Cramming the Past Month in a Single Post

This is going to be a little sloppy, simply because I've been SO busy this past month. A good busy, a great kind of busy actually.

Here's the break down:

April 9-10th- AKC Agility Trial
First two day trial running both paps :) Lilly Q'd 4/6, FAST and Jumpers both days. Got her OF and 14 MACh points. (5 on Sat, 9 on Sunday) I was a bit of an idiot handling her in Standard... not really sure what was going through my head. My front crosses were all late, I wasn't giving her enough information, it was just sloppy. One highlight from Standard though, was on Sunday she had the fastest Dog-walk I've seen her do... ever. I'm rather sad I didn't get it on video. It was pretty much picture perfect for what I want her running DW to look like. So she really ended that run on a high note haha. I managed to get my head in the game for Jumpers both days though and had some really fun runs. She was having a blast, giving me some speed and really pushed through her weaves. It was so encouraging to see her get some MACh Points in Jumpers, I've gotten so used to seeing her scrape course time that I was pretty much dancing around when she got five points, then very openly doing a sort of victory dance when she got nine. Lilly joined me in bouncing around so I don't think I embarrassed her too horribly.

Knight-man Q'd 6/6. Just powerhoused through two of his Novice titles (NAJ and NF) along with getting two legs for his NA.  I just love how much enthusiasm he brings when it's time to "work". His entire face just lights up and you can practically see the gears whirling in his head. He was a little iffy with the weave poles both days, something that's totally my fault. I haven't been working on them as much, I'm terrified of "drilling" them. What I really need to do is grab the 2x2s and his favorite tennis ball and just play with speed and entries on four poles for a bit. Get him really driving, focused, and genuinely loving his weaves. He handled the long hours at the trial site like a well seasoned pro. Gotta love the little man :)

April 16-22nd
So, you know that picture I posted of "Fancy" in my last update? Well, Selina and I ventured out to TN for the 2011 PCA National Specialty and picked her up! Her name is officially "Mia" aka "Pilot All Eyes On Me".  She's living with Selina right now, and will be entering the show ring for the first time in... June?  June, I'm 90% sure haha.  I might be handling her for the Ludwig's Corner show up here June 18-19th, but in all honesty Selina is a much better handler than I am LOL. I'm going to start getting back into handling classes with Knight so I can brush up on any skill I once had, and hopefully transform myself into a half decent Conf handler in case she hasn't finished her Ch by the time she comes to stay with me in October.

Selina and Mia <3

During the Pap Specialty Mani, Twister, Lilly, and Knight all did Rally-O. Then Twister and Knight both did breed stuff as well. Mani Q'd and got 3rd with a 92, Lilly Q'd and placed 4th with a 90, Twister followed with an 80, and Knight.... well..  he didn't make it past the 4th station haha. I'll give him some wiggle room since he was crated next to Mia (who was in heat) but still, it was a little surprising for me. I usually get the full force of his focus whenever I ask.  I wasn't going to drag him through the course, so out we went. He'll be entering the Rally-O ring again in June at the Ludwig's show. Lil got her RN at the Pap Specialty, so I think I'm going to "retire" her from Rally for now.

I was a little surprised at how unwelcoming the majority of the papillon people were. I thought they'd be excited to see some young people showing intrest in the breed, but that wasn't really the case. I still had an amazing time and actually learned quite a bit. I'll absolutely go to the Pap Specialty again when it's on the East Coast.

April 23-24th
The day after I got home from picking up Mia I had a CPE trial with Lilly. I almost didn't go, I was a little worn down from all the driving but managed to drag myself out of bed. Oh man, am I glad I did.  I think both Lilly and I really needed this trial.

The entire week at the Pap Specialty Lil was treated a bit like a diseased mutant. Breed people would actually pick up their puppies when they saw her coming their way. Then we went to the CPE trial where Lil was pretty much treated like royalty. She prefers to sleep on the bleachers instead of her crate so I let her, I'm confident nearly every handler at the trial was petting her at some point. She more than happily soaked it all up.

She ended up Q'ing 7/8 runs and got her CL3-H title. On Sunday I actually tripped over a tunnel during a run and we still managed to pull off a Q. Some dogs will run over to their handlers when they fall to make sure they're all right, Lil just kind of looked at me like I was a total idiot. I probably deserved that haha. Note to self: run the course you walked or you'll end up landing on your face.

Someone came up and complimented the gentle manner that I handle in, she said that that gentleness will take me a long way. I smiled and told her Lil was to thank, she's an amazing teacher. I really hope that I keep that "gentle" manner as I pursue a carreer as a professional trainer. No screaming, focused more on clear handling and being able to just laugh it off and keep going when we screw up. We aren't trialing because we have something to prove, we're trialing because we want to show off how much fun we're having as a team.


