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.