Spur de Blur!!!!

That's his new name! My friend Kate came up with that and it's awesome! He was a blur this weekend!!! Super pumped and happy in his jumpers runs to finish his Open title and advance to Excellent where on Sunday his time was beat only by three super fast, very experienced dogs!! Wahoooooooooo!!!

He did refuse the teeter in both standard runs, darn it. Gotta paint a new board and put my teeter together and start working on him owning that again. In the summer it is right there on our way to our walks and he charges to it every day before our walks. Now, it's taken apart because of the plank starting to rot and winter here. Time to get to the lumber yard and start the painting process ASAP. It's hurting us again at trials, poor worried buggar.

But, I can not be more pleased about his jumpers!! Jumps have always worried him. He has always jumped HUGE avoiding knocking them because oh....dear.....the sound of PVC on the floor is worth melting into a ball of mush for. That's why quiet trials worry him, he hears every knocked bar from another dog and worries and worries.

Now? He is OWNING his jumpers!!! So fun to watch him shine! He had a 29+ second run even with running over to say high to the leash runner as he came around one section!!! Mr. Social!

Open run. Starts a little slow, but then kicks in the jets! -



His first Excellent Jumpers run, good little Monkey Pants! -



Roscoe? He did fine. Not super great, but fine for two more double Q's. He may not have felt that great. Folks who know him thought he looked off. He did fine, but he may have had gas or stomach issues or sore back or who knows. He's twelve, so he is going to have some off days. He needs 3 more double Q's for his MACH. Might need a bunch of speed points, but I am not sure. He is never a fast dog. He simply isn't athletic or well built for it, but he tries and has always done well. Good little ole man!!!

I have to add that it was one of the best run AKC trials, ever. The judge was awesome! She didn't linger and kept to a tight schedule with walk throughs. You had 8 minutes and NO more, at minute 7 she would yell out....."One more minute, walk fast!!!". Her briefings were....."Know the rules, in at the tire." or whatever obstacle. That's it, that's all. No long stories about what kind of dogs she runs, where she is from, what she had for breakfast, nope just the basics. Quick, simple and efficient and everyone appreciated that. The trial was done by around 5:00 each day. Amazing for an AKC trial. I LOVE that judge!!!!

APDT Rally trial yesterday!

At the last minute we decided to run over in the snow storm to the APDT Rally trial yesterday. It was full, but they "squeezed" us in for one run. Roscoe ROCKED! I got 5 points off for "handler error". Did a finish-left when the sign said finish-right, damn it! He would have had a perfect score. The judge called me a bonehead. She's right, he had a lovely routine!!! He enjoys obedience work SO much! And it was great fun for him to go all by himself and be the ONLY one for my attention. Good little Roscoe!!!! That was his Level 1 title. We hardly ever do APDT rally, but with this new training center maybe there will be more we can do.

Spur's latest running session

This was our first time with 100% success rate!! Been waiting for that to happen!! GOOD LITTLE MONKEY PANTS!!!! Silvia was SO right. No surprise there. I can't wait to send her some stuff to critique and see what she says.




I know the idea is to eventually reward only running and not jumping and technically he has many "jumps" here. True running is when back feet are seperated and he does have many hits here with back feet together. Now, that said I have videoed him on the flat and he isn't a dog that runs with feet very much seperated, but they are seperated. You can see in the slow motion how when his feet are together his body has a more humped form. Feet seperated and he is more in a straight body form. It is SO subtle and REALLY hard to tell in real time, thus my use of the hit it boards, but I am getting better at seeing it. My biggest trouble is tossing the ball. I may try using my chuck-it next time. You would not think tossing a ball was so hard, but there are times when it launches high and it really needs to be tossed low along the ground. You can see his head up on the top ramp and I think those are times when the ball has been tossed too high. I would like his head lower along the top ramp, ultimately, but that's all being way too picky at this stage.

I am very pleased with this session. To have no misses is really a nice feeling. All other sessions have been around 80% success.

Colby's eye is much better!

