Bittersweet 2: Gracie and Connie

Denise Lodge took this photo of lovely Gracie, probably in Keller, Texas in August 2008.

I've not mentioned Gracie for many months. That's been on purpose. Giving her up was very difficult and I miss her. She has to be the happiest, sunniest smooth fox terrier I've ever met. But it was for this very reason that I knew she would be easier to rehome--and find it easier to settle into a new home--than Mimi, who is moody and flighty. If I could have found a way to keep both sisters, I would have. But this was not the best option for Gracie or for me. So last summer I began what turned out to be a many-week search to find Gracie a new home.

I had just a few criteria for Gracie's new home. She simply had to continue to compete in agility, preferably AKC and USDAA. During the difficult summer of 2009, I continued to train and trial her and it became very clear to all who saw her in the ring what an amazing agility competitor she already was. The sky is the limit for her agility success and I was adamant that she be able to continue.

The hidden corollary to this requirement was that Gracie's new owner needed to have the financial resources to train and trial her. That's difficult to state openly but all of you agility and flyball freaks know exactly what I'm talking about. These are expensive hobbies.

I thought that she should be placed in a home with other dogs and cats but preferably not other terrier bitches. I wasn't completely sure that her problems with Mimi were solely the result of two relatively strong-willed terrier bitches always at odds because it could have been as simple as competition between two closely related terrier bitches. That is, Gracie might have been perfectly fine with another terrier bitch who wasn't Mimi but I didn't want to take chances.

Even thought their dad Jack is a bit of a doofus, his daughters have wills of iron. As I said, Gracie is amazingly happy and upbeat but she is a true terrier through and through. I wanted to place Gracie with an owner who had some experience training and handling terriers. I don't want to get carried away talking about breed differences because I simply do not buy into excuses such as "my dog won't do X because he's a terrier"--it is a simple fact that the working terrier breeds (not the lap dog terrier breeds, mind you) do see the world in a certain way that is subtly different from the way a herding dog sees the world but this doesn't mean they are untrainable, just that they do have certain hardwired behaviors and responses that we owners and handlers need to understand going into it. Whew. A long-winded way to say, Gracie needs a firm, consistent home and training environment to be a successful companion and competitor.

I sent out emails and posted flyers at local trials. There were quite a few false starts and false leads. It was hard not to take it personally or as a judgment on the quality of this amazing little dog that she wasn't getting snatched up right away.

But at last, when I was at an agility trial last summer, I got a phone call from a woman named Connie who lives in San Antonio. She'd heard about Gracie through a trainer friend who'd gotten my flyer via email from someone else. Turns out that many of Connie's friends were at the same trial and they got to see Gracie in action. After spending several hours on the phone with Connie during the weekend and interviewing her friends there at the trial, I thought that perhaps Connie might be the right person, that she might have the right home, that it might be the right place for Gracie.

Connie has a rat terrier named Louie who is just a few months younger than Gracie. She lives very close to a training facility. She was already actively completing in agility and seemed to enjoy it enough to want to continue doing it. And she sounded like she was very interested in adding a second dog to the mix. Just a few short weeks after we first made contact, Connie met me in Austin and took Gracie back to San Antonio with her. Even now, I cry when I think of that afternoon.

Connie and Louie and me and Gracie, Austin, Texas, September 3, 2009.

And here is the reason this post is titled "Bittersweet 2". Connie sent me an email last week to let me know she at last got that third Open Jumpers Q and her first AKC title for Gracie! Connie says it best herself:

Our first class on Saturday, FAST, was a total bust with both dogs because one end of the ring opened up to the outside and the smell of horses and frying quesadillas at the concession was just way too interesting. We kind of muddled through it and I wasn't expecting anything special when we next had Open Jumpers in the other ring. Gracie surprised and gratified me with a lovely run, watching and following my every move. She popped the weaves and when we re-tried I thought she had popped again so went on. Even so, I was close to tears of joy because she ran with me so well even if we didn't Q. But when I went to check her time, there was our titling Q and a 2nd place.

In FAST Sunday morning she ran the whole course happily in the smelly interesting ring doing everything I asked except that she bailed the teeter and I miscalculated the time, missing a Q by 1 point with lots more time left on the course. I chose to run Open Jumpers again rather than moving her to Excellent because I wanted to relax with her out there rather than raise the criteria. This time our run was spotless with everything perfect.

Connie, I've got plenty of tears of joy to go around! You are running as a team with Gracie and I couldn't be more proud of both of you! Treasure that feeling of success and teamwork. I know this is just the beginning of what you and Gracie can accomplish together.

I'll end this post with some fun pictures.

Connie working with Gracie on the dreaded teeter, October 2009, San Antonio Texas.

Taken a few days after Gracie entered his home, Louie is trying to entice her into playing with him. She isn't quite sure she's cool with this--but it was just a matter of time. September 2009, San Antonio, Texas.

See? Just a matter of time. Gracie and Louie wreaking havoc on the bed. October 2009, San Antonio, Texas.

Um, more of the same! October 2009, San Antonio, Texas.

Aww! Such innocent looks! But looks are usually deceiving! October 2009, San Antonio, Texas.

Agility Weekend Recap

Overall, our Q rate wasn't that high at the agility trial this past weekend. We only brought home 5 green ribbons out of a total of 12 attempts over the three days. Still, the Q's we did earn were well and truly earned. And as I mentioned in the previous post, it was a good weekend of hanging out with agility friends.

On Friday, Gracie picked up her third Novice B Standard leg (and a first place), earning her NA title. She earned her two AKC Novice titles in a total of six days of trialing. Earlier that morning, both girls had struggled through Jumpers. No Q's there.

On Saturday, Gracie had a stupendous Open Standard run, earning a Q and a first place (video of that below). Out of 56 dogs in Open, there were only 9 Q's. Gracie was the fastest dog with a clean run in the entire Open class with a time of 49.31 seconds (course time was 67 seconds so Gracie really smoked that one).

Mimi picked up a nice Open Jumpers leg on Saturday morning with a second place. She didn't run clean, had one refusal. Still, it was a good run and she deserved that Q. Another of Debbie's students who runs a JRT took first place with a clean run. Here's video of Mimi's Jumpers run.

On Sunday, Mimi had a lovely Open Jumpers run and picked up a Q. But Gracie's run was even better--she took first place in Open Jumpers with a clean run and a perfect score of 100. How good was Gracie's run? There were 43 dogs in the Open class (all heights)--and only 8 Q's, including Mimi. Course time was 35 seconds for 113 yards. Gracie was the third fastest clean dog with a time of 28.29 seconds. Smokin'!

On Sunday afternoon in the Standard class, Mimi was having a nervous breakdown. When I watch the video, I can't really tell from that distance but I can assure you that, up close, she was ready to come apart at the seams with stress. I am amazed that she stayed with me out there.

