Spur's RDW videos

Yesterday I made a bunch of videos. I found that Movie Maker locks up only once a day, so if I make more movies after the first lock up it works great!!! Go figure?

Spur's runnings into nothing are when he is going left. Towards the course and a jump is going to the right -


Silvia says I just need to be up ahead with him for now. Not sure I see where I am any different during the leaps, but maybe?

At home he isn't as fast. He sure likes an audience!!! LOL!!! Plus, my dog walk is wooden and only 10" wide, so it's like a highway on a rubber 12" dog walk at Anne's.

This time going left is into a tunnel, going right is into nothing -



This video he is a little faster. Can you tell why? A friend (Hi Lisa!!!) is videoing! He likes his fans to watch!!!! :D



The first part of this video going right is into nothing, left going into a tunnel. At 1:25 I switch to curved tunnels either direction since we need to practice good hits before Nationals next week. :O Yikes!!!



**Laura, Lance and Vito!!! I watched Lance's Utility run and it was AWESOME!!!! Very impressive!!! He sure looks happy!!!! Congrats, well done!!!!!

Lovely agility trial site!!!

I like any place that has plenty of shade and LOTS of areas to off leash walk the dogs. This place was GREAT!!!!! LOVED it!!

It was very wet Saturday. So wet they put shavings down on the course and heavy along each side of the weaves. I wasn't sure what Spur would think, so I grabbed a handful and brought them to the practice jump. He thought they were SO wrong and avoided that spot like the plague. On course, he was slow, but recovered and by the time we got to the weaves he did GREAT!!!!

Both DW's were perfect, good little man. First one was tunnel to DW to table. Nice set up for him. Next day was big open run to DW with a lovely tunnel staring straight at him, but the course went 90 degrees to the right ending up 180 degree different direction. Good little buggar never even looked at the tunnel and read my decel perfectly!!!! Came in second only to our current National Champion. :D


I was asked by my Nationals teammate if I thought Spur was a contender at Nationals. I said, nah, he's just not that fast. But, you know, he is consistent. This weekend if the National Champion or my teammate with Race, a blazing fast sheltie, don't Q Spur wins. This is the second trial like that. If those dogs make any mistakes, Spur wins. If they run clean, we come in third. That is becoming pretty consistent. The only thing is often we are 5-10 seconds slower than either of those dogs. :O That's a LOT slower!! LOL!! Not sure even in a big indoor crowded noisy trial he will gain that much speed. Who knows? He sure likes those kinds of trials.

His outdoor performance is just not that fast, yet. Indoors he is much more comfortable. I guess we will find out soon enough.

Huh, an "experimental" stage?

That's what Silvia said Spur is going through. Geez, I send my entries to a big event, the USDAA Nationals, and Spur has to go through and experimental stage. Good news is he is doing that NOW and not during the event, right? Oi!

One issue going on in this video is the first session the hit-it boards were not stable and he started to avoid them. ACK! Poor little guy. The next session I put only the one on the very end with the thought I would HUGELY jackpot any hits that low. Never did, except going the other way without the hit-it board. Hmmmm.

What I found interesting watching these are the strange one hind foot strides he does. Some he does on the contact, other times his second stride on the down ramp. It's like his one foot just goes along for the ride? Strange. I have noticed he has done that before. It's just an odd thing, almost like he is really heavy on the forehand and using his front to travel. I know he has to make adjustments and that may be one way. His power from one hind is slightly less than the power with two hind, but still it's a little odd?

It is all so interesting!

I had an interesting session with Spur. It seems he needs to learn to work into “nothing”. The leap at the trial was basically into nothing, into an open corner of the ring and the next obstacle was off a bit, a chute, but the whole corner was empty of obstacles.

Yesterday’s session I ran him into “nothing”. Big open field out ahead. At first I placed a chute barrel, no fabric, about 20 meters out. Going back towards the house and into the course he was fine, but lots of leaps going into “nothing”. What is not on this movie are two more reps at the end where he was deep in with three strides and definitely into nothing I removed the chute barrel after the break, but they came out so blurry I deleted them. So, at the end of this session he did do three reps deep in the contact. I guess I need to do some more sessions like this with him going into “nothing”?





Thing is it almost seems uncomfortable when he leaps. He lands pretty hard and if he would just keep running normally I think he would hit the contact low. I wonder if he thinks higher up is his only option? It's curious. Waiting to hear what Silvia thinks.

AKC trial repot!

Wow, what a soggy weekend! But, today was LOVELY! Friday was just plain soggy. I scratched Roscoe. He ain't happy in the rain. Spur, he did fine and Q'd in all three runs. Good little Monkey Pants! He placed second in Jumpers only to a dog who is trying out for the World Team. That felt good!

He finished his Excellent A title, so from now on we work on double Q's and lots of points. Yay!! He's a "big" boy now!!!

His standard from today. Nice dog walk Spur-minator. Still not as fast as in practice, but sure has nice deep hit striding right through his contact. He knows his job!



His Open FAST which he didn't get. It was tunnel to weaves and I should have stayed back a little. Still, look how happy he was!! YAY!!! To think he was such a stress case I almost quit with him. Happy boy say his fan Mary at the score table and decided to show off!!! :D He LOVES his fans!!!