May 1st
And now I've caught up to this past weekend. I ended up driving out to Freehold, NJ for a one day TDAA trial.  When I'm running Teacup I've decided to just run Knight. That was Lil gets a chance to be an only dog once in a while with CPE, and so does Knight with TDAA.

This was Knight's first outdoor trial, I wasn't sure what I was going to get. I ended up entering him in two runs, Beginner Standard Round 1, and Beginner Standard Round 2.  He already has his games 1 and games 2 titles so I wanted a chance to get caught up in Standard. We NQ'd round one with a knocked bar, I wasn't actually watching him when he did it so I'm not 100% sure how it happened. It was the first jump and he just kind of... ran through it lol. The rest of the run was pretty nice though. I had about 85% of his focus.

Then came round two.... Wowza. He was awesome! Q'd with a 34 second standard run, getting the last Q he needed for his TBAD title. He gave me his full focus and was really tearing up the course. I was a little late with some of my cues, but that's something I know I really need to work on haha. SO proud of my Knight-man!


And that, is roughly what I've been up to this past month.

Don't Freak Out

Psha, I'm not letting myself get excited. Nope. Not one tiny bit....

Who is that? That blazed beast is not Knight!

How right you are, this is "Fancy" who will hopefully be co-owned between myself and Selina. Not going to go into details until its all final, as I'm trying my hardest not to get too excited. She's 7 1/2 months old in the pictures above and her coat is already beating Knight's xD

Treibball: Week 1

Knight and I embarked on a new adventure tonight. Treiball. Which was started in Germany, it involves the dogs "herding" balls into a goal. The focus the Treiball: Level 1 class is to get all the dogs and handlers intoduced to the sport with a solid foundation.

Exercise 1: Precise Nose Touches-  Pretty much everyone in our class has some other sport experience with their dogs so we skipped over introducing the nose touch and went straight into adding in precision. Denise gave everyone a small dot sticker to put on their finger tip. Instead of asking for hand touches, we were asking for finger touches. Then, just like switching from a hand target to a ground target we slowly worked our way from touching the target on the finger, to touching the tiny target on the wall, or mat, or chair.

Homework for Exercise 1: Continue working on finger touches and transfering it to a small area on other objects


Exercise 2: Set outs to a mat- The second exercise was sending the dogs out to a mat, once they "checked in" with us, or looked at, we'd click and release. The first goal was to position yourself straight ahead of the mat and to be able to send them to the mat without moving. (I was about 2 feet away) Once we could send them to the mat from there, we were to move the mat back a foot.

After you got your dog confidently running to the mat with minimal movment from you, you'd move the mat so it was either to the left or right of you. So instead of sending the dog to the mat straight a head of you, it was slightly off to one side.

Homework for Excercise 2: Continue working on sends to a mat. Switch up the location, distance, and angle it is from you.


Exercise 3: Introducing the Ball- I really like how Denise got us started on introducing the ball. First she had us place an upside-down frisbee on the ground. Our dogs were supposed to be set up a few feet way and asked to stay (or wait, whatever you use) while the handler put a treat into the frisbee. I put a few small pieces in, usually 2 or 3 each rep.

I wanted Knight to understand that if he got to the frisbee there would be treats in it, so I did a few reps without the ball in the picture at all. The next step was to set your dog up in a wait, place treats in the frisbee, and hold the ball above the frisbee. High enough that it was still very easy for the dog to get to the treats. For Knight (the wonder pup, standing at a whopping 9" tall) I just held it up about a foot. If they were comfortable with that then we could slowly lower the ball until it was completely coving the frisbee.

It's extremely important at this stage that the dog is only using his head to move the ball and get the treats. At a treiball trial the dogs aren't allowed to touch the ball with their paws at any time so you don't want to encourage that behavior at all. I'm pretty sure Knight was the only dog who tried to "fish" his treats out from under the ball with his paws. At the time I was using a ball about the size of a soccer ball, so I switched to the 55" exercise ball with it raised again and the fishing stopped.

Homework for Exercise 3- Continue working on head nudges using either a frisbee or simply placing the treat on the floor with the ball over it.


Exercise 4: Left and Right Side Heeling- The final thing we talked about in class this week was heeling.  At a treiball trial you're required to walk your dog into the ring off lead. So Denise wanted us to get started on some left and right side heeling. It's up to the handler to decide what standards we have for heeling, since a few dogs are actively competing in Rally-O or Obedience. It's important to work on both sides so you can set your dog nicely for a send no matter which direction they're going.

For the dogs that go crazy when the lead comes off she suggested using the cookie dump technique. When the leash comes off a bunch of cookies come out. So instead of making a mad dash for freedom the dog has the option of sticking around it's handler and getting lots of yummy cookies. When the leash comes off the reinforcement rate also goes up. If you're clicking every 10 steps for onlead heeling, then offlead should be every 3-4.