Gracie's Standard run was really nice, except for this teensy little problem at the beginning. The small brown poodle in the ring before us was fluffy and had a shrill bark and as we were sitting on the start line and Chunky was finishing his run, Gracie became obsessed with him. Her intentions were only to chase him, she would not have done anything physical, but that wasn't going to turn out well no matter what. Could get her kicked out of the trial. She stared and stared and it was difficult for me to redirect her. I thought I had her attention when we started running, but unfortunately as she came out of the chute, there Chunky was, right in her face, leaving the ring with his owner. Zoom! She shot out of the ring after him. I called her back to me and she came right away. We managed to get back on track and finish the course in style.

Now, back to Gracie's Standard run on Saturday. First, here's the video.

The course turned out to be much trickier in practice than it seemed during the walk through and I revised my plans for both girls several times as I watched the 24" and 20" dogs crash and burn one after another. I don't like to revise my plans after I walk but it was clear that this course demanded a different handling plan. The biggest problem for Gracie was going to be that offside weave entry out of the number 10 tunnel, which was not even pointing at the weaves but at the Aframe (see the course map). (Mimi's run on this course was super nice but she unfortunately ticked a bar on the number 13 double and the bar fell. That's an elimination fault. However, her contacts were superb--perfect 2 on 2 off, and she held that down on the table.)


I ended up doing a quick hand change to get Gracie's head right as she came out of the tunnel then turning her away from me into the weaves, all in about 10 feet of distance while both of us are moving. That particular handling move is one we have worked on, and worked on, in class. You can hear Debbie chuckling on the video, and in fact, she came up to me right after our run and gave me a giant hug and said, I got goosebumps when I watched you do that with Gracie.

Then there was the amazing move Gracie did over the panel jump, a sort of sideways hop, at the end of the run. I had not pushed her out far enough after rear crossing the tire and we would have gotten a refusal if she did not go over that jump. No doubt about it, she saved my butt right then. You can hear Debbie and all of the Debbie-tantes cheering as Gracie clears that panel jump. I was also jumping and whooping it up, and everyone in the gate area waiting to run said, wow, was that your title? No, I said, it was just a really great run!

Gracie NA, NAJ and Nervous Mimi

Mimi's ring stress is back. Like a balloon, if you push on one side, it bulges out someplace else. Her Open Jumpers run this morning was a disaster--an alphabet soup of errors, mostly refusals because she only did about a third of the obstacles on the course, going around the rest. Gracie didn't do much better.

Here is video of the first part of Mimi's Standard run this afternoon. My goals were very simple: I wanted her to do the tire--she struggles with the tire as the first obstacle, often going under or around it when stressed--and to get her into the weaves nice and clean. She did do the tire but was then all over the course with classic stress behavior. I kept at her though and you can see her weave entry was great and she even started to speed up at the end. She managed to make it to the table and even held her sit for the full count. As I review the video, I can see that she was trying even though she was pretty worried about agility monsters. Her tail was up and wagging a bit although her ears were plastered to her head--mixed signals.

As I had hoped, Gracie earned her third Novice Standard leg today and her NA title. I had the move-up sheet filled out in record time after our run. Getting the hell out of Novice at last!

Now both girls are in Open Standard and Open Jumpers for the next two days.

Here is video of Gracie's Novice Standard run this afternoon. The little hop at the end of the weaves is her signature move--but it did surprise me to see her at my elbow as I was heading for the tunnel! If you listen to the soundtrack, you can hear Debbie refer to the "jack bounce" then being roundly and soundly corrected by a couple of friends who tell her, no, that's the "fox terrier bounce"!

The off course to the tire before the weaves was entirely my fault. I should have been decelerating sooner and giving her information about the weaves earlier than I did. And even though she broke her sit on the table, that only cost us seconds, not any points, since she didn't leave the table. Making course time is not a problem Gracie is ever going to have. So her run wasn't clean but she did get a Q with one off course. I didn't stick around for the results--she might have also placed because even with the table dithering she was plenty fast.

Eagles eyes among you probably notice that I don't lead out from the start line with either of the girls. I do practice lead outs in class but when Mimi is stressed, leaving her makes her feel left and thus more stressed. Gracie is probably ready for some lead outs in a trial setting so it's a matter of my own confidence.

It was a long day but I did enjoy running with my girls in the ring.

A Fun Agility Weekend

We had a great weekend at the agility trial!

Mimi was showing a lot of stress on Saturday but I figured something out--tentative handling on my part makes her more stressed. I discovered that when I run all out, as fast as I can, just like I do in class, she has less time to think, less time to worry about the ring monsters. On Sunday, she had a wonderful Open Standard run, earning a Q and placing third in a competitive class of about 20 16" dogs.

My little 'gility queen, Gracie, cleaned up in Novice Standard, earning a Q and first place both days. She also picked up her first Open Jumpers Q and third place on Sunday (technically, she got a double Q on Sunday but in different classes so it doesn't really mean the same thing). The Sunday Jumpers course was very fun to run--and Gracie's weaves were fabulous all weekend!

I thought a lot about my goals for every run and decided to keep them very simple: to run every course like I would in class, just as fast and with all of the proper handling that I would use in class. This last bit sounds strange but, sadly, Novice/Starters courses can often be run with no handling at all (and we saw plenty of that over the weekend). But the important point is that not once did I think of a Q. I focused on the doing, how best to get the girls around those courses.

I know that back when I was competing with Iz, if she knocked a bar or took the wrong obstacle, I would discombobulate, fall apart, often have to just end the run there. But that sort of thing hardly registers now. Ooops, it happened, not part of the plan, but no matter, there's some more fun stuff to handle over in this part of the course. The girls rarely know that there has been a problem at all. Every run ends with treats and praise and much joyous jumping around--no matter what. Even when I pulled Mimi from her Standard run on Saturday for leaping off the top of the Aframe, she still got praise and treats back at our crating area.

There is another trial this coming weekend, a three-day event, at the same arena in Fort Worth. I'm looking forward to it! I spent a whopping $6 this past weekend (not counting gas) because I bought a soda and some small smoked femur bones for the dogs. Yum! Cheap date! Plus, dare I say it, there's some titles to be worked on!

Gracie's First Standard Q!

The girls and I are doing a local agility trial this weekend. The arena is about half an hour from my house. I'm doing it on the cheap--bringing my own food, bringing all the dogs so I don't have to pay the petsitter.