His jumpers from today. A little slow off the start, but then he runs pretty well. Good boy!!!! Placed third! Again, only to the World Team potential dog and a dog on his way to the Invitational, so that was not a bad run!!! :D



Roscoe ran one run yesterday and today. Yesterday he looked AWESOME, but took an off course tunnel. Today, a little pokey and down and he missed his weave entry. So unlike him, but outdoors is just not his think. Next weekend, two days indoors. I hope he feels happier.

Lo's International seminar!

Yesterday I went to Lo's for her International seminar. We worked on back sides, pull throughs, twisty turning courses. I ran Roscoe most of the day and he LOVED it!! He did great!!!! It was his day, but at 12 years old (or older for all we know) he got tired. It got hot in the afternoon. So, I pulled out Spur.

Spur did a few dog walk sessions that were interesting. I have one on film. Notice his slow first run, getting used to the equipment. He needs tons of time before he will be comfortable on different equipment, so I am trying to get him on as many dog walks as possible.

This session was interesting. He nailed everyone heading into the agility field. Going the other direction with NOTHING in front of the dog walk except a HUGE open field that slopes down he had some leaps. But, notice after each leap he got it nicely the next time. Good little monkey pants learns well from absence of reward. He will never see a huge open field after the dog walk in an agility trial, so that was not really fair to set up for him. Still, he learned from the session! :D



On the way home we got caught in a major hail storm. It was NUTS!! I was scared and the dogs were, too. I was horrified that my new car would end up with dents all over it. I mean, Muffin Heads, it was BIG hail!! I think it came through OK. I see one small dent on the hood, but that's it. Amazing, really, it sounded like we were being pelted by golf balls!!! They said it was quarter size hail. It was SO loud!!!! We had to pull over and then I was worried about tree limps crashing on us. Yikes!!!!

Just some more running dog walk work

At home he is faster and it's causing some different striding. That's running dog walk speak for leaps. "Different striding". He is wanting to do a two strided down and he can't do that! His most comfortable is a three strided down.

See -


I am going to see if I can work through this before running to Silvia for help. Hopefully, we can work it out. He does know his job, I am sure of that, but it is a fine line with running dog walks!

Mowed, mowed and mowed some more!

The grass is SO thick and green and the bit of sun we got on Saturday has it REACHING for the sky! Rich mowed the agility yard for me, so I moved the dogs walk. Not an easy feat as it is home made and I have to take it apart and move all my stored jumps and stuff from under it. But, I got it done. Then Rich filmed some RDW's. I did a bunch with the tunnel after, good boy 100%. Then I proofed him without the tunnel and tossed the ball in advance. Yikes!!! Leap, leap, leap.

Silvia said that is very hard for him as he wants to go with two strides and his striding isn't such that he can do that and hit it. We got a couple, very high hits, but it was not very successful. So, I wrote her and asked her advice. She said to stay with what works. "Don't fix what isn't broken" and that she doesn't toss the ball to her Bi because her stride is SO long anyway and she doesn't want it longer. She said I should move a jump after it some and try different settings with him, but to stay with what works. That sounds good to me!

What I would really like are two strides up two at the top and three down. Right now his most common is two strides up, three on top and down.

Notice on the first one with the ball tossed he slipped? Yikes, that's all we need a fall off the DW with little Spur!!!! -

Heard back from Silvia!

I finally got all my videos edited and together to send to her for critique. Here is her reply -

"Anyway, first: very good job so far! So sorry to hear about everything that happened to Spur, it seems all the bad things always happen to sensitive dogs that take the longest to recover... But he sure looks completely recovered on your videos! I can imagine new dog-walks can be a problem for him, but only experience can help with that, so just try to get him used to as many different dog-walks as possible.

From the videos you sent, I have a feeling that his only problem is that his natural striding is a little too short to do two hits on a down ramp only, but it still sometimes takes him that deep that it's impossible for him to do the third one and then he is too high. But he seems to have good understanding of his job and he will sometimes even shorten one stride before the last one a little bit in order to be able to fit in another one. It is sometimes hard though, that's why I think he sometimes has hind feet together. It looks like two hits only won't take him far enough though, even when he is running full speed, he is too high with two hits. Meaning that you should just go with the three hits.

For three hits, you don't want to extend his stride any more, so at this point, you're actually making it harder for him by throwing a ball - so it's especially good that he has such a good successful rate even with added excitement of the ball that makes it harder for him to do those three steps. Meaning that you're pretty much finished with your project. Try to simply include dog-walks in normal sequences now and run it as any other obstacle. You can still throw a ball in advance here and there, but, even though it's so much fun to train the dog-walk, I think yours is pretty much finished. Now I think it's fast enough and it's reliable enough, especially because I believe it will be even more reliable without the thrown toy. Try and let me know.

bye, silvia"

Wow, not exactly what I had expected. She sure has a good eye. I know he has more speed at two strides on the down, but she is sure right that then he hits higher. I agree with her that he seems to know his job. I really do believe that. Since doing this work he has not missed a contact, yet, at a trial. Good boy!!!


Today we are throwing a party for my sister's 50th. I am putting together a photo board and came across this photo of me and her.........