Homework for Exercise 4- Work on right side heeling and off lead heeling (both sides).

All in all it was a really, really fun class. Looking forward to doing more with it! I'll get some videos of us doing the homework, along with some vidoes of what we worked on in class when I introduce it to Lilly.

Woke Up In London Yesterday

What a weekend! This was Knight's second trial, and a TDAA so it was just me and the little man. Selina and Mani, who we met at the Silvia Trkman seminar in February, came and stayed with us for the weekend.

Knight was fabulous both days at the trial, he went to visit the judge only twice and came back very quickly afterwards. 3/5 Qs on Saturday, 5/5 Qs on Sunday :) Snagging both his TG1 and his TG2, along with two Qs toward his TBAD.

There were a few dogs that peed in the ring, but Knight didn't lift his leg a single time while he was working. He stopped twice to sniff for a bit, but that was it.


He handled the multiple runs each day like a pro. We do have some things to work on, like chute speed and actual running contacts haha. I'm still not really sure of my handling of him at trials, since I don't really know how he'll run...  With a few trials hopefully our teamwork will start to come together.

Mani went 10 for 10 this weekend and got his TMAG-3. He is such an awesome guy. My whole family adores him. On Saturday night my Dad and Mani were sitting on opposite ends of the couch watching Indiana Jones haha.

Saturday Runs

Runs from Sunday

February 2011- A Month in Review

The Paps
-Took Knight to the "Foundation for Excellence" workshop by Silvia Trkman
-Had a private lesson with Silvia Trkman
-Lilly's running dog-walk is looking pretty solid now
-Started working on Knight's running dog-walk more

The Handler
-Shot a new personal best, 465
-Completed Forensics course
-Completed Mystery and Scifi course

February 2011
Wow, let me just say that 2011 is hanging on to that great start! The paps took a break from trialing while I ran around with the X-team shooting targets most of the weekends. The Silvia seminar and private were amazing. I'm so proud of both of the paps, and can't wait for our trialing season to start up again!

Our Hearts Still Beat Below

You'll notice some of the events on the right side of this blog have been bolded. That means that I've mailed out the entries. Once The even closes I'll edit the days we got in, so the list is every changing haha.

Along with the entries, I put everything together to get Knight registered with the UKC. Hopefully they take care of those in a timely manner. I'd like to hit the UKC conf ring with Knight at the end of April, hopefully Leap (a smooth BC) will be debuting with us.

We Rise and Fall Together

The paps are loving the appearence of grass! We decided to celebrate with a game of fetch. Knight usually waits for Lilly to get the ball, pulls on her ears until she lets go, then brings the ball back to me. Lilly tries her best to ignore Knight and really, really, REALLY just wants me to throw the ball.

We Are The Bleeding Hearts

The weather was to die for today, so I took the paps to the park for a bit. It was muddy, and the streams were overflowing so we didn't do our usual walk around the "lake". Instead we just ran back and forth in the area before the first overflow site. They had a blast, and got to use some of their agility skills in the real world.



This is Lilly's "I'm not amused" face



Private Lesson With Silvia Trkman

Today we went back down to Richmond for our private lesson with Silvia. She was once again amazing. She suggested I continue trialing Knight at 8", but do training more on 6" for now. Since 8" really is a lot for the little guy, so this should help give him more confidence jumping again and help him stop over collecting.

She had me do some much tighter handling with Knight and he LOVES it. Since he's so tight I hadn't put much thought into putting effort towards making him tighter... But once I started handling so he had more direct lines he was much more comfortable. It's absolutely something I'll continue to work on :)

We also have a LOT of Running Contact work to do with DK still haha. Totally leaping off the A-frame the majority of the time.

Lil was a bit unfocused, I think the mix of a new setting, plus warm weather, plus grass instead of snow, was a lot for her. She had some really really great weaves, and a beautiful running contact though. She also didn't wander too much at all which is HUGE improvement from even just a year ago. I'm going to do some Cik Cap work with her soon so she can get some tighter turns in there too.

Overall it was an amazing day. I'll sign up for a Private with Silvia again in a heartbeat.

Here's One For the Friction Makes

So today, while I was pounding through some school work I got a phone call from the Richmond SPCA. Turns out they had one Private lesson space open for Sunday. So the HeavensGlory paps are going back down to Richmond for a private with Silvia Trkman! Diana's parents are letting us stay at their house Saturday night, then driving down to Richmond in the morning.

Tonight was class night, I went to the Open/Advanced class and both paps just blew me away.

