs like it already.  I swear I didn't make the dogs pose for this picture.  I set the tent up in the living room (I didn't want to set it up outside incase I didn't like it and needed to return it) and the dogs made themselves right at home.  I am surprised I even got it put together because they were trying to get in it while I was still setting it up.

Now What?

We are half way through the year and I have been contemplating how my training will go for the next half of the year.  The dogs and I have taken most of the past month off of training - we even skipped a couple agility classes, which I have never done before.  Since the draft and agility weekend at the beginning of June, we have done very little.  We had been training so hard,  I felt I needed a break and that the dogs deserved a break too.  

Here is Bosley at the park enjoying a well deserved break.

We are now ready to get back to work.  Bosley has his "game face" on and says he is ready to get back to work too.  No more slacking off.

The break has been good and I did a bit of obedience work with Bosley over the weekend.  He was super excited to be working again and had lots of enthusiasm.

I now really want to concentrate on Open Obedience.  Since it is nice outside, I can take my jumps to the park to practice.  I have some ideas for keeping Bosley's motivation up that I want to try.

I think I want to go for Bosley's DDX title, but since there are no more draft tests until next year, we will wait until the fall until we start any serious DDX training.

We have also started to work on scent discrimination.  I am not sure when our scent hurdle team will be able to get together to practice again (the summer is so busy for everyone) but I really want to get a good start on the discrimination since Bosley seems to love the rest of the game.  I am using a method that I found posted on a Berner Yahoo group.  If I have success using this method, I will describe it in a future post.

Agility.  I have Bosley entered in a few upcoming trials.  Two of the trials are CKC trials where I am now working on Excellent B legs.  A total of 20 Excellent B legs are needed to complete a Championship title - that is a lot!  I will really need to think about if this is something I really want to pursue.  There are so few CKC trials that I can go to (within reasonable driving distance) and CKC is soooo expensive (I can do 2 AAC shows for every 1 CKC show), so I don't know if it is reasonable to set that goal.
My main agility goal right now is speed.  Bosley needs to get his speed up on the course.  He is usually very accurate and responds nicely to my handling, but he can be slow.  He is a big dog and not built for speed (I am not making excuses, just being realistic), but I know he is capable of being fast when he wants.  I just need to bring that out more in agility. Fun games and better motivators (ie yummy food) will be what we need to work on to get that speed up.

"See, I can run fast when I want to."

(BTW - this photo was my first attempt at panning  - I was happy with how it turned out, although the background was not the best to show off the movement.)

Poor Maggie is becoming more and more just my cuddler on the couch and less active in "dog stuff".  She did an agility demo this weekend and loved it.  Tracking is put off now until it is cooler outside.  She is entered in one upcoming agility trial for a few events later this summer.  I basically want to keep up her agility skills and play around with a little rally but she doesn't love competing at all.  She loves doing agility demos and has some more of those coming up too -she is such a nice, happy dog and really enjoys meeting people so she is a great demo dog.

So that is my current training plan for now.  I know the summer will fly by, like always, so I hope to get in some good training sessions before we are stuck inside again.

Maggie and her Kong

When Maggie is eating a treat or chewing on her Kong, she always needs to lay on her bed or on a pillow (that Bosley has left on the floor). She never will just lay on the floor and chew something. Today I looked over and saw this:

There was a flip-flop on the floor in the livingroom (left there by Bosley, of course) and Maggie thought that would be the perfect place to enjoy her Kong.

What a funny girl!

Pole Weaving

Bosley really loves the weave poles so I thought it would be fun to try to take a few pictures of him weaving.

Here is Bosley getting ready to weave.  Doesn't he look happy?

"Yipee!!  Look how fast I can go!!!"

Apparently, weaving needs be done with one eye closed.  Kind of like threading a needle, I guess.

Keep that eye shut :)

Look at the bend in the poles, and those crazy looking legs (and the shut eye).

I like this picture with Bosley's eye peaking out of one side of the pole and a big smile showing on the other side of the pole.

I am not sure how weaving with both eyes shut works?

"Here I come!"

Titer Test

Last week I took Maggie for her yearly check-up.  This was the first big check-up she has had since her Mast Cell Cancer treatment last year.  I asked the vet to do a full blood panel work-up as well as titers.

I am very conservative when it comes to vaccinations in my dogs.  Both Maggie and Bosley have had their puppy series and a one year booster  and nothing since (following the Jean Dodds vaccination protocol). Maggie has not had any vaccinations for over 4 years.  Her titer levels came back great!

