Jump skills-a primer.

All right. All the time, people ask me, "What highly scientific dog training methods do you use there at Team Small Dog to teach your dogs the magic of the dog agility?"

All right. No one ever asks me that. No one at all. They just think, show up at the dog show, run around fast, and maybe win a prize. Ha! Is called, we try to practice. You know, we go before work, and we go to Dirt Nite. And this weekend, we go to a Fun Match. Practice Dog Show. Where you can take a Gustavo and a tupperware out on the field and run around some. And practice some more with the other dogs since the big dog shows are coming up in August.

How do I decide what to practice? Is based on the highly scientific method of how late to work am I? We do courses at Dirt Nite, so practice time is little drills I carefully plan out at night make up as I go along to cover stuff we might be, ahem, deficit in. Distance. Jumping without hitting bars and doing crackhead handling that scares the dogs. Contacts. Everything with Gustavo.

Here's a nice example for you. A little sequence that has a 270, a threadle, a U-turn into a straight line, a front cross. Sort of like ben and jerry's ice cream that has all the crap in there to dig out. A long island iced tea. but my non dog agility friends, look at how I wiggle and turn and this and that to make the dog leap and turn. There is the magic skills. My tattoo'ed friends, you can do this with or without tattoos and even without a dog and it is called 80's aerobics with Olivia Newton John. Is more cooler with a dog. Can't tell you if having the tatttoo makes it cooler. Possibly not. but maybe luckier?

Get out all your weapons and you can build this course too.

All right. We have been really and truly practicing again. Like organized, sequence setting, thinking about, practicing. Actual Planning! With something for everyone, and trying to leave Timmy earlier in the morning so I'm not freaking out about how late I'm going to be to work. Because the dog shows are coming! Crack of dawn everyone. Sort of. Not really. Early enough!


OK. This one. Every time I start muttering about what am I doing training a squirrel to do agility, he makes some kind of breakthrough and he did that this week. I'm not showing you. I can't take pictures and run him is what I'm learning. Like not even a second can I lose focus to go fiddle with a camera button. I know. You thought my reality tv production crew takes these stunning photos. Is just me and my dad's camera and my greasy fingers, my friends. Plus, he didn't do these grown up dog sequences. Although he did little parts of them. He is still on the little yellow bus doing his own special poles with channels open at the entrances/exits, and a lower a-frame, and a lower teeter and the dogwalk with targets out.

And sometimes running around big black buckets because he likes that and considers running around a bucket an agility obstacle. When someday the gamble includes trash cans or buckets out there a million miles from the tape line, he's my main man. But I gotta tell you, his little sequences are getting confident and coming together and as they get more consistent, SO FAST, and I am glad I'm taking it so slow because I see these glimmers of greatness in him. Before he dashes in that tunnel again. Or goes looking for a hole in the fence. His training mantra is Repeat, Rinse, Repeat.


So here's an exercise you might like. My course map maybe not really to scale. Who's ever seen a bullet bigger than the gun? Make a figure 8 with some jumps off on one side, poles down the middle, and a dogwalk to jumps and a chute barrel off the other side. So there are a gazillion ways to come into the middle pole section off the jumps part, and you can change up your turns to the dogwalk each time. Like I would go Gun-Knife-Bullet-Poles-Dogwalk-Cup-Knife-Bullet-Knife-Poles again. Or you go in reverse order. Or Gustavo can do it without the Grown Up Poles but still do all the knives and bullets and the gun.


So you could front cross between the bullet and the poles, which was Ruby's preferable way for me in there. She likes me to RACE her through those poles. So I try to beat her. She's actually been looking pretty good, and now I sort of wish I had decided to do a DAM team with her in July. But I think she doesn't need long days of a lot of runs. So I'm just going to keep her workload light and see if she holds up.


Sometimes just let her wrap the bullet and either rear cross the poles to dogwalk, or just handle them on the left and rear cross the dogwalk. A lot of ways to get onto that dogwalk and work on those contacts which are looking smashing! Making actual concerted effort to place delicate little dog paws on that yellow paint.


Otterpop hates that front cross to the poles. So picky. She likes me far away from her going into the poles. Needs her privacy. Which is fine when she's super speedy and practicing, but not so fine at a trial and she's slower. Problem being, I can't get her to practice slow. She attacks poles with a vigor that I believe she would like to try out on cattle. You can't see but there are actual cattle off camera here, across a couple fences. Boy does she give them the stink eye. A new thing to watch on the new field. They don't notice her, tiniest cattle type chihuahua in town. They seem to sleep a lot.


She prefers I hang back and let her into the poles from way back and rear cross or stay on that side and rear cross her dogwalk. Ruby hates that. Otterpop loves that. I have been trying to teach Gustavo every possible way I can think of to get him in the poles so he is not so damn picky as these two.


So typical of Otterpop. Just likes to do it her own damn way. Of course wants me to be around desperately, but always gotta look like she's the one running the show.

I am full of joy that I do not have a giant wart on my muzzle.