Gracie had a wonderful standard run yesterday, earning her first AKC Novice Standard Q. Her contacts were lovely. I did get a little worried when the judge started the table count because Alan is in Mimi and Gracie's class--Gracie knows him and you can see her turn her head to look at Alan, I'm sure thinking, hmm, maybe he has a treat for me? But she held her sit! Before I released her, I took a second to tell her she was a very good girl. Time is never going to be a problem for Gracie so taking a little extra time for praise is well worth it.

Mimi continues to have ring stress issues--if she is making any progress, it is barely measurable right now. I pulled her from her standard run after she leaped from near the top of the Aframe. Touch the yellow? Hell, she barely touched the downside at all!

Joy Joy Joy

The Girls

My instructor, Debbie, refers to Mimi and Gracie as "the girls." Since that is modern slang for boobs, it's funny when she says it, as in "I'll see you and the girls tomorrow." But despite their deep and abiding hatred for each other, Mimi and Gracie do form a pair, odd and contentious a pairing as it may be.

There are two agility trials coming up in August, local ones in a venue that I really like and that is about 40 minutes from my house. Because doing agility helps me stay sane during the good times, I felt it was just as important during these bad times, so I entered them. Those entries represent a lot of PB&J sandwiches for dinner.

Since Gracie decided to get her AKC Novice Jumpers title at her first trial, she will be competing in Open Jumpers at her second AKC trial (only her third agility trial overall). Besides a pretty big increase in the difficulty of the courses, Gracie will now have to face all 12 weaves in Open--they only use 6 weave poles in Novice.

Mimi is a weaving fiend. She has astonishing control over her body and lately has been getting faster and faster. Her footwork in the weaves is so fast that I have to have video to pick out what she does (she slaloms like most bigger dogs do, alternating leads with each front leg). She can get a little carried away though. Last week, she was going so fast that she lost control and ran head on into one of the poles. BOING!!! Amazingly, she didn't lose her place or pop out and immediately resumed weaving at top speed.

Gracie, well, Gracie has struggled a bit with the weaves. She was mostly trained with weave-a-matics and has good footwork in the vertical poles but when she gets carried away, she'll start skipping poles. She's learned enough to know she has to exit the poles in a certain way and sometimes she'll adjust, skipping another pole or two until she is lined up correctly for the exit. When she does this, it is clear to me that she knows that there are 12 poles and that she has to do them all. (And that she can count to 12; most agility dogs can.)

Gracie was barely doing six weaves consistently at her first trial. Now she has to do all 12 and we don't get all those free attempts like we do in Novice.

As much as I dislike this particular technique, I found that if I tell her "easy!" around pole 6, and if she makes it successfully to pole 8, she can usually complete all 12. But she does slow down a bit after I say easy, mainly because she starts thinking super hard about what she's doing. Mimi probably weaves on auto-pilot now, but Gracie isn't quite there.

The Backyard Dogs exercise I set up for them had 12 poles, good practice for Gracie, plus a curved tunnel that required you to send the dog in then run around the back side and pick them up from behind it. Gracie, a green dog without many preconceived notions of what is proper, picked up on this right away. Mimi, an experienced dog who is sure she knows what is going on, really struggled with this the first few times we did it. I had to reshape the tunnel away from the original C-shape so that it would help her figure out I was BEHIND the tunnel and she was to turn away from the direction she thought was "right."

They both jump at 16", they both have the jumping style that straight-fronted terriers often have (lots of air time in high jump arcs), they both register about the same in my peripheral vision, they know the same verbal commands and start line stay routines, and I train them in the same handling system so they recognize all of those signals. In these things, they do make a pair, the girls.

But in execution, that is, running the course with them, they feel entirely different to me. Mimi handles like a bullet: compact, fast, wraps and slices nice and tight, sticks her contacts like she was glued to them. Point and shoot, off we go. Gracie is more like handling a kite: she's fast but there's some drift, and I have to cover more ground because I have to get closer to obstacles to help her commit. I can see the greatness in Gracie, though.

Consider that I didn't start any classes with her until last fall, and she's been to all of three trials so far, with considerable success. She didn't have the years of focused training that I gave to Mimi, yet look at how quickly she is taking all of this in and how proficient she is becoming.

If I were to get both girls into the excellent/masters levels, I think the girls would give us all a very entertaining and competitive show.

Mimi and Gracie, My Agility Queens

Last month, there was a local outdoor, evening USDAA trial. It was held at the same facility where Mimi had her meltdown last year. I was very hesitant about entering her at all but decided to enter her in Jumpers only the first night and Jumpers and Gamblers the second night. Both of those are pretty simple games that are well within her abilities. Even if Gamblers proved to be too scary, I figured I could at least get her around one or both of the Jumpers courses.

With Mimi's continued (but lessening) anxiety about amplifiers and speakers, it may be a while before I can play Snooker again with her. All of the clubs out here have the judges use wireless mics and speakers to call points and Snooker is all about points. But as far as I know, Gracie has no such anxiety so I entered Gracie in Jumpers, Gamblers, and Snooker both nights.

I couldn't let go of my stress and worry about losing my job and the first night was not a good one for us. Gracie did Q in Starters Jumpers but our other runs were unsuccessful.

I was particularly disappointed with Mimi's Jumpers run on Friday night. She was doing fine walking around the place and didn't seem to have any memory of what happened last year. She was barely flicking her ears at noises that in the past have melted her into a quivering blob in her crate. I got her to the start line and she seemed happy enough. But the weather was unsettled and just as she was entering obstacle three, the tunnel, there was a large clap of thunder. Mimi panics during storms. I ran to the tunnel exit and grabbed her just as she came out and ran off the course with her in my arms. I am not sure she even heard the thunder since she was in the tunnel but I couldn't know if there would be more and I just couldn't risk her having another meltdown associated with agility.

I left that night very upset, feeling that I had not been able to focus on the courses and that I had not done right by my girls. I didn't know how to stop worrying about money, job, house, health insurance, food....

The next evening as we were getting settled in for the second night, I went up to Debbie and said, I think I am my own worst enemy. This was the opening she had been waiting for, it seems. She had a little talk all prepared for me. I listened carefully then turned her suggestions over and over in my head. I thought she was right on target. I needed to make the effort to make this work for us.

And that second night, Gracie Q'd in Snooker and Jumpers again, and Mimi Q'd in Gamblers and Jumpers. Four Q's out of five attempts. Plus, that Jumpers Q also earned Mimi her Starters Jumpers title.

Here's Gracie's Snooker course (sorry for the poor quality scan, my course maps get kind of mangled after being stuffed in sweaty pockets for hours):


I decided to make it easy on both of us and do the #5 tunnel three times (red-tunnel-another red-tunnel-third red-tunnel) then complete the closing (obstacles 2 through 7 in that order). I handled the hell out of this course, turning it into a thing of beauty. Gracie simply nailed it. Perfect execution, read every one of my crosses and responded correctly, showed a lot of drive and speed. I had such a fun time out there with her.