Knight- I really feel like we're started to get that teamwork thing, I mean, I had a fumble here and there, but DANG BOY! He was awesome! I still can't believe Letty gave me such a steller little man :) He brings all the awesome to the table, I'm just along for the ride.

Lilly- SPEED DEMON LILLY! You maniac where did this come from?! Denise thinks that Lilly had lymes for a while before she started limping last year, because the difference of watching her run this winter is SO different from the Lilly I was running last spring. Even though I screwed up big time Lil took in all with that goofy grin on her face and just had the time of her life.

I'm Singing This One For The Sparks

Did some more board work with the paps today. Lilly has a "target" (which is really just a Micheal Jackson CD) that she runs out to. That helps keep her focus forward, once we go outside I'll switch it up to a tunnel or a jump but I have pretty limited space in the basement. I really like how hers are looking.  Everytime she runs she gets at least 3 small treats, the one time she jumped I just turned around and went back to the mattress. She got the message, followed me, and hasn't jumped since.

Knight can't run out to a target, He jumps every time I set something out for him, so I set up a cone about 4 feet from the board for him to run to then go around. That seemed to work very well, So I'll continue using that while we're indoors. Slowly moving the cone farther and farther away.

Here are the video's from today's sessions, kept them short, sweet, and fast.

I Wanna Sing One For All the Dreamers

Going back to the basics for our RC work. The board was propped up on a mattress, so it was about 10" off the ground.

Silvia Trkman: Foundation for Excellence Seminar

Silvia Trkman is awesome. There ended up being about 7 dogs there doing the workshop, and 3 of them were papillons :) I met two other great agility juniors. One, Selina, had papillons, the other, Hannah, I had actually "met" on youtube. She owns Chance and Bouncer so it was really cool meeting both of them.

First of all, I love how Silvia showed the same amount of respect to everyone working with their dogs. Adults and teenages a like. She let our teamwork show how much we had accomplished before she made any comments.

Silvia trains her weaves using the channel method. I personally have always strongly disliked this method, mostly because I've seen so many people train it incorrectly. They also don't have access to the weaves at home, so it's trained in a painfully slow fashion.

Hearing her explain how she trains them shed new light on them. So much so that I might just give it a shot with my next dog. She starts with an open channel (all 12 poles), at the other end she puts either a toy or a bowl with food in it. Then has the dog run through. Once the dog understands that he's to run through she starts doing something different every time the dog runs through. She'll stay back, rush ahead, run away from the weaves, turn around and run backwards, dance, toss toys, everything she can think of. Then she'll move them closer and continue to do the same.

Depending on the size of the dog, the poles will be 6-10" apart when she starts working every possible entry. At this point the dog isn't totally doing the weaving motion and still has that nice "tunnel" of sight down the middle to help direct them a bit. Still adding in whatever she can think of like jumping jacks so the dog really understands that their job is to weave all the way through no matter what she might be doing.

If done correctly, then in about 20 sessions the dog will have all 12 poles, nice speed, independence, and solid entries.

Very cool, and very different from the channel training I've seen at agility classes.

Anyway... onto what I got from the seminar to use with Knight. Silvia really helped my become more aware of my handling, actually the timing of my handling really.

Front crosses- With Lilly the timing evolved naturally, I'm not really sure how it happened but I started doing it properly, as she was in the air over the jump I'd be doing the cross. With Knight, since I never really knew what I was doing with Lilly, I haven't timed my handling at all. He'd land after then jump and maybe even take a stride or two before I completed the cross. The end result was Knight dedicating to one direction, then swinging back to me.

Once as I got closer and closer to timing the front cross correctly, his line to the next obstical got smoother and smoother. This is possibly one of the most important things I need to work on I think. Simply because Knight's stride is so small, he has to do a lot of running to get around that course. Making sure I show him clear lines will make things much easier for him.

Turn signals- The second thing I really need to work on. Using the other hand to signal wraps and things like that. Knight is more motivated when I keep moving as opposed to me staying static on the turns. So that's something else I need to keep in mind :)

Jump "drills"- One exercise that we did that I really loved consisted of two jumps and two tunnels, kind of laid out in a circle. So the two jumps were next to each other in front of both ends of the tunnels. Then we worked on the 3 different turns a dog will see on the course. First we just did the cirle, kept shoulders straight to cue the dog that it could extend its stride. Then we did a 180 turn, so you'd send your dog in one tunnel, then turn your shoulders as he was about to take the jump so he knew to ignore the tunnel and turn towards the second jump. And Lastly we did wraps, where the dog would come out of the tunnel, you'd cue the turn with the opposite hand so the dog knew the cross was coming and send them right back into the tunnel end they came out of.

I can't wait for the snow to melt so I can try it out with Lilly :)

All in all, it was a great day. I loved Silvia, she was great at watching both the handler and the dog, and knew how to smooth out everyone's runs a bit.

