Teaching Go-a primer

I took the dogs out to practice before work yesterday. Boy do I wish I had my own big grassy yard.

I am lucky enough though to rent a friend's field so I can practice alone at least once a week with a genuine a-frame, teeter and dogwalk. I am always in a rush because before I can practice I need to move her sheep to another pasture, drag stuff around to set my puppy sequences, lower the a-frame, put wires on the weaves, and drag tunnels everywhere. Then undo that, have the other dogs do some sequences without wires and low stuff, put everything away, including sheep, and somehow get to work on time. My riding students are used to it that I am probably going to come flying down the driveway of the ranch late because I had to "practice with the dogs." Or fly out some nights at the stroke of 5pm because I have to go teach agility. They are indulgent of me. They are, perhaps wisely, concerned their trainer spends a freakish amount of time playing with her dogs, but those who question too deeply may have to ride longer without stirrups.

Most of what I practice is for Gustavo, since he's at a crucial state of his dog agility development. Today we worked the a-frame and teeter into a sequence, poles into the endless loop frenzy with tunnels on both ends, and starting learning Go.


The field is about 80' long. I set up a staggered line of jumps and an empty chute barrel and let 'em at it. There was a magic blue tupperware at the end of the line. I was tired. I decided everyone could practice just racing down a line.


So everyone did this a bunch. It was actually a great exercise for bar knocking Ruby to jump Carefully at Speed. And for Otterpop's distance skills with me layering objects out on the side. Gustavo, just running his ass off, and me running too so he learns I run fast, he runs fast, we all run fast, obstacles straight in front mean run fast, and there's never any not fast at agility.


So each dog ran that thing at least 10 times. That would be up and down. So 20 times per dog. That is 60 times for me. Why I look more like a post-partum pre-rehab Britney Spears on a bad day in the photos and less like a super toned Icon For the Over Forty Set Madonna with all that running is besides me. Let's never, ever buy jeans at the Gap again, ok?

Even though the song says to I never smack my bitches up.

It certainly was a black mood day yesterday but it was also sunny at work and the horses were all good and except for a clipper blade fiasco, I forgot about the bacteria and polar bears for a while. I also got to practice with the dogs in the morning.

It was House of Pain day at dog practice. Whatever happened to those guys? I think some of them became Limp Bizcit. Oh well. So sorry. The theme was Jump Around. I set up grids and that was all we worked on. Ruby, she of the mos def stay, was all a twitter to GO and when I'd walk up the grid* (*here, let's define grid for you skimmers, wake up Joel Warner! A grid is just a series of jumps that I customly space apart so that, in this case, there was one stride between them all but some one strides longer and shorter than the others. Makes the dogs think and balance themselves to, ahem, avoid knocking a rail). Yeah so I'd turn my back, walk up the line to put out a toy for her to drive to, and badabing. She is up the grid, swimmer turn and back down it to the stay place, 10 jumps all together, in a flash, like-HEY you don't see me RIGHT but i JUST Want to JUMP AROUND JUMP AROUND.

Otterpop, IN THE HOWSE, she has a less than mos def stay. Mos Weak. She wiggles here and there and lays down and likes to start from this weird I am a Lounge chair position. But eventually LOVE for the frisbee overcomes her need to not stay and she barreled up and down her jumps fantastico when she figures out the frisbee vanishes if you split the start early. She didn't hit anything. Did I mention on Ruby's turn she was wacking jumps right and left until she got it that she couldn't have a treat til she went thru without wacking stuff? That worked.

Gustavo is just learning to stay and drive down a line. You know that B.I.G. song "biggie biggie biggie can't you see, sometimes your words just hypnotize me?" He is little but he is learning the hypnotic spell of the WAIT W-A-I-T WAIT so I can walk down the grid and put a frisbee out. Even though Susan Garrett says I shouldn't need to do this. Sorry Susan Garrett! My training is flawed. We spent a lot of time at just a single jump too, driving out to a toy from a stay (Hello Success with One Jump-Say Hello To Success!) and then down the gymnastic, which he got fast and easy and good. I study the technique of Rami Droopy Turban of dresses too, because this is how he has become the powerful winner of ugly dresses-the hypnosis of Heidi and Nina and Tim! These are the new ways I find to train a Mexican Pet.