But the really neat part was Jumpers. Mimi placed first with a Q...and her sister placed second with a Q! They were the only two 16" Starters dogs to Q. And get this: Mimi's time was 27.369 seconds and her sister's was 27.958 seconds. I have no idea how Debbie knew to pan over to the final time after both runs, but I'm so glad she filmed both of these runs for me.

First up was Mimi. You can see that she appeared to be pretty happy at the start line although she did flinch at the electronic "GO". She went around the first jump and was doing a lot of sniffing, both of which are usual signs of stress for her. And I almost sent her over the wrong jump there in the middle of the course!

Four dogs later, it was Gracie's turn. I barely had time to praise and treat Mimi and get her settled back in her crate, then get Gracie up to the start line--Jumpers classes move quickly. Gracie was doing some sniffing during the run too, but in her case it is because she is green and inexperienced. The sniffing slowed us down but she maintained pretty decent speed, considering this was her second agility trial ever!

Gracie, My Agility Queen (2)

Gracie is still holding tight to the 'Gility Queen title. She got to run again with Mimi's class this morning. That class is a full two levels above Gracie's usual class. But I'm so proud to say that the only thing Gracie really struggled with was a rear cross on a super tight sliced jump.

Well, she didn't actually do all 12 weave poles either. Gracie can do 6 poles in either direction on the first attempt (she is still weaving for her dinner) but I've not yet dragged the other set of 6 poles into my training room. I'll probably do that this weekend. But that's an easy problem to fix and I have no doubt she will be flying through 12 poles in a matter of days. (For you non-agility folks, my reference to "either direction" for the weaves is the result of a slight difference in the weave entry depending on which side the handler is on; the weaves are performed the same every time so the difference is one of perspective, not of performance. The dog must step left between poles 1 and 2. If I am on the dog's left, the dog has to put the first pole between me and her and often has to step away from me to do this. This is sometimes called offside weaves. There is a difference in performance of the weave pole exit depending on which side the handler is on but we'll leave that for another day. Some dogs can do one direction better than the other but this is a fault of training. It is best to train both directions equally. That way the dog learns weave performance independent of handler position. But enough of these technical details.)

Everybody in class complimented me on Gracie's obvious joy as well as how nice her runs were. I was throwing serpentine handling, threadles, 270s, front and rear crosses, even a couple of lead outs at my green girlie and she stayed right there with me for every sequence.

Even with all the fancy handling, Gracie's commitment point for obstacles is still pretty close to said obstacle. This means I can't run Gracie like I run Mimi. I nailed a fabulous rear cross on the weaves with Meems but didn't even try that with Gracie, opting to rear cross the next obstacle, the chute, instead. And Gracie's contacts need work. She really, really wants to do running contacts as part of her natural stride and I'm not sure I want her to even know such things exist. It is quite a luxury to catch up to Meems as she calmly wait on her contacts.

Mimi had some very lovely sequences and we had a clean run in the Standard course that we ran today. (We rarely run full courses in class.) She was even more focused than usual after watching me run Gracie on each exercise, so even though Operation Jealousy has been toned way down, it is still working its mojo on Mimi's brain.

Gracie is a magnificent agility partner and I can't wait to see how she progresses in the next few months.

Gracie, My Agility Queen

I'm going to start with a very big brag: Gracie earned her third Novice B Jumpers Q on Sunday! This means that she earned her NAJ title in one trial--her first trial at that! That doesn't happen very often. She's going to be quite the serious competitor, I think. I'm now taking wagers on who gets out of Open first, Gracie or Mimi.

I always called Iz my 'gility queen. After this weekend, I am passing that title to Gracie, at least for a little while.

What's even more amazing is that her third Jumpers run came after I had to pull her from her Standard run earlier because she was behaving so oddly, hunched over and refusing to do any obstacles. I took her outside and she had terrible shooting diarrhea. Several times. Ew.

Everyone agreed it was a combination of rich treats, excitement, stress, and a very long three-day trial. Still, Gracie is a real trooper. After she'd had a couple more trips outside, she seemed to be feeling much better. Back to her bouncy, tail wagging self. So I decided to run her in that very last class.

It was a wonderfully glorious run, too. Not pretty (had to fudge the weaves) but I did some fancy handling including two front crosses (yes, in a Novice course!) and she was right there with me. She just sailed through the middle of the course, stretching out and taking the jumps with lovely form.

Mimi and I didn't manage to pull it together on Sunday. The girls were engaging in horrible screaming crate fighting while I was trying to walk the Open Jumpers course so by the time I left the course two times to go up and try to separate and cover their crates, I was in a pretty foul mood. I wasn't able to muster up the happy voice until second half of the course. Since Mimi missed the SECOND jump (my fault entirely) but continued to take the third (so it wasn't a refusal but a wrong course, which is not allowed in Jumpers), the entire run was a wash. I finally did remember to use the happy voice and she just blasted ahead. I don't think I did right by her in that run but I tried.

Something very odd happened during our Open Standard briefing. Standard that day was being judged by the out-of-town judge (it was a two-ring, three-judge trial--had to be with more than 890 runs on Saturday and nearly that many on Sunday). Anyway, after the usual AKC safety review, she said, I want to remind you all of something.

During the Excellent classes, the judge said, a handler sent her dog off course with an incorrect hand movement. Even though the dog performed the rest of the course with no errors, the handler was glaring at the dog and speaking tersely. The judge said she could see the dog crumbling with each obstacle. At the end of the run, the handler gave no praise to the dog, jammed the leash on it, and left the ring clearly angry.

The judge paused, then said, I want you all to remember that many of us would give anything for just one more run...and the entire Open class, about 30 women and a few men, started crying. My first thought was that I would give anything, anything, to be able to run with my Iz again. Then I thought of my friend DSL and her Bullet. We would indeed give anything.

The judge looked around at all of us, and then she started crying too. Wiping tears from her face, she said, oh, I didn't mean to make you cry. Be happy, love your dogs, have a good run.

She was still wiping her eyes as she started off to measure the course yardage, and the entire group of us walked the course sniffing and trying not to be too obvious about wiping our eyes.

I know she didn't mean to make us sad.

And I know that I never, ever want to be that handler.

Gracie's First Agility Trial

Gracie went to her first agility trial today, an AKC trial in Ft. Worth. As you can see, she didn't Q in Standard because she wouldn't do a down on the table. But her contacts and weaves were just great! That little dance around the tire at the beginning got her a refusal but that by no means was the end of her run.

In Jumpers a short while later, she did earn her first Q!

Gracie has been weaving for her dinner for 8 or 9 days now, and everything started to come together for her around Tuesday. So the fact that she did her itty bitty 6 poles in each run the first time with no errors was a pretty big deal.

