Life Adventures

A Ridgeback friend reached out for some guidance when she found out her dog had prostate cancer.  I was hopeful that she would achieve the same results I've had with Logan.  She was hopeful as well.  And yet, it's not how things worked out.  Her poor dog's situation was too far advanced and too aggressive and within a week he was gone.  I was heartbroken for her.  I felt so guilty that I had encouraged her to have hope.  Yet being the super sweet lady that she is, she responded to me, "Stephanie, there is nothing to feel sorry about.  It was good to have hope."  Not only did these words bring tears to my eyes, but it was an example of human nature at it's kindest.  This woman, while hurting immensely over her loss, had the presence of mind, and strength of heart, to mend the pieces of my heart back together.  Of course, since then I ask myself, "how did I get so lucky with Logan?"  We are now 7 and 1/2 months past diagnosis and he is with us. 

I have had 2 challenges to overcome in my training with Frye.  The first is the need to teach collection and cue it early.  When evaluating my typical training progression, I realize that early on I emphasize building drive for both running and for taking the obstacles.  In doing this, I reward a lot of extension as opposed to collection.  The only true collection work I do early on is jump grids.  When you look at the videos I've posted of Frye's early runs, it is clear that this girl loves to run, and it is also clear that she has built up tremendous value for the obstacles.  The problem has become steering her on course.  So in today's training session I worked reverse spins while she is in  full extension in order to get collection on a jump. The second challenge has been training a running Aframe.  It's not to say that this was easy with Braddock.  I did have to work at it with him too.  But for Braddock, it was just getting the head down so that he hit the yel

Our precious camping gem, Hunting Island, was destroyed by Hurricane Mathew.  When we travel to Florida for the agility invitational, as we did in 2011, 2014, 2015, and now in 2016, we would stop at Hunting Island for a few days on the way down, and on the way back.  The backup plan this year was Myrtle Beach.  Russ and I haven't been there since we were kids.  We quickly realized that we weren't missing anything.  You see, Hunting Island is completely remote and secluded.  It's untamed, a preserve if you will.  And while people say they like the camping at Myrtle Beach because there are places you can camp on the beach, it pales in comparison to truly being an arms reach from the beach. But no matter how much I want Hunting Island back the way I remember, it is a dream not meant to come true. With respect for the reality that is, I will provide a review of our time at Myrtle Beach Travel Park, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good was that the staff was

Frye came to us older.  In fact, she's the oldest rescue I've ever adopted at 3 years old.  I felt the urge to dive directly into coursework, but I know from experience that foundation is key to a successful agility career.  In the video below, I demonstrate foundation exercises for a running A-frame (training a hit it board) and a "go out" command. One of the obstacles I focused on initially was the weaves. It's one of the first obstacles that I trained for Frye.  I've never done the weaves this early in training, but my Greyhound friend Jen Bachelor said from experience that the weaves are hardest to learn for these guys.  I chose the Susan Garett 2x2 method because I have found that this method has worked the best for a dog to understand weave entry.  I don't feel the 2x2 is the best method for speed and maneuverability in the weaves, but Frye seems to be a natural, so I'm not too concerned about it. 

Logan enjoyed his sheep herding days.  I don't have video for when he actually received the certificate in Perry Ga which was in 2006.  I do have this memory, however.  I was in the Toyota 4Runner and had the window down.  When Logan saw the sheep, he jumped out the window.  Because he loved it so much, we decided to let him do it again albeit years later (2011). While I do have video below, one memory I did not capture on video occurred when we walked him towards the sheep herding pen to see Braddock's sister, Xena, go for her certificate.  When Logan caught site of the sheep, he knocked me to the ground, I got tangled in the leash, and dragged me to the gate.  People ran over immediately to make sure I was OK.  It was like the scene from Seabiscuit, but amazingly I survived without injury.

My goal for Braddock was to achieve an even higher bar than what I had for Logan.  I wanted to have placements at major competitions like AKC Nationals, AKC Invitational, and Westminster.  To achieve this, I knew I needed to have fast performing and solid contacts.  I worked these elements of my training the most.  The following videos describe how I trained the teeter.

I decided to sign up for my first online agility class in 2014.   This was a Daisy Peel Online course, 4 week lesson.  Here are some video clips of the progress.  Week 1:  Goal was to cue jumps out of tunnel (a "go on" and also a "turn back").  So, you can see on first exercise I had to support more the jump out of the tunnel.  And in the second exercise, I had to use the tunnel brake in order to get the tight turn out of the tunnel at the end. Week 2:  Goal as running lines, timing and clarity of cues, and connection (especially for the collection and turns) Week 3:  Goal was working hard weave entry angles.  I left weaves slightly open to take it easier on his body.  Also I continued to reinforce efforts even if they weren't correct. Week 4:  Goal was handling a mixture of collection, extension, and turning.