Sayonara 2013

And may I say from a vet bills cost p.o.v. a very good riddance. My main hope for next year is that dog health in the household improves.

 

So brings the close of our first year of Australian agility. I am for the most part pleased with our results. Sen would no doubt show improvement if we had a chance to go more often to compete, or at least to dog-rich training environments.

Results:
Bigi
15 clear runs from 26 starts (65% Q rate)
Winner, WA State Championship Novice Jumping (300)
ANKC Agility Dog title
ANKC Jumping Dog title
ADAA Australian Agility Dog title
+3 passes towards the next ADAA title and 1 ADAA teams pass

The bad news here is that this was more than likely (we can probably say certainly) his last competition year. Next year we will start to compete in Rally Obedience so that he has something to work towards.

Sen
11 clear runs from 57 starts (19% Q rate)
From these stats we can make two observations:
A. That is a lot of runs, too many, &
B. These are crap stats.

ANKC Jumping Dog title (in straight runs - fabulous!)
2013 Western Classic Novice Jumping Champion (300)
ADAA Australian Agility Dog title
+1 ADAA teams pass
+2 ANKC AD passes

I am pretty happy with her work, she just needs to settle down and think a little more. I am still adjusting to handling Sen, who is a different style (one could say opposite extreme) to Bigi. Fingers crossed she keeps her health so that I may have at least a few years of fun.

The New Year's Eve pies are sliced this way:

Sen's results:                                                                            Bigi's results:

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

Bigi AD

Which is of course nice. The disappointing thing is that this was probably his last run. His back has an unknown dysfunction and his elbow arthritis is getting worse.

An Unexpected Journey

I am starting to wonder - what the hell is going on here? I fork out lots of cash, I get no diagnosis.

Bigi for some time has had a bit of a back problem:
- a month of not being able to jump on lounges or beds;
- strange lumps that come and go;
- a sore base of the tail/rump, and tightness in this area;
- wobbly back legs;
- a weak tail;
- scary rapido weight loss

Finally I thought work was needed. So of we went to Murdoch University AGAIN. After x-rays, CT scans, blood work and even a spinal fluid tap they came up with ZERO cause for these problems. On one hand this is a good thing - there is no hideous major problem. However this still leaves me with a dog in discomfort and not clue about what to do about it??? The only thing we achieved was getting some broken teeth fixed (oh yes, he falls apart at both ends, and ends the year with 5 less teeth than he started with).

Meanwhile, Sen and I filled in the waiting times road testing some new walk locales:

1. Bold Park (fantastic!) - you can see the city from here, out there over past the leafy suburbs in which we stayed with good company

The big GRIN (because I aint the one at the vet)

City on one side, beach on the other

and a neat pine forest (the team likes a pine forest)

2. Bibra Lakes - where there is potential for getting lost we learn

The banksia are in bloom

as is Christmas Bush

Beach Babes

Finally, a holiday! Two days in the sun, followed by some agility fun that we will tell you about later. Since moving here I keep hearing what a fabulous place Esperance is - and guess what? It lives up to expectations and then some more.

For once we also managed to get fantastic dog-friendly accommodation - a small cabin just off the beach with a HUGE fenced yard. Next time I will take some jumps as it will make an excellent training venue :). We spent most of the time exploring beaches, which we had all to ourselves - a dream come true! The only downside was that Bigi continues to be not at his best.

Bigi's birthday and Sen's new bling

HAPPY 7th BIRTHDAY BIGI! and apologies for you spending it at the dog prison.

Hard to believe the weird puppy is 7. His lameness seems to be improving but the nasty medication is not doing him any favours. He came back from his kennel vacation nice and skinny - the challenge being to keep him that way. He has taken to eating leaves and other random items to address his hunger.

Meanwhile, look what came in the post! Sen's AAD (Australian Agility Dog) title. We competed last weekend on Saturday (3 starts). Her runs were pretty shockingly bad, except for the super speed and a fab seesaw. About zero control hmmm....

Agility weekend 22-23/9/2013 (Eden Hill Cup)

Finally after MANY frustrating weekends, the Princess decided she might actually stay on a few courses. For the last month and a half she has been doing lots of heeling - to try and build up her concentration; and as much "other dog" distraction work as I could find. Seems this work is starting to pay off, as she only left the ring once out of 7 starts for the weekend, and this one time only after a nasty incident with an A-frame. Happy days!!!!

This weekend was a grand fun time, with a great atmosphere. Sen completed her AAD title with a win (OH YEEEES! ground speed 4.18 m/s super duper!!!) and also got a teams pass! (3rd place, even I can hardly believe that one - thanks super team mates Courtney and Missy). We got some bling as it was a special blinged up championship competition weekend:

 

There are of course still issues of the off-course variety, but otherwise we are doing some nice work:



Bigi (alas) was a non-starter because of lameness. Enter substitute dog Sheeza! It was fun to get a chance to run someone else's dog (even if she has no concept of contacts - with this she would be perfect!). It was especially good that she was a larger dog than I am used to - good opportunity to learn more of this complex game. I managed to mess up almost all of her runs (mostly with just contact faults), but we nailed one run with an Open Agility win!