Mimi was at this trial too and I'll post about her runs later.

Operation Jealousy (2)

Mimi didn't Q in Open today but she completed both courses in their entirety! As my friends Gosia and DSL predicted, the tighter and more technical courses made a difference. Mimi didn't have a single refusal from running around a jump that was right in front of her. We could have Q'd in both Jumpers and Standard because our times were good and we didn't have too many allowed errors but we did get a fatal error in both.

I also confirmed that my mental state makes a huge difference to my insanely sensitive little dog. The Jumpers course was a bit challenging and I was feeling nervous when I took her to the gate area. She totally picked up on that nervousness and ran the equivalent yardage of an entire second course by running around sniffing after obstacle 5. Somehow I managed to get her back on track with no off courses, not an easy task in a complicated Jumpers course. Unfortunately, she still wasn't focused and had a bad weave entry. I made her go back and complete the weaves and after that, she was fast and on track with me. Even with all of the running around and sniffing, we still made course time!

The Standard course was fortunately very smooth and flowing. It had challenges but because of the training that I do with Debbie, none of these were going to be a problem. I really worked on my mental state before I got Mimi out of her crate, convincing myself that this was just like class. In fact, it wasn't anywhere near as difficult as class. When I took her to the gate area, I felt...normal. Just like in class.

For this run, I also pulled out two secret weapons: Jif To Go peanut butter in dog-servable plastic cups (it's almost like they made this product for sports dogs!) and slices of the grass-fed, free-range New York strip I had grilled for my own dinner last night (dusted with coarse salt, fresh ground pepper, and dried garlic and cooked rare). Mimi and Gracie were going nuts for both.

Still, Mimi was showing the usual signs of stress in the gate area but like yesterday, I didn't stress or obsess about this myself, and I made her sit on her own at the start line for both runs and did very short lead outs. Mimi broke her start line stay for the Standard run but since that is not a regular problem she has, but a stress-induced one, I went with it.

Mimi of course hit all her contacts. She popped out of the weaves at pole 10 but I made her go back and redo them, which she did perfectly and quickly. I would not have made the old Mimi go back and redo anything so this was a HUGE achievement all by itself. This is not a fatal error in Open.

No, what did us in for the Standard run was the evil table. It was a down on the table, and I refused to stress about it. I ran right to the table and said "Down!" in my happy voice. Mimi did actually drop into a down then noticed the number cone on the ground in front of her and jumped off to sniff it. The judge snickered when I sighed and said half under my breath, "...terriers... ." A table fault is allowed in Open so I put her back on the table but her concentration was broken and while she did sit, she clearly wasn't going back into a down. Rather than stress her out, I decided to continue to keep the course flow going. You gotta complete the table no matter what and we didn't, so that was an elimination fault and no Q.

But let's remind ourselves of the most amazing success of today: she completed BOTH COURSES in their entirety. Not pretty, not clean, but she did run them. No question that Gracie's presence (including all of the taunting with toys and treats) and the more challenging courses kept Mimi from slipping too far back into her old freaky tape loop.

Mimi is my agility star this weekend and I'm super proud of her.

Operation Jealousy

It's late, I'm tired, and I have to be in Belton by 8am tomorrow which means I need to leave by 5am which means I need to get up at 3am. Better than this morning when I got up at 2am. So I'll try to keep this short.

Following my friend DSL's advice, I put Operation Jealousy in place today. I cruelly taunted Mimi with vienna sausages then gave them to Gracie. I played ball with Gracie in front of Mimi's crate. I took Gracie all over the arena with Meems stewing in her crate wondering what we were up to.

Ready for the results?

Mimi Q'd and placed first in Jumpers for our AKC Novice B Jumpers title at 8am, then around 2:30 pm she Q'd and placed third in Standard for our AKC Novice B Standard title.

I collected every ribbon that I was entitled to: green Q ribbons, placement rosettes, New Title rosettes, and that bright orange Double Q rosette. We worked hard for those ribbons! That's Mimi on the left, Gracie on the right.

Some highlights:

• I immediately filled out the move up form so tomorrow we will be running in Open.
• I got a short lead out on both runs. Sure, I was no more than a few feet in front of the first jump but it was a real lead out. I left her in a sit and walked away.
• Mimi sat on the table and held it for the full count, even holding it while I moved away from the table before releasing her. Amazing!
  
• Mimi hit all of her contacts.
• She did her weaves on the first try in both runs.
• The Standard course judge was rather generous in her calls, as many judges are for the Novice classes. In the video below, Mimi hesistates ever so slightly at the table and the tunnel, both of which would probably have been called refusals in Excellent.
  
• Mimi usually deflates completely after the first run, emotionally and physically. Instead, this afternoon she was thrashing around in her crate ready to be let out after I played with Gracie right in front of her. (I carefully timed my play with Gracie to take place while the 12" dogs ran so that there was only a couple of minutes between putting Gracie away and getting Mimi out for her run.)
  
• Mimi was BEGGING me for treats and attention in the gate area before our Standard run. She was jumping on me just like she does in class without even an eye flick to the usual crowd of dogs and people in the gate.
  

In fact, I think the "just like in class" thing is important. I was feeling pretty frustrated when I posted last night, and when I got to the arena this morning, I had sort of mentally thrown up my hands and said, okay, whatever, Mimi is going to do what she is going to do. So with no false expectations, I entered the ring both times just like I do in class--I wasn't stressed or worried about Mimi's stress or worry, I wasn't stressed or worried about the outcome. I just ran the courses like I planned them.

But the real surprise was how Mimi reacted to my playing with Gracie. In short, she had a total hissy fit every time I got Gracie out. When I gave Gracie the vienna sausages, I thought Mimi was going to pop. When I played ball with Gracie in front of Mimi's crate, Mimi started thrashing and barking!

So every time I got Mimi out of her crate, she had very little emotional energy left for worrying about scary agility trial monsters. It was all about Mimi! Me! Me! Me! Play with me, not that stupid bitch, who I would kill if you gave me half a chance. Meeee! It's all about meeee!

DSL suggested that what I did was interrupt the tape loop that Mimi has been running in her head at trials and replaced it with some weird amalgamation of Mimi's obsession with me, her sister, and agility, in that order.

Operation Jealousy, Day 2. You know, if taunting my dog and using her obsessions is what it takes, then I will continue to do it. Gracie certainly had a great time today with all of the attention and play.

In the meantime, I couldn't be happier with Mimi's success.

Here's video from our Standard run. Not pretty, but we got the job done. Thank goodness we aren't judged on style points. Oh, and I should mention that the old Mimi would never have played with a toy in her crate (that's her first place prize from Jumpers). She surprised me by doing it so I grabbed the camera and filmed her.