Oh Dear. I've bitten off a big chewy bite of dog training now, with my promise of taking you on a journey of Greg Derrett, Team Small Dog style. Like when you stuff all the sushi in your mouth in front on the sushi chef and he looks at you, and you know he's thinking, gross, disgusting, rice dribbling, soy sauce drooling lady. No free sake bombs for you. But have no fear. I have asked to borrow the Greg Derrett videos! Although, you remember last time I tried to watch dog training videos. Attention span of a flea. But I haven't seen the Greg Derrett ones in years and maybe now that I always sometimes wistfully actually remember to use my Handling System that I subscribe to I will have a longer attention span to better translate to both my agility friends and my non agility friends who I will reel in thinking that I have a subscription to a Dog Agility Boyfriend. And we will do it to sizzling disco grooves and we're going to have a grand time.


But for right now, can I tell you about Gustavo's wart? We pretty much just call him warty face now. Not that I don't have a Timmy with real and genuine medical problems that I should be thinking about, but disgusting facial warts are a nice way to think about something that isn't Timmy pacing and heavy breathing on the floor here next to me. This one I guess is histiosomethingnotcancerousprobably. I am very lucky that 2 of my beloved customers are small animal vets and since my dogs are part of the landscape at work, there is no avoiding vets for my dogs. They just think it's nice ladies at work letting them sit on their laps. So this kind of wart is the kind that most people start to freak out of the ugliness when it reaches the size of your thumbnail. Which is the precise size that they should start falling off all on their lonesome, sans surgery. According to the histiowhateveritis wart belief system. Vets learn this stuff in vet school just like we learn handling consistency in dog agility school. And all the vets I know were WAY better students of veterinary medicine than I am at dog agility school.

So one of my beloved vets is more of a surgeon type, performing important dog saving surgeries every day, and she said he could just come in on Monday and she'd hack that thing off and stitch him up. But the other beloved vet is of the Just Let the Damn Thing Go Away On It's Own school of wart belief. Which she says is hard because it's at this thumb size that people really start to do things like writing up little stories about their dog's wart and then not being able to stand the sight of it and getting it hacked off and stitched up. I'm tending to try and use patience and not looking at his face so much and just hoping the thing goes away. Dealing with nose stitches on a dog that never sits still? Who is getting ready to go on a journey of dog training that will turn him into a perfectly, well greased mini Hobbes? (Who is like totally the teacher's pet of Correct Handling System usage. But like a really cool teacher's pet, not one the other kids are going to gang up on and steal the pants of. )

There might just be this one little flaw in this whole plan. That I am somewhat unteachable. And teaching me tends to make things go horribly awry and end up with the furniture hooked up to earthquake machines and the paint all falling off the house. Oh boy. Good thing it will involve sizzling disco grooves.

Greg Derrett's handling system made easy.

So my non dog agility friends. Do you ever wonder how we make the dogs tootle around our little courses out there? If you are my dad, your dog is very smart and could do it without ever having to practice a thing. I believe many people have this view of dog agility. Which is fine. Come and try it with me one day. Your ass will be so kicked and you will be in awe of the magical training powers us dog agility people use to get our dogs to go over and through and around.

Some of us even have a system. Sort of like betting on the ponies and making a lot of money. Or sitting, staring at a roulette ball in a drunken stupor for hours at a time trying to win back your money. Using your system. I have one for agility but I did not invent it, I subscribe to the system of Greg Derrett. Sort of like I subscribe to the New Yorker magazine. They come to my house all the time, with their colorful and witty covers. They sit on the table full of important information and well written things that make me cry at the whole well writtenness of them that I cannot ever hope to aspire to. Sometime they are full of very, very boring articles that would make me very smart and enriched to read and other times with articles that when I do get around to reading them make me very happy I have read a Whole Article in the New Yorker because it was about monkeys or earthquakes or a chef with cancer of the tongue. So I subscribe, but I don't always utilize to full advantage except in my mind.

Who is laughing out there that are my agility friends, because you are saying, Laura, you DO NOT USE a handling system! And you NEVER read the New Yorker! YES I do! But sometimes it is just in my mind and not in my body and OK, sometimes I just say I am running fast just haul ass running but I am a Trained System User!

So let's meet my New Yorker magazine of dog agility. Hi Greg Derrett! Let's say he is my agility boyfriend. He is from England and has talented border collies and a beautiful agility wife. I know. Some of you are his best friend and with his wife too. And now you will go and tell him I said that he's my agility boyfriend. That's fine. When I see Gwen Stefani I'll tell her you told me she is your Rock Star Girlfriend. We'll be even. But here's how I shall explain his handling system to you, my non agility friends who think perhaps I should be spending more time doing activities that are not dog agility. Let's put out the Twister mat, shall we?


All right. Stand facing me. Right foot on blue, left foot on yellow. We see a discrimination-aframe on the right, tunnel on the left. Right shoulder bends down to yellow, left hand down at side pointing towards yellow foot. Give shoulder, not the finger people! The technical term for this move is called Special Occasion Hand. Save it for the special occassion of the inside thing of the discrimination when you are worried over crossing a refusal line!