Written In The Stars

Ahhhhh! Less than a week until the Silvia Trkman seminar! I have a feeling it's going to be a lot of BCs... and then Kngiht LOL. He was really good at the pet expo about not snarling at dogs. I did notice that as the day went on it took less and less to get a snarl out of him. He actually snapped at Kallie (a friend's ACD) when she got too close to my sandwhich. So we still have some things to smooth out... But progress is good, no matter how small.

I filled out the entry forms for Lilly's CPE trial, and Knight's TDAA trial today. Hopefully I'll mail those out by the end of the week :)

January 2011- A Month in Review

Did you notice the title of each blog entry is a line from this song? I'm hoping to make a video each month this year and to do the same thing with blog entry titles. We'll see how it goes.

Accomplishments this month!

Lilly
-5/5 Q's at a CPE trial
-Got her CL2-S (which means she also finished Level 2)

Knight
-Entered in his first official agility event (AKC FAST)
-Got his first NF (Novice FAST) leg

Hillary
-Completed Psychology Course
-Switched to Heavier Limbs (archery)
-Shot my first 30 end (three 10s, perfect end)
-Got a personal best, 450, at a shoot.

January 2011
What a great way to start the new year! I put together a rough schedule for what I'd like to do trial/show wise for the next 6 months. It would be absolutely amazing if I could get to all of them. We'll see how it works out though haha.

I've decided that this year I'm going to try a few TDAA trials with Knight. Both paps will be running in AKC, but Lilly will do an occasional CPE trial while Knight does the occasional TDAA. I think it sounds like a pretty good idea, then I can have a trial here and there where I really get to focus on one dog instead of juggling the two of them.

Are They Wondering What We Might Be?

Q/1st in his Novice FAST debut

Wow... Knight. Blew. My. Mind! Dannggg boy! He was insanely awesome! I am so, so, so proud of him. I can't believe I get to have such a wonderful dog in my life :)

I'm still on such an emotional high. I can't wait to get back out there trialing some more with him! WAY TO GO LITTLE MAN!

What Do They Know About Us?

Diane and Rush, Diana, Cassis with Echo, Myself with Knight, and Abby with Leap

Today was amazing. Last year, I went to the pet expo thinking I was the only agility "junior" in the area and Knight was just 3 months old. This year, Knight is 15 months old, going to do his first run tomorrow, and I got to spend the day with four amazing girls and their dogs. I can't wait to meet up with them all again.

Knight had absolutely no problem with the atmosphere of the Pet Expo. He acted like a seasoned Rock Star going back out onto the stage. We did a practice CGC test and he heeled beautifully, even in the presence of other dogs, and kept up that crazy focus that he always has. 

I spent a good couple hours with Letty and my papillon "family" back in the agility area today too. Can't wait to go back again tomorrow! Too tired to be too nervous about Knight's debut right now haha. Gotta head out early to get him measured in the morning. We'll see how it goes :)

No Where To Turn

 Thankfully, Archery was cancelled today. That made my life so much easier because a) I'm a wimp and my shoulders hurt after shoveling the foot and a half of snow we have from the sidewalk and driveway and b) that means I could stay for the full agility class and still get to Abby's house at a reasonable hour.

 My sister agreed to come to class and get some video for me. With a Dresden File book in hand and a promise of a Wawa hoagie afterwards she was very happy to help.



A handler error here and there, but both of the paps did great. After we packed up, I dropped off my sister and Lilly and set out on my voyage.

I love traveling with Knight. He'll just curl up in his bed in the passenger seat and sleep. He's my quiet little co-pilot.

Around 9:00 we finally pulled into Abby's driveway. Knight got to play with both Leap and Levi before retiring to his crate for the night. Tomorrow we're going to spend the day at the pet expo with many agility buddies, and we get to see Arrow do a few runs :) Depending on how well Knight takes to the enviornment I'll tweak my game plan for his FAST debut.

Leap watching Knight from inside her crate

No Bridge To Burn

So much snow...

Whip It At Your Feet

Letty's (Knight's breeder) Papillons have been kicking some major butt in the conformation ring. Last Thursday Ransom got WD and BOW (Winners dog and Best of Winners) while Gucci, Knight's sister, got WB and BOS (Winners Bitch and Best Oposite Sex). On Sunday Gucci when BOB over 4 specials, and on Sunday Prince got BOW.

I'm so excited for her :D It's just getting me more and more excited to spend a day with her whole pap gang in Feb.

Gonna Put It Down

 
We are now closing in on Knight's FAST Debut, I think now it's close enough to talk about how I'd like it to go :)

With FAST we have an advantage Lilly and I didn't have in standard, and it's that you get to do pretty much whatever you want to. The key to a succesful debut is a realistic goal, and mine is simple. Just like with Miss Lilly, I'd like to go into that ring looking like a team, have him take at least three obsticals, not pee on anything, and have it look like he's having having at least a little bit of fun xD.