Yeah, in a perfect world we would all start out day like this. With old school hip hop and morning jump grids with everyone holding their stay followed by a run in the mountains and a wholesome breakfast I guess. In a perfect world those guys aren't all singing about ho's and smacking bitches up either and the polar bears have a big chunk of ice to sit on, not just a tiny ice cube they are balancing on one paw until it melts and they swim to their death.

When agility also includes a trip to the eye doctor.

Like I would take her to a dogpthamologist? And make her wear prescription doggles?

I know. I bitch because I'm too busy to train the dogs, then 5 minutes later I'll tell you about training the dogs. I just want more time to train the dogs. See one thing of dog agility is, you meet some retired folks. They are genuinely, positively, retired. With enough money somehow to take their rv somewhere like a vacaton, train the dogs, go out to lunch, pretty much whatever they want and not go to work. This is the lifestyle I aspire to! The retired person lifestyle! Except for the little issue of, being self employed and all, I might be working my fingers down to milkbones like forever til I kick it. With my boots on.

I would be a very busy retired person, just would not have to constantly ensure that people are writing me checks on time and for ideally large amounts of money. I would actually probably do all the things I do now except with way different hours and proportions of time allotted to things. Like my ranch would be at my house and I wouldn't have to have a gazillion customers, just a few that are nice. And dog agility would be at my house so I could practice whenever I wanted. And the art studio is at my house and clean so I can go in there and work on projects and always find the fresh xacto blades. And so on. And so forth. I just didn't do the right prep work to be a retired wealthy person, like I am picturing here. Let me go watch the Secret again.

But I did practice with the dogs some today. And 2 of the dogs kept hitting a double jump, from wherever we were jumping it. Otterpop is bad with spread jumps, aka oxers for you horse folk. She is just not scopey. Ruby just leaves long and exuberantly to cause her bar knocking. Otterpop is just plain old not built to jump. If she were a car, she'd have big fat hotrod tires in back and little teensy tiny ones up front and purple fur on her dash and little pompoms jingling and candy apple red glittersparkle paint and a shiney chrome chain steering wheel better for her hippity hop otterpop down the road. Yeah, you make that clear those spread jumps without knocking a rail every time. A scopey horse feels aethletic, and has an arc and a great hind end push off the ground. Otterpop is just a solid little tank built for low to the ground for speed but not really jump style. I'll speak to my breeder about that.

Ruby is now and always has been a chronic bar knocker. I did a lot with groundpoles and spread jumps in our younger days and nothing really helped except moving her down to Performance. The switch from being the tiniest 16" dog to an average size 12" performance dog helped, and my ego is pretty much over that switch. Let's just say it all together. There is nothing to be ashamed of having a Performance Dog. She is a lot happier with lower jump height and rarely knocks bars (but sometimes does). She just always has left long-like there is another stride left in there and she doesn't take it. That's what I'd say if she were a horse. Jim never could figure it out. He always asks how her eyesight is. Damned if I know. Like I'm going to get her glasses? If I remember to regulate her pace (ie, slow her down-sucks) I can sort of get that stride in, like when it is Very Important to Get Out of the Ring Clean. But if she is just hauling ass and I sorta forget this, chance of bar. But way less chance as 12". And in Performance, no triple bar!

The horse trainer has the dogs that jump bad. Fantastic!

I can't really say much about Gustavo's jump style. I keep the bars really low right now and he either does little grids, learning to look forward and balance himself (my little pony) or is learning to focus ahead and hold a start line stay then DRIVE at a single jump that he has actually looked at. That's all he's doing. We go REAL SLOW with my special ed pup. It will work, and he will be fantastic but just have to pick one thing and work that til he gets it before moving on. And I guess you could say I have a bit of a bar knocking paranoia now so this fella is going to have a little bit more attention to how he jumps.