Can We Talk?

Let's talk about agility. It's been a while since we got caught up on that. First, the good news.

Last Saturday, I went to a half-day snooker seminar offered by my regular agility instructor. Debbie doesn't teach snooker in her regular class because most of her students don't do USDAA, the organization that offers the snooker game.

Debbie does play USDAA, and lately noticed that she has been seeing much harder Masters Snooker courses. If you can't get three 7's then you are out of luck for a placement, much less a Super Q. So she offered a Masters level snooker seminar for that small group of us that also play USDAA.

I of course wanted to do this seminar with Mimi but emailed Debbie and told her that I was going to bring Gracie too. Are you sure, she emailed back. The courses might be too far above her skill level right now. I replied, even if we only work on long lead outs and do a few obstacles, it will be a rewarding experience for her.

A brief, oversimplified note about the agility game of snooker: there are three or four jumps designated as "reds" that are assigned a point value of 1. Other obstacles are assigned point values of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. These can be "combos" like two jumps that must be taken in a specific order or orientation or a jump/tunnel combo, or like the example below, the 7 point obstacle which consists of two jumps and a set of 6 weaves. The basic idea of snooker is that you do a "red" obstacle, then a pointed obstacle, then a different red, then a pointed obstacle, then yet a different red, then a pointed obstacle. You can do each red only once. Once you complete all of the reds followed by successful completion of pointed obstacles (this part is called the opening), you can then run through the closing, which is obstacles 2 through 7 in that order. I won't go into all of the insane details about what happens when you make an error or what even constitutes an error in snooker. The goal is to get as many points as possible in the opening then complete as many obstacles as possible in the closing before you run out of time. If you are a snooker god, you will get (1 + 7) + (1 + 7) + (1 + 7) = 24 points in the opening then 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 = 27 points in the closing for a grand total of 51 points and do it all within the allotted time.

Snooker is a tough game and judges are certainly designing pretty nefarious courses at the Masters level. I scanned the map for the second course we ran in the seminar. This is an actual Masters Snooker course that Debbie ran a couple of weekends before that. Note that the three reds are arranged in a pinwheel in the northwest corner while the 7 obstacle, a jump-jump-weave combo, is arrayed along the south end. And further note that the start line is entirely behind the pinwheel of reds.



To get three 7s on this course, you have to run past all sorts of enticing things like tunnels! Other jumps! Oh my!

Now that was a pretty long way around to get to the point, which is that Gracie NAILED this course. She absolutely NAILED it. Got all three 7s and the complete closing in 46 seconds (Mimi did it in 41 seconds), which would have been a Q in competition. (I ran it the exact same way for both.) Gracie isn't yet doing upright weaves, so I placed a second set of 6 slanted weave poles below the regular set. So Gracie was actually doing a harder course than the other dogs because she had to run out farther for her baby weaves then back into the jumps for the rest of the 7.

About an hour into the seminar, Debbie said to me, you must get this dog into the ring as soon as possible!

So the good news? Gracie's first agility trial will be an AKC trial in Ft Worth in May. I emailed the trial secretary when I got home from the seminar and promptly entered Gracie in all of the same classes as Mimi. Now won't that be interesting?

But that leads to the bad news. Or not such great news.

I've been to a couple of agility trials with Mimi that I haven't mentioned here. She is doing just terrible, regressing back to doing just an obstacle or two if I'm lucky. Her stress level at trials is off the charts.

In fact, a couple of weekends ago I got up early on a Sunday morning to get ready to head to Austin for flyball practice. The gear and packing and routines are very similar for flyball and agility. Mimi saw me start this activity and began to tremble, just like she does at an agility trial. She followed me around, tail tucked, ears back, head down, just like she does when she goes into an agility ring. She was terrified that I was going to pack her into the car and head to an agility trial! I was so sad when I realized this.

I am at a loss at how to proceed with her. I can only expose her to show conditions at actual trials. I'm becoming very uncomfortable with the money I'm wasting on entries without even four obstacles in a row to show for it. It would be different if she was trying full courses and just not getting Qs but we don't even get that far. I'm also becoming very frustrated with her weird phobia--I don't know how to work past this.

My friend DSL in Virginia suggested that Gracie might be a secret weapon. It's true that Mimi is obsessed with trying to kill her sister. When I run Gracie in class, Mimi barks and thrashes in her crate, not at all happy with that situation. (For those of you who don't have snarky terriers, the barking and thrashing is the tip of the iceberg. Mimi really and truly does want to kill her sister and has tried to do so on numerous occasions. That's why they are always separated.)

DSL suggested I take Gracie to the next trial (which happens to be tomorrow) and play with her and give her vienna sausages and walk her around so that Mimi can see all of this. Perhaps Mimi will become so wound up and focused on her sister that she'll forget to become so FUCKING STRESSED that she can't even jump.

Yeah, it's a good plan but I don't hold much hope for success.

Still, I've got all of the gear packed up and plan to haul the sisters to Belton in the morning, about 2 1/2 hours drive south. Mimi will be in the Jumpers ring by 8:15 am or so and I need time to set up, so I'll be leaving the house at 4am in the morning. Not pretty but you do what you have to do.

If Mimi totally tanks tomorrow, I won't go back on Saturday (more wasted entry fees). But I will very much look forward to May when I can get Gracie into the ring.

Catching Up

Mimi, November 2008

(All the photos in this post were taken by FastClicks.)

It's been a stressful, crazy week at work. But this blog isn't meant for my whining about that. Still, all week long I've only felt like coming home and playing with dogs, not sitting at the computer.

Harry still has one stubborn toenail that bleeds when we play ball in the carpeted dog room. It isn't the horrendous ripping off of his entire nail like we were dealing with back in December and January, but it does bleed a bit. Not sure how it will hold up on rubber matting but we've got yet another week for the cyclosporine to work its magic.

Mimi and Gracie are just ripping it up in class. They are still in separate classes but Gracie is showing so much improvement and focus that I hope she can move up soon.

Mimi in November 2008 (The Unfortunate Incident occurred at this trial but at least the photo is nice)

The table and weaves are Gracie's big issues now. I work her on weave-a-matics at home but at class Debbie also uses a set of channel weaves. For a few weeks, Gracie has been struggling with the classic channel failing: she runs along one side or the other but not in the channel. However, I've been patient and have been rewarding her even if she only does 8 or 10, and I especially reward if she hits the entrance. On Wednesday, she managed to do all twelve weaves with a small channel at full speed within a sequence. It was totally awesome.