I'm also going on Saturday to watch, so I can see how he takes to the trial site and alter my goals accordingly. The main purpose of this trial is to see what we need to work on, then we'll have all of Feb to smooth out any bumps, and hit the Dream Park rings in style in March.

And You Think You're Better

"It isn't enough to stand up and fight darkness. You've got to stand apart from it, too. You got to be different from it." -Harry Dresden (Jim Butcher, Fool Moon)

You wish you had my awesome PJs

Mailed off our March 12-13th AKC Agility trial, hopefully running both Lil and Knight in all three clases. It opens tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be fine with getting in. There are some crazy dog nerds in my trialing area so entries usually fill pretty fast.

This is just another pressing reminder of my current lack of a job. I'd like to do 2 AKC trials a month during the busy trial months, but trialing both dogs is making that a little more difficult. So trialing this spring might be a bit less than what I'd hoped, but I'll get a job by the start of the summer so we can hit the fall trial season in style haha.

When You Fake a Smile

"Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face."  -Harry Dresden (Jim Butcher, Storm Front)

Crazy busy day. Woke up at 7 and rushed around like a mad women to get to the archery shoot on time. This was my first time doing an official shoot at a place that wasn't my home club so I was a little nervous going in. Thank goodness for teammates,  I would of been so lost without them.

I ended up shooting a personal best. Out of a possible 600 points I shot a 450. (compare to my fist shoot of 413, and my second of 415) I also shot my first 30 end! Granted the caller was a little generous with that last 10 I was thrilled :)

It's funny really, on Fridays I go from a Novice agility class, where I am the youngest but most experienced handler in the class, to archery, where I am the oldest teammate but the most inexperienced.

I'm slowly starting to find balance in these two worlds. I still have oh so much to learn in both agility and archery but they've both become a big part of my life. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Took A Chance On Me

Crazy, Crazy papillons :)

1 Week until Knight's FAST debut
2 and a half weeks until the Silvia Seminar

Kick it Up and Down

"Hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different." -Harry Dresden (Jim Butcher, Changes)

Fridays are agility class days for the HeavensGlory Team. I went with the Agility then archery schedule again this week, remember to keep Lilly out of the crate for the car ride, and it was perfect. Lil was amazing. During some pinwheel jump drills I got some nice distance in along with a few beautiful rear crosses. Sadly no video, I still don't know any of my classmates, I barely know the instructor haha.

Knight was really good too :) He's mastered 10 poles, but at 11 he'd look up to me for reassurance and I'd give the "go on" cue a second too late so he'd miss just that one pole. Not his fault, I need to get better at reading his "keep going?" body language. I stuck with front crosses on the jump drills for him. He had some funky take-offs the first run, then I took off his harness and he seemed to pull himself together a bit more.

His table is absolutely adorable xD He just goes bouncing up onto it and whips around to face me. Both had beautiful A-frames and see-saws during both runs. I couldn't be more proud of my daring duo.

I Could Make it Better

I Could Change The World

What? ANOTHER Couch picture? I know... It's because I was doing schoolwork all morning (with fetch inbetween classes of course) then went to see one of my non-dog nerd friends. She's still pretty cool though because she's a horse nerd. ...Riv is kind of like a giant puppy dog.....

..Only much harder to walk.  This spring I'm going to start going to the arena with Tori to get used to riding "Sundance" so we can hopefully go on trail rides together. She's got her work cut out for her with this big boy though haha.

No Other Way To Be

Today is January 18th, exactly one year ago I had arrived at Letty's house for the first time and was greeted by two tiny balls of fluff. Within seconds I knew that I would be taking Knight home. As soon as I opened the door he did that squiggly little dance that papillons do and happily hopped around my feet before rushing over to prove his friendliness to my mom.

I was mesmorized by his intense focus even as a 3 month old puppy. He'd go and play with Skeeter and his brother, but as soon as I called his name and wiggled my fingers on the ground he'd come rushing over. He was the perfect opposite of Lilly, like two sides of the same coin. While Lilly will gladly accept belly rubs and petting, she very much prefers to keep her feet on the ground. Knight came bounding up into my arms, excited to be held in any way as long as he was as close to my face as possible.

The thing that really caught my eye about Knight was the way he looked at me. I've never had a dog look at me, and I mean really look at me, in that way before. Lilly and I will make eye contact, but it's never for a very long period of time. Just a quick flash of understanding before she continues to watch the way I move. Knight was just so intent to meet my gaze whenever he could. Such a bright and intelligent stare that I just couldn't ignore. He was fasinated with everything I did, filled with such curiousity. He'd be that kid in kindergarden that was always asking, "but why?". Why can't I go into the Fridge? That's were all the yummy stuff is! "Why are you making your sandwhich way up there? I can't see!" "Why don't you just let me steal that food out of your mouth?"