 

Sheeza is a lovely lady, and I hope I will have the pleasure of her company again sometime. Here she is with her mum (not spoilt or anything, just feeling a bit queezy here):

 

Bigi Bigi Bigi

Well, just to add to his expenses for the year, Bigi knocked out two teeth - or rather half knocked them out, requiring he be knocked out to fix the job. I have no idea how this happened. My guess is he did it on his car crate. Two small teeth (one upper, one lower) just inside the canine tooth. This has given him an aged smile:

He has also been lame since early August. Increasing his prednisolone did not help this time. I had him re-tested for Anaplasma sp. as that was the cause last time. All up teeth + test =$730 thanks. He is also back on stronger pred - just when his coat condition was recovering from the previous high dose. It took a whole two days for him to get back the prednisolone gut bloat look.

The good thing is he does not seem too bothered by it all. Still up to his old tricks:

Sen, Princess of Wildflowers

It might not be as nice as a Finnish forest, but sometimes we can find a bit of beauty. Of course it helps when you have another bit of beauty with you (Sen my sweetheart)

Mud Buddies :)

 

Chicken Camp 2013

Last weekend I made a big bucket list tick and finally got to go to Terry Ryan's Chicken Camp. Thanks to the lovelies at Paw Prints Pet Training, the dream was realised! I cannot recommend it enough to anyone wanting to be a better trainer, or to chicken enthusiasts in general!

What I learnt:
- Chickens are far easier to train than dogs in many ways. They see it, they get it. BUT - you need to be fast to catch it or they may not give you a second chance.

The chickens were able to learn 3-component behaviour chains in approximately 10 x 30 second training sessions - AMAZING!

- Following on from the above, it is wise to make very short very focused sessions. Meaning SHORT like less than a minute on one thing.

I have always used brief and focused dog training but I learnt that I will probably get better results if I make sessions even shorter and more focused that I currently do.

- CONCENTRATE! my mind wanders, and this is a big barrier to progress.

- BE STILL! I was a big mover, and chickens do not like movement. They want you to be still.

No doubt my dog training will also benefit from the removal of all superfluous movement too. This is really an unconscious part of focusing that I should work to improve.

The chicken preparation was great. Apparently it takes around 2 months to get them used to the intense handling, standing on the table, and staying in their crates.

If only the wider world could understand that all beings are highly intelligent; how then would the world be?

Sen Then & Now

I have been meaning to make this for a while now. Sometimes it is good to stop and notice that although I might not have much time to train, if I chip away in a focused manner I will get the sort of result I want. This video show the result of a slow two year's off and on work on Sen's seesaw. For a long time this was a problematic obstacle for her, but now we are getting somewhere!

Sen reflects

Mr Big and his bling

"Here I am looking most disinterested. I hate these bling shots, especially with my ratty hair"

Bigi and his new ADAA title ribbon, and State Ch ribbon (Novice Jumping 300) that has been lying around for some time now, awaiting a snap shot. Good on you my boy! Medical problems continue to improve and Sir is becoming happier every day. Bigi is the first Schipperke to appear on the ADAA website as having a title under ADAA (no way of knowing if their were predecessors in the non-digital age).

 

 

Six months of Aus agility

Last weekend's mega-fun ADAA competition brings the team to 6 months of competition Down Under. Let us summarise:

ANKC agility results
From 2 competitions (Western Classic and WA State Championships)

Sen:
Jumping Dog Title
2013 Western Classic Novice Jumping Champion (300)
2 x AD passes

Bigi:
2013 WA Sate Champion Novice Jumping (300)
2 x JD passes
He qualified in everything he entered :)

ADAA agility results

Sen (3 competition weekends):
3 passes (2 x CS and 1 x IN)

Bigi (2 competition weekends):
AAD title
1 x Teams pass (pairs relay)

 

(photos by Courtney)

And now for some pie (6 month run result flavour):

One cannot be anything but happy with just the fact that Bigi is back in competition. Thought that would never happen! He has not got quite back to his usual percentage of Q, but this is partly because he had a few runs at 400 height in ADAA before it dawned on me that the Regular Program height would be better for him.

I am also very happy with Sen. She is starting to relax more at competitions and do better work. I think she is actually doing exceptionally well given the amount of training she has had prior to starting competition.

The clear area in need of more work for Sen is handler focus. I so much wanted her to be independent that I think I might have over-trained a bit here - I did not mean "do the whole course as you see fit" :), irrespective of what it might actually be. This weekend she did some very very nice runs. Her most common error is leaving weave poles and I am convinced I am causing this somehow as it only occurs in competition. I feel it is a micromanagement issue and I need to work on just leaving her to get on with the job. For many of her runs this has been her only fault, but there have been a few departures of the ring to tour the neighbourhood too :(. At least no muggings of other dogs have occurred during these.

And now tis really time for desert,

 

 

 

 



Our new training area

I keep forgetting to post about our new training area. Fabulous fabulous!, and that's just the company :)

Bigi video link

Sen video link

I was so pleased with my efforts in organising this new agility paradise that I thought I deserved a bit of a present: