Will I or Won't I?

Take one very handsome boy



and one very pretty girl



and what do you get?

this little cutie...



Probably a good thing I'm going away. Less time to agonize over whether she will be mine!

Laughter and tears

The last couple of weeks were slightly more eventful than I'd hoped with the old girl taking a turn for the worse. It began with Soda being a lot quieter than normal and the ultimate sign of her not being well, her not wanting to eat. All in all she was sick for a good ten days and was in and out of the vets a couple of times most of which was spent on IV fluids and antibiotics. The scariest part was taking her to Perth Veterinary Specialists for an ultrasound. You tell yourself that they are old and can't live forever and I thought I was OK with that. But when I was sitting in the waiting room I realised that I'll never be ready to lose her and all these emotions just hit me. The poor vet is no doubt used to teary owners but I just couldn't stop myself and the tears flowed.

The good news is that after lots of love and care she is now right as rain and back to her normal self, barking at me for her dinner and pushing the boys out the way to get the cat's left overs. The vets did an amazing job and did everything they could to help her and make her well again. We certainly couldn't be happier to have our beautiful old girl back to normal!


Love my girl :)

Last week I couldn't resist and bought Cassie the cutest little jacket for winter when it's gets freezing cold down at the Dogs West grounds. Cassie however didn't share my enthusiasm for wearing it had other ideas on what it could be used for...



This little girl never ceases to have us in stitches!

Happy times

I can't believe it's just under four weeks till our big trip. Soooo excited for both the tour of Europe we are doing beforehand and of course WAO itself. Our Aussie jackets arrived last week and the shirts are being collected tomorrow. It is all getting very real as we finalise our preparations.

Obviously I love my dogs and I'm going to miss them a great deal while we're away but given how many additional commitments I seem to have these days with full time work, teaching, Better Pets & Gardens and organising our team for WAO there is something especially appealing about our 17 day tour of Europe prior to WAO. Getting up everyday with the only commitment being to enjoy the next city/country we are going to will be nothing short of awesome. Our tour map looks like this.



March saw young Soda turn 15 years old! I truly can't believe she is 15. She's still going pretty well considering her age but then she always was a very stoic lady. You just never know when they get to this age how long you'll have them with you so I continue to treat each day I have with her as a blessing. Except when she's being a difficult old tart! But lets face it, at her age she can pretty much do what she wants.



March has been a pretty good trialling month for Sonic. The Western Classic was awesome with Q's in Masters Agility and Jumping plus fourth place in both, a first in Masters Gamblers, second in Excellent Snooker and first in Excellent Strat Pairs with our trusty partner Deb Baile and Maggie then to top it off a win in the Agility Teams, third in Jumping Teams and overall top team. He really didn't put a foot wrong all weekend.

I've mostly been doing skill work with Sonic of late. In particular lots of work on reinforcement zone and jump skills. It seems to be working well for us as he's qualified in every masters agility run he's done so far this year. Now to try and hold form for the upcoming State Agility Trial and Nationals!


Bugger!

Cassie is now just shy of nine months old. She's coming along in leaps and bounds and does the cutest sit pretty ever. I love how she tries to press her front paws together which looks like she's praying, a by product of a behaviour she was offering me when I was doing some shaping with her a while back. Her core strength is really coming on and finally I've got her offering me a back up. Her recalls are pretty good and I'm trusting her more and more at training. In fact her focus is pretty good. I'm still not game enough to take that lead off but I don't think that's too far away. We've managed to trim that tubby little middle down a bit too thank to carrot sticks instead of Smacko's and also by me feeding her like a little dog and not a border collie.


Pretty girl

Medication madness

So nice to have some cool weather in Perth. Although it's a double edged sword really. At least when it's hot I can justify procrastinating inside in the air conditioning. Today I had no such excuse and spent the day planting lawn and gardening. More lawn is a good thing. It means additional space in which to use my awesome new fully adjustable dog walk (thanks Steve :)).

Last week was the week of the vet. Soda's blood results are showing high urea with no discernible reason. Cassie managed to get an ulcer under her third eyelid probably from a trauma to her eye (no surprises there). Then Kenny was having trouble in the water works department so I spent four hours at Murdoch with him last Monday night. My kitchen bench currently looks like a pharmacy and it takes me an extra ten minutes to get out the door in the morning as I medicate everyone with their drug of choice before I leave for work. Not to mention it's been costing me a fortune! Good news is that they are all OK. But I'm pretty sure Cassie would like me to go and stick the eye drops somewhere else.

Lots of dog training happening at home. I'm starting to think that Cassie will be about five before I've finished teaching her all the foundation skills I think she needs. I've just realised that I need to add verbal directional's to the already long list. Haven't taught those in a while, but if I want running contacts I'm going to need them. We've been doing lots of core strengthening work lately because Cassie has none. If I tried to get her to "sit pretty" she'd just fall over in a heap. So the fit ball has come out and she's starting to get much better. The last couple of weeks she's been a good girl (i.e. slightly more compliant than usual) which may mean we're about to have a bad fortnight. She does like to push me and seems to think that "It's Your Choice" is only for suck hole border collies. Let's face it, if your favourite toy or food is right in front of you why would you not just dive straight in? Her latest joy is jumping up and trying to grab my shorts with her teeth. Strangely enough Riot has become her favourite of my dogs. She will spend much of her time giving him kisses and trying to get him to play with her. He is remarkably patient with her I have to say.

The Western Classic is on this weekend. Three nights of trialling which will test my agility stamina no end. Sonic's training at the moment is pretty stripped down. I rarely do any sequences or courses with him at all. It's all about getting him to drive to reinforcement zone and simple grid work. Now I've got the dog walk at home I can get his contact work done whenever I get a chance. If my memory serves me correctly Sonic wasn't great at the Classic last year but that was after three months off following the paralysis tick incident. Hopefully this year will rather more successful!

On our way

Where oh where does the time go. I think this is the longest I've had between posts since I started this blog. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I need to learn to say NO...lol.

,
Post wash - too cute!

Sonic and I had our very first trial of the year last weekend. We didn't get a lot of preparation in because it's been too hot to do a lot of training and of course I've been pretty busy. We just had the two runs that night with our first being Masters Jumping. He started off really fresh, driving hard and it was all going OK until I pushed ahead to get in front so I could do a front cross. When I came out of the cross and tried to run on I had my weight too far forward and couldn't get my legs going. So I fell right on over! Poor Sonic didn't know what was going on poor bugger. I tried to finish the run off as best as we could after I'd picked myself up off the ground. Mainly because I didn't want to stop Sonic from having some fun. It made me realise that it's not only Sonic who needs to get fit! We had Masters Agility next and I wasn't real sure how we'd go plus I was pretty sore from stacking it. But thankfully we had a lovely clear run (with our first competition WEEEEE Saw) coming in with third place from quite a few quallies. Not bad for a dog who is nowhere near competition condition (and a very unfit handler holding him back). I tell you what I was sore for days after falling over!



Cassie and I are having heaps of fun and we love her to bits. Training her is a very interesting experience and she challenges me all the time. She is certainly one determined little cookie. Although I don't know if that's to do with me being a lot pickier in what I want behaviour wise these days. Even with Cassie being only 7 months old there is already things that I notice are better/stronger behaviours than what Sonic does. We seem to go in "blocks" of success. For a couple of weeks everything will be awesome and its success after success. Then we hit a tough couple of weeks where she'll go back to bunking off with toys instead of bringing them back and losing focus during the sessions. Last week was the first week of term at ACWA for 2012 and I could not get her brain in the game no matter what I did whereas the week before she was totally into it. Each time we go right back to basics and try to strengthen the behaviours so we can get to the good stuff again!


Well if it's good enough for a border collie...

All those food rewards hasn't helped Cassie's waistline. She turned into quite the little "pudding" so it's no more Smacko's for her and onto the carrot sticks! I may have to follow suit...



Over the last few weeks everything for the World Agility Open has been falling into place. I have secured my team dog in little Cody who is a 4 year old Jack Russell x. Cody belongs to Laura who is on the Scottish Team for WAO with her border collie Kadyn. Cody is one cool little dude and is currently only one win away from his championship. Laura has kindly offered for me to run Cody at a trial in Perth Scotland the weekend before WAO as part of getting to know him. It will be so exciting actually competing in another country and a way of getting over some of the nerves I will have before the big event. Our trip is becoming pretty big with a 17 day tour of Europe to get us started following by a trip to Aberdeen to meet Laura and Cody with some getting to know you time, then on to Belgium for WAO. Pretty awesome!

Happy New 2012

Here we are again. Another year gone by, a new year commenced. I have a good feeling about 2012. 2011 definitely had it's fair share of dodgy moments.


A very wet and bedraggled papillon!

Cassie is six months old today. She's had a fun Christmas and was spoiled rotten. Clean Run certainly did very well out of me. Cassie is now slightly over 25cms at the shoulder and weighs in at a hefty 3.5kgs! I haven't done a lot with her over Christmas. We've really just been hanging out and doing stuff around the house. Cassie doesn't seem to mind as long as she's involved and particularly likes helping with gardening activities especially helping to pull weeds out. Immediate 2012 plans are continuing with jump bump grids, recallers course, rear end awareness and starting some running contact work. My running contact goals are pretty small right now. All I want is to get Cassie "running". Sounds easy doesn't it? However when your puppy's stride going flat out involves air "skips" it adds a bit of a challenge. With a bit of luck she may grow out of the skipping as I'm hoping it's a puppy thing.


Cassie on magpie patrol. Maggies are definitely NOT allowed in our backyard...

We did manage to get down the beach last week so being a special occasion with Cassie's very first trip I had to video it. We left her on lead to be safe which was a good decision seeing as she would have been off after every new dog that came past. She was a little concerned about the "wet stuff". She really wanted to go in and get the toy with the big dogs but once she realised she was wet she was less than impressed. I have no doubt that after a few more visits she'll be jumping in with the others.



At the end of every year I really enjoy taking the time to sit down and look at video footage of some of Sonic's runs from over the course of the year. I found some of my favourite ones and compiled them together for a "Highlights 2011". This time I've put in heaps of clips in slow motion just for a different perspective (even if it did highlight just how many late front crosses I managed to do...). Both Sonic and I have improved so much over the course of 2011. By the last couple of months we really started working as a team and it showed in the results with Sonic placing even in what I would consider being conservative runs. I have a feeling that 2012 will be our best year yet and I can't wait for the Nationals in NSW's in June.

My last bit of good news is I've accepted a spot on the Australian Team for the World Agility Open to be held in Belgium in May 2012. Colin and I are going to head to Europe early and do a bit of touring first but the main reason for the trip will be so I can take up my spot on the team, Competing internationally against people who I've been watching via live streams or DVD's for the last ten years is an opportunity too good to pass up. Just to be a part of it will be amazing. As I'll be competing in the 300 height Mel & Maureen have been kind enough to offer me some practice on their gorgeous little sheltie Cricket who is competing in the 300 height here. The biggest challenge for us now is fundraising and trying to get sponsors. We did make it into the local community newspapers in Perth so hopefully that will give us a little bit more visibility.

Christmas Here We Come!

Finally time to update my blog. I seriously don't know where the time goes these days. I can't believe it's Christmas this weekend. Thankfully as of this Friday I'm on two weeks annual leave with absolutely no plans other than to spend some time doing things at home, hang out with the dogs and catching up with friends. And some much needed sleep will be nice too!

Cassie and I are having a ball. I'm really enjoying the Recallers course and I'm already seeing improvements in Cassie's responses. Even something as simple as increasing my rate of rewarding when she hits reinforcement zone has seen her now charging to me when she's out the back no matter what she's doing in her haste to hit "the spot". I had neglected Crate Games a bit with all the other things I've been trying to do with her so I've gone back to keep progressing with it. One of the things I love about Crate Games is that even after only making it to step three she has a solid start line which means I've been able to introduce Cassie to her first jump bumps. Watching her do jump bumps is one of the cutest things ever and she thinks its a hoot. The joy on her face is just priceless. And she's retrieving pretty consistently which is brilliant as it means I can start to progress some other things.



Up until now I hadn't been doing any real body awareness work with Cassie but after watching her first jump bumps back in slow motion I can see that she has little idea what to do with her body and legs. So I've started to do some perch work and rear end awareness exercises. Then I'm going to do the Salo Spider with her to encourage the use of her back end when she's jumping rather than just hurling herself over. She is pretty quick, I struggle to keep in front of her when we're doing restrained recalls so I'm really keen to make sure she develops a good jumping style. It certainly worked for Sonic.

Speaking of Sonic we had a nice end to the ANKC trialling year with Sonic having a couple of really lovely runs and clear rounds. So nice to have some consistency! We missed the very last trial of the year with me making a last minute trip to Adelaide to spend time with my family. Then the weekend just gone I competed at the World Agility Open Australian Team Try-outs in an attempt to get selected for the team to go to Belgium in May next year. We actually started off really well with three out of four clear runs in agility on the first night. So I was quietly optimistic. Unfortunately the second night didn't go as well as I'd hoped and we only had one clear round, DQing in the other two. So I pretty much accepted that I wouldn't be in the team for 2012. However it looks like I may be fortunate enough to get a spot in the 300 height category. Given that I now have a dog who will ultimately compete in 200 I still think it would be an amazing opportunity. So fingers crossed that it all pans out and I can go. But we'll see what transpires over the next week or so.