Her table problem is odd. She'll nail her landing, brake properly, drop into a sit, but won't hold a down if her life depended on it. Tonight, instead of playing ball, Gracie got to go back to remedial down training. I used my "tiny table" that I built for Iz when she was having table flyoff issues. It's only 1 1/2" tall and 2x2 feet in area. It requires the dogs to really focus on what they are doing. Small improvement after tonight's session, but I plan to work on this regularly for a while.

Mimi is my little agility queen. I used to call Iz that but I think Mimi is earning that title too. She is utterly awesome.

Mimi's first agility trial, Aug 2008

Cap continues to blossom and Circus K9 Ruff Love camp continues. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I refer you to Susan Garrett's book Ruff Love. While she presents a pretty extreme training method in her book, most of the rest of us use a watered-down version of Ruff Love in real life.

I want Cap to be focused on me, to become obsessed with playing with me. He can't decide he doesn't like this toy and suddenly runs off to get that toy. He doesn't get to decide when the game is over. It is the tug or ball that I select or nothing. Doesn't play with the toy I chose, he goes back in his crate. Doesn't bring the ball back, back in his crate. Doesn't grab the tug fast enough or drops it too soon, back in his crate.

But this presents a perfect opportunity to play crate games with Cap, another Susan Garrett training tool. Tonight, I put him in his crate, left the door open, walked to the other end of the dog training room (about 15 feet away), released him, ran to the target board with the X on it, told him to hit it, and as he flipped off the board, I turned and ran back the other way dragging the tug, which he ran and pounced on. This is a game to build drive and focus.

And the crate is not punishment, it's really just a place for a short time out. I might get another dog out and play for a bit but often Cap only has to wait in there for less than a minute before I get him out for another try.

I am also playing crate games with his dinner since he eats in a crate. I usually have him do all sorts of obedience work but restrained recalls are part of the routine as well. I prepare his dinner, carry it to his crate, open his crate, release him, then call him to me at least 6 feet or more from his crate. I gently hold his chest, say "ready ready ready" and when I feel him tense up or start to push against my hands, I release him and say "get in your box!" and he runs into his crate. This game builds drive too. Technically, these are a sort of restrained send since I'm not calling the dog to me but sending him to the crate, but the idea is the same: run top speed to something/some person to get your reward.

Mimi will literally slam herself into her crate from any angle in her frenzy to get her dinner/reward. I most often practice lead outs with her before she gets her dinner. Cap is starting to show the same appreciation for the crate as a super duper reward place.

G. has been asking if Cap chases the cats. He often charges them or pounces at them but they ignore him. They are far too dog-savvy and world-weary to notice something as annoying as a puppy.

Lola may have lost an ounce or two.

Bits, Oddments, and Loose Ends

On Sunday, I worked Mimi in the field with our little PA system. The sound quality in the video below is kind of crappy because it was really windy (that's why I cut out all of the sound from the clips of Gracie and Cap). Still, you can tell that Mimi is flicking her ears back, standing up, and generally getting uncomfortable on the table as I'm counting down (the volume was up pretty high and I'm sure my neighbors were wondering what the hell the crazy dog lady was up to). But I was able to reinforce her on the table quite a bit and she went on to perform nicely.

I believe. . . dare I say it? . . . that she is slowly desensitizing to the PA sounds.

Enjoy the video. I shot it on Sunday morning. It was cool and breezy and all three pups enjoyed doing some work outside.

On Friday, I had my first lesson in TTouch (this link is reasonably informative). I am willing to try anything that might help my girlie and I figured TTouch could perhaps give me some tools to maintain a connection with Mimi in the gate area at trials. The idea is that with time, she will learn to associate a calm, relaxed, but focused state with my touching her and that perhaps I can recreate that state in the gate area before she becomes so stressed. My friend Denise suggested that I can also use TTouch after runs when she is also pretty worked up.

It will take a while for me to learn how to do it correctly and for her to learn to associate the touches with a calm state. Fortunately, I have an entire house full of animals who will line up to let me practice on them! I'll get a second lesson in a few weeks.

Harry is still feeling super crappy. I can hear his poor little gut rumbling and roiling. My friend Denise, a regular font of information tonight, suggested famotidine. Iz took that too. I'll get some tomorrow and see if it doesn't help Harry. I gave him some carofate tonight before dinner in the hopes that it might help him rest more comfortably tonight. He got me up twice last night to go outside with diarrhea, poor little guy. I spent many long months with Iz sleeping with the light on and one eye open. It is not a skill I am pleased to have. On the bright side, sick pups get to go to work with me and he's enjoying that special attention. I can't tell yet if his feet feel better--his GI distress is masking any change there. Today is day 5 of the nasty meds.

Lola is still fat. Maybe she's photosynthetic.

Cap went to my vet today for his "puppy wellness" exam. He has tapeworms and I wanted a course of strongid to treat him for all of the other kinds too. Puppies get worms and he's been in at least half a dozen foster homes so it's not a surprise or a big deal. Still, worms. Ew. Need to be dealt with.

The vet told me some very interesting things. Foremost of these, he said that in his experience, twice the weight of a pup at 16 weeks is about what they will weigh as an adult. The more accurate scales at the vet told us Cap now (at about 17 weeks) weighs 12.8 lbs . . . so he may only be around 24 lbs as an adult! Gracie weighs 22 lbs (but as I've said, she's a big, strapping bitch).

I already knew that Cap only has one descended testicle. The vet said the other one is up in his body but that it probably won't drop. Since Cap won't be bred, having only one testicle is not of itself a problem. But those undropped testicles often become cancerous. Now, his neuter operation requires more invasive surgery, more like a spay than the usual snip-snip. I'm glad I convinced the rescue group to wait and let me take Cap intact. I'll feel more comfortable having my own vet do this more complicated surgery.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun!

Two videos! Double your pleasure!

The first is some clips of me playing ball and tug with Cap. Sorry for the dim lighting. I'll work on that the next time I film in that room (that's my dog room--it is large enough for twelve weave poles, or a flyball box and a jump--that room is one of the reasons I bought the house). I cut out the audio because the other dogs are having a fit and that's about all you can hear.

The second is from the fun run last Sunday. Because Mimi was pretty stressed, her runs really weren't much to brag about but I clipped out the last part of her third run. Gracie was entertaining as always. She is a bit hesitant with the chute, doesn't like to down on the table, and oh my god! there was a tunnel under the dogwalk! Never heard of such a thing! Took us a while to work through that. I had the camera on the tripod which meant it was set back pretty far to get the entire field in view, so everything is very small in the videos. I cut out the audio because it was terribly windy that day.

Cap update: He's been a bad boy today. I had him outside with Gracie while I was doing some housecleaning this morning. When I went to check on them, Cap was busily tunneling his way under the soapberry tree. Had to pause in the housecleaning to give him another bath. I caught him digging twice more today--a new problem to work on. Later I was trying a harness on him for fit and before I knew it, snick, he chewed through it. I said, damn it, that cost twenty-four dollars! then felt a bit stupid because what does Cap know about money? And he's peed in the house twice today immediately after coming in from outside. Argh.