In the conformation world, a common frase is "There's no such thing as a perfect dog" and while that may be true for structure, it's certainly not true as a whole. Knight is perfect for me. Just like Lilly is, they're my kind of perfection. Lilly was exactly what I needed to get into the sport of dog agility. She introduced me to shaping, taught me how to harness drive, how to build confidence from the ground up, how "starting all over" isn't really a bad thing, and that sometimes things get worse before they get better.

Knight picks up right were Lilly left off. He's ready to be shaped, he's got the drive, I just need to direct it, He bring so much enthusiasim with everything he does. Both Lilly and Knight continue to teach me new things every day, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Exactly one year ago I fell asleep with my hand dangling off my bed so I could reach into a crate and assure my self the day had indeed happened. Tonight, I'll go to bed with my little man curled up tight against me under the covers, assuring me this past year hasn't been a dream.

We Are the Dream

3/3 Qs today means 5/5 Qs for the past two days, What an amazing trial "weekend" it's been. Words can't describe how good our runs felt. They might not of been the fastest, or the prettiest, but we had that deep feeling of connectedness.  I barely gave any verbal cues at all during our Colors and Snooker runs, I didn't need to. We've grown so much as a team over the past year, Thank you Lilly for reminding me why I get up at 5 to spend the morning in a freezing cold barn :)

Just You And Me

I love this trial site, After 4/4 NQs at Dream Park last year we came and got most of our Qs here at Barto. This year she started off with 2/2 Way to go Lilly-girl! Knight stayed home, it was way too cold for the little man.

Turn It Upside Down

Knight's sister, Gucci, won B.O.B over two specials today :) Does he come from an awesome litter or what?

Tomorrow is the day! CPE trial here we come :D

We Could Make It Better

Lazy morning, crazy afternoon for the HeavensGlory Paps. Fridays are usually pretty crazy, I have X-team practice (archery) from 6:00-8:00 before I rush to agility from 8:30-10:00 ending with me getting home at 11. Today I decided to switch up the crazy a bit and try the new 4:30 Novice Agility class.

At 3:40 I loaded up the van, tossed my bow into the middle seats (I had left the string and limbs on because I'm getting used to the heavier weight) and decided to put the paps in the back in their crates. Knight has always been great in his crate in the van. He'll cry for a few minutes, realize I'm actually going to keep him in there, then curl up and sleep. Lilly is a different story. She'll stop crying for a while but she does not fall asleep and just stresses herself out...

So when we got to class she didn't feel like running agility too much. After a couple tries to motivate her I realized my mistake and just let her relax and do some heeling and tricks. Knight on the other hand was really great!

He listened very well, was blazing fast, and did some beautiful rear crosses. I'm getting excited for his first try at AKC Jumpers in March :) Overall a good day, I learned the importance of not crating Lilly in the car on the way to agility, and had a lot of fun running my little man!

With a Crash and Burn

So... Bad news, The CPE trial is filled for Saturday. So no DOS entries are available for Sat. The good news is, it's a three day trial, and I have off school on Monday so I can still go two days. That means we only have one shot to get our Snooker Q though, level 2 snooker usually isn't too hard. I just need to make sure I don't mess Lil up! Then we'll be all set for Nats.

I took some time today to go hunting on the internet for pictures of dogs from Knight's pedigree. It's been really interesting, I only wish I could find more of the dogs that are in it. I think I'm going to poke around a bit more, then maybe e-mail some breeders and see if they have any pictures laying around. I'd love to have at least to his great-grandsire and dam filled in.

This is what I have so far:

That's an older picture of Attie (his dam) and an older picture of Knight too. So I apologize for that. I don't have any more current stacked pictures of either of them. It's been pretty fun to make :D

I just got a reply from Letty (Knight's breeder) giving me the okay to stay at her place when I go down to Richmond for the Silvia Seminar! SO excited. Getting to spend a day before with the Patuxent Papillons before heading off to spend a day learning more about dogs. Life is good!

To The Open Stream

So, not sure if I mentioned it yet but, I'm hoping to jump back in to the AKC conformation ring with Knight starting in June. To get us back into the swing of the show ring I think I'm going to sign Knight up for the UKC.

The UKC does not allow professionals to handle dogs that aren't their own,  in general they have a much more beginner friendly way to get a Ch on a dog. I know Knight's not perfect, but I think he's a pretty good looking papillon. At the end of April they have 4 conf shows over the span of two days. That will give us plenty of time to decide if going back into the AKC conf ring is something I really want to do, and something Knight would enjoy.