Easy, right?


OK. Both feet on blue now. You are driving at that aframe and you want the tunnel! Left hand out, over blues now up towards yellow and over green! Nice job! Tunnel not aframe! You just used Damn Thing Away From Me Arm! This should work from far distances if you are a good subscriber!


Now. Stick your dog on yellow, yellow blue blue next to you. We are going to threadle. You are on blue blue. Ready? Left foot up to yellow. Left hand and shoulder move inward, down towards the yellow on the right. Rotate! Right foot to red, hurry! Shoulder not finger again, right? Don't flick away! Yellow! Get to Yellow! Wait, Blue!! I said rotate. We use this threadle all the time. Not to be confused with twizzle.

OK. I could go on for hours here but you sort of get it, right? Are you subscribing? I am actually going to Review My Handling System this month since there are no dog shows for us until Fourth of July. Staying home to get Ruby back to herself and have some more time with Timmy. Do some actual jump training with Gustavo. It is going to be Consistency Time for Real, a Journey into Better Dog Agility and I am bringing all of you with me.

Can you identify Team Small Dog?

Today I tried to practice some challenging distance challenges with my dogs.


Boy did we suck. There is no gamblers teeter for Otterpop anywhere in her near future. Let's just leave it at that. Long story of teeter heartbreak. However you can send her to the weaves from bizarre places like relaxing in a lawn chair or a parked car. Very useful for those gamblers Q's. Ruby, little bit more of a wildcard. I thought that I had spent lots of time working on tunnel and contact discriminations with her, like YEARS, but today she proved me wrong. Such is life when you train dogs the team small dog way.

It was just kind of one of those days. You've had them.


But I thought perhaps our distance issues are a problem that could be retrained overlooked by sporty outfits?

We've been down this path before. We liked Jillian's sporty Project Runway coats and sweaters for dog agility wear. But for spring and summer, I saw these golf pictures and I thought, that is the face of dog agility! Lady golfers! They have spikey shoes. With tassels! The ladies looked so nice and friendly with smooth pony tails and this mysterious one glove. There were plaid knee shorts and shirts with collars and little skirts with things to stick your things you balance your golfing balls on. Before you whack it into some bushes or a giant windmill filled with broken beer bottles.

A lesson with Jim which cures the broken RSS.

Yesterday, I had my agility lesson. I go maybe once a month, or lately it's once every 2 months, up to Power Paws for a lesson with the Super Cool Jim Basic.


To get there, it is a journey on a twisty highway, over a mountain, from the sea! Through the valley of San Jose, and back up a mountain. Lots and lots of people in the Bay Area and from even farther away travel for their weekly Power Paws class with Jim or his wife, Nancy Gyes. Jim and Nancy are like the King and Queen of Dog Agility around here. Is that bad to say? Well, they are. But no matter how hard I try to organize it, I can't fit in a weekly class with an hour drive each way. So I go over on any Sunday we can make it work and have a lesson with Jim.


Not only has Jim helped me with just getting better at handling my dogs, he taught me to not totally suck at Gamblers. So I have Masters Gamblers Q's now. I think most of all he's taught me how to better look at a course and get my ass to the right spot for every part of it. But he is also funny and shares my love of all things ranches, and we always have a fun lesson and catch up on ranch things. He is training his puppy right now, Nancy chronicles it in Clean Run. So we talk about our puppies. I told him maybe next time he'll be able to see Gustavo run a little. But he's not ready yet. Jim's puppy is almost ready to make his debut. Mine, not so much.


We did take Gustavo up to his house and practice measuring him. He measures right at 12". I hear all you people with the tough measuring dogs groaning. OH NO! He is way too little to be a 16" dog. Ruby ran at 16" until last year when I moved her to performance and life is better there. He can be a performance dog if I have to, there is no shame in that, but I am going to work on teaching him to be a short 12" when he sees that measuring device. He's only been practice measured by me, so I am going to teach him to stand up short before he gets his real judge measuring. We'll see. He's just not a 16" dog. I'm pretty sure he's stopped growing now, and I just have to teach him shortness.


My dogs are always good at Jim's. They run fast and get all riled up. Ruby almost caught a squirrel there one time, like at least a year ago, and spent a couple runs running out to see if it was still there. But it gets her really fast, so Jim doesn't seem to care. She hit bars, she runs there like she can run at trials. I worked on better paths to possibly help her not leaving so damn long to the jump. Jim thinks she needs glasses. Otterpop is always happy there and runs like a speed demon. We worked on some better serpentines, me staying out of their path, tighter turns, and just me being the best handler I can be.


Jim also got some meatballs out of the shed frig and I ran Ruby back and forth through the poles a few times with visible meatballs on either side. Sort of like how I do at home with tupperwares. She got pretty frenzied and fast, like how I like her, so he said keep plugging away at it. They'll come back. Many meatballs, every single day.


No matter how weird a morning you have because the internet breaks, or how much you didn't sleep the night before because your Timmy was up and pacing, it's like you go to Jim's for a dog lesson and you come out all happy. Thanks Jim!