The second pee event has resulted in Cap being tethered to me. No playing with toys or the sisters or wandering around the house until he pees outside and gets a treat for it.

He's getting introduced to the fabulous yummy stuff the other dogs get to eat--tonight it was chicken livers in a bed of kibble. Mmm. The market doesn't have those livers too often. They are from free range "happy" chickens. Yogurt, carrot treats, fresh green veggies--so far he's inhaling it all.

Today started really great though. It was cloudy and a bit cool, nothing like the 20 degrees it was two days ago. I had Cap chase me as I was dragging a toy and did his clicker work outside in the agility field for a change of scenery. We started working on stay this morning. I also set up a course with a serpentine/threadle jump sequence ending in a 270, plus tunnel under dogwalk (different shape than in the fun run) and at the far end of the field, set up a circle of teeter, triple, weaves, and chute and worked Mimi and Gracie through all of this. Great fun was had by all.

A Lovely Day Spent Outside With Your Dogs is Never a Wasted Day

My agility instructor held a show-n-go at her facility today. The weather was a bit nasty yesterday, very windy and grey, cloudy, and cool. But I got up at 6am this morning to a calm, clear sky and a lovely sunrise. It got up to perhaps 55 degrees today, so in order to spend most of the day outside, I dressed in plenty of layers.


I originally planned to take only Gracie. I figured she'd benefit the most from this new take on agility. Mimi is very comfortable at Debbie's facility and I didn't think that she would really need to go. But this morning I decided to take Mimi and the new puppy both.

Our setup. I had planned to put Cap in the smaller crate on the right but Mimi and Gracie were being snarky to each other.

It turns out taking Mimi was an excellent decision. Even though this was a casual show-n-go, there were plenty of people and strange dogs and unusual noises, enough to turn the usually comfortable class setting into kind of a scary place. And indeed, Mimi started displaying her fear behavior at her first run. This was a fantastic opportunity for me to work through some of her issues. She did much better in her second run (Jumpers), and by her third run, back in the Standard ring, she was a little stressed at the start line but once we got going, she was all business.

Gracie did pretty darned well considering she has never done more than 8 or 9 obstacles in sequence before. She had a lot of problems with the dogwalk in her first run. The first time up it she thought it was the teeter, a common green dog mistake. And there was a tunnel under the first half of the dogwalk. Gracie had never seen such a thing and kept jumping off the dogwalk onto the top of the tunnel. It was funny but not what I wanted. I finally lured her slowly up the dogwalk and once she got past the tunnel, she was all, OOH! Now I get it! She struggled in Jumpers--I wasn't stopping to reward her enough--and kept shutting down around obstacle 10. But her third run (Standard) was outstanding. Perfect dogwalk the first time, fabulous teeter, listened to me all the way.

I videotaped both of them and hope to get that posted later this coming week.

And then there was Cap. He got plenty of attention and time out of the crate. I did some long line work with him and we played tug and fetch. Mostly I walked him around the periphery of the two rings, letting him sniff what he wanted, and occasionally calling him to me to work on recalls. He's got a great headcheck at his name and comes every time I say come. We also started a bit of circle work/chase me games. For the most part I kept him away from crowds of people and other dogs.

Of course, as soon as I walked him in the gate, Debbie made a beeline for us, very curious as to who and what this little fluffball is. She and a couple of others think he has BC in him. The mystery of his origins continues!

The other most excellent benefit of all this play and work and agility is that I now have three totally exhausted pups!

Cap curled up at my feet in the computer room. I've not seen him stop moving before this except when crated.

Mimi in the "isolation room".

Gracie in the cat bed in the chair in the living room.

Sisters (2)

Class was again ever so fabulous this week. Gracie is turning out to be quite a focused agility teammate. She is soon going to be nipping at Mimi's heels in class and in the ring, metaphorically speaking, of course. They are now in back to back classes but I hope that we can move Gracie up into Mimi's class soon.

I did forget a couple of times that Gracie is still green--I can't handle a sequence for her exactly as I would for her sister. But besides needing me to stay closer to the obstacles than I would with Mimi, Gracie also reads the course differently. The differences are subtle. Both dogs are small, fast, spend lots of time sproinging in the air, turn on a dime, and in many ways physically perform the same. But Mimi is edgy. I feel like we are always just a bit out of control. I have to move so fast to keep up with her, to stay ahead of her and give her information about the course that I hardly have time to think. Gracie is excited and moves plenty fast but I don't get the same sense of careening around the course with her. The difference is not the same as that between an experienced dog and a novice dog. The sisters are so similar yet not at all the same.

When I was in Utah for the holidays, I visited a friend who does agility with an aussie and a parson russell terrier. She showed us a video that she made of her terrier doing this amusing trick: putting all four feet in a tiny little bowl. She started off by teaching him to do this in a larger bowl.

I set the bowl trick up tonight for the sisters using a 9x13 pyrex glass baking pan. Gracie nailed it in one session, and in the film below, she's doing just the end performance again for the camera.

On the other hand, after spending nearly twice the time working on it, Mimi never really figured this one out. Oh, of course, she got that it involved the blue bowl but that's as far as I could take her. There was lots of leaping about and random placement of feet in the bowl but she never once deliberately put a hind foot into it. She was chomping my fingers to get to the treats, which is unusual for her, and which clearly indicates that she was more excited/stressed than normal.

Which reminds me. To update everyone on the training I'm doing to help her with her fear issues, I continue to randomly use my little PA system when Mimi plays ball with me in the house. She is flinching less and less--and tonight I even made the thing squelch out some feedback and she still brought the ball back to me. I hope this weekend the weather will cooperate and I can take it outside to my training field. Once we take that baby step, then we'll take the PA show on the road--to class, that is!

Gracie's Big Adventure

Gracie, Harry, Dyna, and I are off today on our big holiday adventure. We are driving up to Salt Lake City to spend a few days with Gosia and her pack.

Gosia and I started agility at about the same time and her BC Grommit and my Iz used to train together all the time. Iz was totally in love with Grommy and he was the only dog that she would actually play with. Gosia and I also started Utah Tail Blazers Flyball Club, which is still going strong. This is a particularly big adventure for Gracie because Gosia is Gracie's godmother.

When Gracie's placement didn't work out and she had to be returned to me, Gosia kept her for quite a few weeks until we could arrange transport for her back to Texas. The first part of the video is a 5-month old Gracie playing with Gosia's BC Banshee. The second part, well, it's probably self-explanatory.

I'm sure that even my grumpy old Harry will be happy to see his old friends!