I still need to mail out my archery form for the end of the month... Should probably do that tonight or my coach will be one very unhappy woman haha. I'm itching for this weekend's CPE trial to get here, Lil's ready to do some agility after all this snow too :)

From the Wrong to the Right Light

 Last night I got the e-mail confirmation for Knight's first agility run :) I had a mental war with myself for weeks trying to decide what I wanted to do. When it came down to 2 weeks before closing I just circled Novice B FAST and mailed it out.

 I just entered him for Sunday FAST and miss Lils is staying home. The Novice FAST 8" class is going to be dominated by papillons haha. Arrow, Knight's brother, is running, and Boogie, one of Letty's paps is running too. I'm half nervous, half excited haha.

 The dead-line for CPE Nationals is quickly approaching, Lilly just needs a Snooker Q and one Q in any class. This weekend there's a CPE trial at Flexi so I'm going to run over there Saturday for a DOS entry. I love tossing in a CPE between AKCs every now and then. CPE has such a laid back atmosphere, Lilly really picks up on that and just goes crazy xD Crazy in a good way haha, she goes tearing around the course. Last one I went to... was way back in August. It's been too long!

I also tried Jumping Knight at 12" today, just to see how he'd like it. The first clip is of Lilly so you can compare. Just for fun :)

On A Silver Platter

Ready to go Home?

Guess who's officially enrolled in Silvia Trkman's "Foundation for Excellence" workshop! Knight is!!! Finally got ahold of them today to confirm that I had a spot before mailing out the check. Last night I tried to call her but she couldn't hear me at all on the phone. Today she called me and it worked just fine.  I'm so excited, I can't believe this is actually going to happen :D

Here's a brief discription of the workshop: "Covers all foundational pieces that Silvia teaches in agility including handling, jumping, contacts and weaves poles. Appropriate for novice level
dogs or handlers looking to apply Silvia’s methods to their training program. Dogs should be able to do all obstacles."

It will be indoors, and from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. It sounds like there will be a lot of BCs there, I'm hoping some fellow pap owners go haha but we'll see. Please pray that Knight behaves while we're there.... I don't know if I mentioned it on blog, but he's gotten a tad.... snarly? with other dogs. Mostly when I'm holding him though, once his feet hit the ground it quiets down a good amount. Agility people are usually pretty good with respecting other handlers so I'm just going to turn down any requests for "doggy hellos". I'd really hate to get kicked out because my 5 lb dog is snapping at 30+ lb dogs.

The workshop is Tuesday, February 8th. That gives me a month to work out where I'm going to stay... Knight's breeder's house is the closest, she's just about 2 hours away from Richmond so I'll ask her first. I also have some friends in Baltimore that I'm sure would take me for a night or two so I should be pretty good on that front.

I'm also on the list for a private, they're taking place on February 13th. I'm waiting for more details on that. If I get in I'll be bringing Lilly along aswell :)

In non-dog news, I worked out the classes I hope to take to finish up the rest of my credits. Here we go:
-Intro to Screenwriting (.5)
-Intro to Short Stories (.5)
-Intro to College writing (.5)
-Sociology (.5)
-Introduction to law (.5)
-Criminal and consumer law (.5)
-Buisness Math (1)
-Cinematic Review (.5)
-Latin 2 (1)
-Emerging Genetics (.25)
-Forensics (.25)
-Marketing/Advertising (.5)
-Money Management (.5)
-Intro to computer programing (1)
-Premiere 1 (1)

Plus the classes I'm currently enrolled in. When I write it all out like that it seems like a really odd selection of classes... It breaks down to: English credits, Social Studies, Math, Fine Arts, Electives. I'll have to double check with my IS. I might of forgotten some credits I already have... but better to overplan now then add more later. In May I'll be done all 3 of the science credits.

I have lots of writing classes because my older sister was constantly writing papers for college.... I hate writing papers D: So might as well get over my hatred now and learn to write something half-way decent.

I'm also going to start calling local boarding kennels toward the end of Feb and see if anyone is hiring. I haven't told my parents about my KPA plans so I need to have enough set aside for it if they decide they don't want to pay for it. They're paying for my college, the least I can do is pay for furthering my canine education. There's also a Suzanne Clothier CARAT (Clothier Animal Response Assesment Tool) seminar coming up in November 2011 that I'd like to go to. Suzanne is big on Relationship Centered Training, I've read a few of her articles and she seems very interesting. So I'd like to set aside some money for that too.

With so much to do its easy to forget to stop and enjoy the little things in life. Lil kindly reminded me I was spending way too much time working, so I drove the paps over to the park for a nice long walk. There's nothing more enjoyable on a cold day in January than watching my paps chasing each other around in the snow :)