She had a recheck with her regular vet this morning to see if there was any more inflammation and to determine if we continue the Metacam for another week or can stop it. No inflammation seen, so we are stopping the Metacam. She is still on the two eye drops until next week's eye doctor appointment. YAY!

I'll tell you one thing I can be totally certain of........Colby will be one happy girl when the snow disappears. It makes the glare so bright and she has to squint SO much and navigating the world in the snow is not much fun for her. I am right there with her, I long for green grass and open pastures!

Roscoe, shines at seminars!

I have sort of lightened my schedule this week due to school vacation and several mid-day regulars away and yesterday I decided to do a Lo Baker seminar in NH. This was kind of a follow up to the one in November where Spur had such a melt down. I decided to bring Roscoe and work him mostly. It was a GREAT fun seminar because there were only 8 attendees and one left early. We all got plenty of time, which is awesome!! And Spur got out to play for a bit, but it was pretty much Roscoe's day and he shined. He LOVES seminars. Not really sure why, more cookies? More time out working? I don't know, but he is great fun at seminars.

He gets all squeeky and crazy and presents challenges we don't usually have at trials and it's really fun working through those. It was a wicked fun day and Spur did fine. We learned a new weave pole game I can't believe I had never tried! Basically it is a game to help a dog do weaves without the handler moving. Not sure why Roscoe just gets that, but he does. I can stand still send him down 12 weaves away from me and he does them! Spur, not so much. Spur's great skill is weaving with me WAY ahead of him. I can basically leave him in the weaves and get far ahead. Nice skill to have, but not for a Gamble class that requires weaving away while I stand behind the gamble line.

So, this new game I learned requires a soft, highly visable treat. We used cheese, but it crumbled some, so I need to prepare bits of cheese that won't crumble. You have them do the weaves and toss the treat away at the end, then then come back and do them in the other directions. Again, tossing the treat, then they come back and do them again. Slowly, you stop moving your body and they just continue because they anticipate the treat at the end. It's pretty simple and a nice little exercise to get them weaving without body dependency. So, well practice that a bit. Not something I can do on grass, I don't think. I do think it requires a floor, but I'll figure something out. And we can do it now while we are working indoors.

We have a ROCK STAR!!

Or maybe I should call him a Trial Junkie? He SO loves a busy, loud, nutty trial!! It fuels him! His contacts were all great! I got more comments about them!! Good little guy had his Monkey Pants on, for sure!!! He isn't as fast, yet, as he is when we practice, but almost! Our practice lately has been in a place he is a bit uncomfortable and so these runs are nearly as fast. I need to figure out how to time the runs. I guess maybe just get a stop watch and time the video?



I wish I had his jumpers run, but for some reason it is all blurry. That does happen if the camera doesn't "lock" on to something at the start. It was a REALLY nice jumpers run!!!

Roscoe was out of sorts. Just not himself, for sure. Strange, because he has always like this place. I think the crate room was cold. He hated to have to wear his coat all day in the crate. I had a snuggle safe disk warmed for him, but just wearing his coat is a bummer to him. Not his favorite deal, but it was too cold without it. He did fine, though, he's such a pro.

Spur FREAKIN' ROCKED!!!

I know this sounds a little snooty, but it's true........CPE isn't the most competitive venue, but I still enjoy it and the people there. It was a nice show, but I have to admit there wasn't the most intense competition there. Spur won every class, beating all dogs in all levels in each class except one. He is in level 3, but I compared to all levels just for fun. The one standard class two other dogs beat him by fractions of a second, but he did refuse the teeter. No refusals in CPE, so it was a "clean" run and he was still just fractions of a second slower than the two other dogs with faster times.

He FREAKIN' ROCKED!!! This video is Fullhouse and was his first class. You basically gather as many points as possible before the buzzer then run to the table to stop the clock. Nice first class that you can design your own course. He starts off a little slow, but then quickly picks up speed. Watch his second dog walk!! YAY Spur Man!!! That was a NICE dog walk.



I got his standard run, but that's all for video. Today I'll try to get more, if possible. I didn't stay for his jumpers score, but he was SMOKIN' and if he didn't run faster than all the other dogs I would be surprised. He was ON FIRE!! Definitely has his groove back!!!!