Dear Blog...I've Been Unfaithful To You

Yes, I feel like I've been cheating on my blog by not being there to write and I've fallen into the category of dead beat blogger! Life's been beyond hectic and I've found myself stretched to the gills the last month. But the last week or so has me getting refocused, energized and working toward getting back on track.

First, I had Stacy Peardot-Goudy in for a week conducting seminars. I always come away from working with Stacy feeling motivated, with a ton of new ideas and of course encouraged by the progress I've made with my dogs.

In February I wrote about how Rouge's social calendar was overtaking her ability to think clearly in agility and so it is with great pride that I write that in this seminar she never once went to visit and consistently worked with me.

I also had an opportunity to work little Zulu and discovered a few things. First, he has now gained the ability to quickly focus. Second, that he jumps way better at 24" and third, he's going to be a ton of fun!

The next step in my busy schedule has me in Kenai, Alaska judging. One of the best parts about being in the middle of nowhere? The lack of cell phone and internet service. Amazingly, I've happily survived the last 4 days without the pressure of phone calls, e-mails and text messages. Of course the beautiful scenery and wonderful people have made this trip memorable as well.

Colorful Fungus

It seems each time I take pictures a theme emerges. This time the theme is mushrooms! I felt very lilliputian (small in size) next to the gigantic varieties found here in Alaska. Here are just a few pictures of the fungus among-us.

Ugly, but BIG fungus!

Bowl-like Fungus

More Fungus

Frilly Fungus

Alaska has a lot more to offer and here are just a few additional pictures

Fly Fishing in the Kenai River

Kenia Fjords

Lake at the Cross Roads in Alaska

Dan & Lisa at Exit Glacier in Seward, Alaska

Up Close to Exit Glacier

Blue Ice is COLD Ice!

Seminar - Stacy Peardot-Goudy 9-10-09

Day 3 working with Stacy and the exercises are better and better. I'm impressed she can come up with such amazing challenges.

Today, Stacy was officially magical, miraculous and we all were bowing at her feet! OK, now that everyone wants to throw up Seriously, we had a BLAST and as always, left learning a TON!

One of the things that I consistently hear people comment about Stacy is how great she is about helping each individual team and makes learning enjoyable for all.

By the end of the day, dogs were tired and handlers left with a ton of ideas and homework to continue to improve and add to their skill level.

For those that don't know, Stacy will be back with us in February and we're all sooooo excited!

Seminar - Stacy Peardot-Goudy 9-9-09

Today was the first of the Masters/Excellent seminar with Stacy Peardot-Goudy.

Lots of great challenges for the advanced dogs and a ton of work for novice dogs when you break this up into small, manageable sequences.

Again, lots of great lessons to be shared with my students.

Today our day ended with Thai for dinner and a relaxing massage. It was topped off with a dead battery on my car so we got to sit in the Safeway parking lot while my husband came to retrieve us We had a good little giggle about the situation. If we hadn't of been so full from dinner, we would have walked over to get some ice cream : )

Class Course - Feb 25, 2009

This course is a take-off from an exercise from the Stacy Peardot-Goudy Novice seminar Ru & I attended.  The main difference from Stacy's course was that she had another tunnel approximately where the #10 & #11 jumps are located.

The biggest challenges were:

1) #3 to #4 (people didn't drive down to the tunnel exit to pick up their dog - remember, where the dog's head goes, the rest of the body will follow. Get the dog's head turned toward the #4 jump, don't assume they're going to automatically turn into you especially since they see the dog-walk as they exit the tunnel.

2) #13, #14 & #15 - If handlers met the dog at the end of the #13 tunnel, they were behind for the straight line of jumps coming next on the course which resulted in dogs curling in toward the a-frame.  

The key to this sequence is to push the dog into the tunnel, stay on the right side of the jumps (dog on left), get yourself to the landing side of #14 while keeping your left lead hand pointed over the jump and at the dog (so you're looking over your shoulder) and to make eye contact with your dog as they came out of the tunnel - these two strong signals are a clear indicator to the dog of your expected path). As the dog moves toward the #14 jump, the handler can execute a front cross between #14 & #15 and move down the line toward #16.

3) The next challenging place on the course was #18 - #20.  An earlier front cross before the a-frame should easily put the handler on the other side of the a-frame (dog now on left) and ahead of the dog.  By being ahead of the dog at the #19 jump, the handler can cue an "early" (code word for TIMELY) front cross prior to the dog taking off for the jump and by using the right hand, which indicates the side the handler will be picking the dog up on upon completion of the course.  

Immediately after picking the dog up on the right, the handler must FULLY turn to the left and commit their movement to the tunnel so the dog isn't left wondering if they're going back up the a-frame of to another obstacle on the way to the tunnel.

This last sequence is a true test as to what our shoulders are saying.

4) Last, but not least, handlers need to drive down to the end of the weave poles, especially since the poles are heading toward a wall.  When heading into a wall, dogs tend to pull-up and handlers can't afford to do the same.

Overall, this course was run best when handlers chose to be SILENT rather than racing to throw out verbal command after verbal command.  Running the course using mainly body language allows handlers to focus on the task & skill needed in the moment since this was a fast moving course that required handling.  Verbal "here's" and "come" wasn't going to cut it on this one because there were so many options and so much real estate to cover between obstacle #1 - #22.

Give this course a try and see how it runs for you.  Remember the points mentioned above and thank you Stacy for a wonderful course with a ton of exercises.