The rest of her blood work came back good as well.  The vet was worried about her kidney values (creatine specifically) as last year it was on the high side.  The vet was pleased to see that the creatine value had dropped a bit and stabilized although it is still a bit high but within the normal range.  She figures the higher value has a lot to do with Maggie's water drinking habits - she drinks very little.  If she was drinking a ton of water and peeing a lot, she would be more concerned.  I worry about Maggie's kidneys because when she was a puppy she knocked a bottle of Ibuprofen off the counter, the lid popped off and she ate a bunch of it. Ibuprofen can cause kidney damage in dogs and although there were no signs of damage when she was released from the hospital at the time, I still worry.

Maggie's glucose was a bit low, but both the vet and the pathologist think it was because the blood was shipped to Calgary for testing and the blood will use up it's own glucose (or something like that).  She has to go back for a quick glucose test later this week, as a precaution.

I am always nervous waiting for test results to come back - even if it is just routine blood work.  I am very glad that the vet gave Maggie a clean bill of health.

Flood

For the past few days we have been getting a lot of heavy rain.  Today it is finally sunny again.  We went for a long walk this morning with the intention of getting this weeks photo for Bosley's 52 Weeks For Dogs project.  The river is flooding from all the rain, so I wanted a picture of Bosley posing at the flooding river.

I like this picture of Bosley as we are about to go though the tunnel that runs under Whoop-Up Drive.  I like how his wet footprints show up.

I am very nervous around water, so I didn't want to go right down to the river.  The river is moving very fast and it is very high, so we took the pedestrian overpass that crosses the river.

Walking over the pedestrian overpass is very safe, but I still feel nervous when I see and hear all that water rushing underneath the bridge.  Bosley posed for a few pictures on the bench before we crossed (quickly) over the bridge.

Weekend Details

I couldn't have been more pleased with how Bosley worked during the entire draft test on Friday.  His off-leash heeling was very good - especially considering we were outside.  He got a couple nice comments from the judges on his heeling as well as his "halts" and his back-up from the basic cart control section of the test.  

For the freight haul, the judges have the option of judging each dog individually or doing a group freight haul.  Due to the large number of entries, they opted for the group haul.  This means that 3 dogs go at a time and each take a turn at being the dog in the front, in the middle and in the back.  You are not allowed to pass the dog in front of you, which means you must adjust your pace to the lead team. I was a bit worried about this, as the first section was all downhill and Bosley loves to try to run down the hills and we were in the middle position to start.  I made sure I left a lot of room between us and the lead dog and made Bosley go SLOW down the hill.  He listened very well and we had no problems.  The dog behind us however would not slow down and the handler had to grab him to keep him from running into us (an automatic fail).  At first I felt bad that they failed because we were going so slow, but draft work is really all about control and control is essentially what determines a pass or fail.

There was one section of the test that got many dogs, especially the non-traditional drafting breeds entered (a Standard Poodle, a Portuguese Water Dog and a Rough Collie).  The dogs had to pull their loaded cart (40 pounds) straight up a hill, stop, make a sharp left turn a go straight down the side of the hill.  Many dogs refused to do the hill or could not get enough momentum going up the hill and the loaded cart would just pull them back down.  It was too bad, as many of these dogs tried so hard but they just couldn't make it.

Overall, I thought it was a very good test.  Lots of challenges but not impossible.  The judges were great and everyone was very encouraging.  I met some great Berner people too!!

Bosley was #7 in the test.  They had very cute placards to put on the back of our cart for the test.

I think I will leave my license plate on.

Maggie and Bosley were also entered in agility over the weekend.  Bosley got the last "Q" needed to finish his AgXS title.  He had a couple other really nice runs.  We had some miscommunication on a couple other runs.  Overall, I was happy.  He was very slow in the weaves - trying to be careful and adjust to the 24" spacing.  By the end of the weekend he was figuring it out.

Maggie made it very clear to me that she was not happy that I was making her jump 20".  She cannot jump 16" in CKC until she is 7 years old.  I pulled her from her runs on Sunday and I pulled her entry from a CKC trial in July.  If she is not happy, I am not going to force her to play.

BMDCC Draft Dog Test

Yesterday we drove to Edmonton for some agility and a draft test.  Today was the draft test.  Out of 12 entrants 2 dogs passed.  Bosley was one of them!!!!!!!  He was a good boy all day and worked very hard.

Sunny Days

The rain is gone away . . . could spring actually here to stay?