Moving on

16s in one ring 20s in the other. Paul Young and Bit, a great team from St. Louis, had an unfortunate run and pulled up early. Too bad because when they're on it's amazing. Paul is 74 and has Parkinsons and Bit is one of the fastest labs in the U.S. Hopefully better tomorrow. Still waiting for Nancy Lauermann and Pilot to go. Ashley and Luka the Pyr Shep had a blazing run and 30 seconds and change (wonder how many times I've typed the word blazing today??)

ISC Standard Course

20" dogs are running now. The biggest problems seem to be from 8 to 9, the pull through at the dogwalk, and the turn to the teeter 14-15.

ISC Standard running

26" ISC Standard just started. Fastest times seem to be around 31 seconds, with the fastest I've seen so far by Brigit McNight and her BC Kestrel, who just beat out Linda Mecklinburg and Stellar. My friend Yvonne and her great Dobe Flare did a more than respectable 35, Flare letting everybody know how much she loves this stuff.

I'll get the course up as soon as I can.

ISC Jumpers course Friday

I hope this is legible. This is Friday's ISC course. Green numbers are behind the jump; as an example, 13 to 14 was a threadle, then from 14 to 15 a 180. Click on the image to enlarge.

Biggest issues on this course were the push from 6 to 7 and the threadle. The angles demanded a very efficient turning dog. Dogs who could turn tight to the jump while maintaining speed had a definite advantage.

Mid-Morning

Part of the Mini Schnauzer Fan Club, about 20 people who cheer like maniacs every time a Mini runs.

But I don't want my picture taken. Leave me alone!

We've finished 24" and 12" dogs in ISC. From my vendor booth I can't keep track to know who has placed where. We're now running 14" and 8". In 14" it was nice to see two "locals," Joan Myer with Neil and Tammi Gigstad with her great little PRT Buzz. I think Buzz might have the time to beat, at 23 sesconds and change to Neil's 24+.

Oh and by the way please forgive the blurriness of some of these photos. Without the flash, my new little camera has to resort to a slower shutter speed and thus movement = blur.

Early morning

We're off. The ISC jumpers course comes complete with a very tight threadle that a lot of dogs, especially small dogs, are having trouble with. Times are averaging around 25 seconds, but Jean Levally just laid down a smoking run in 12" with Spec at 23.05. Chris Parker and Wow! had a lovely run in 24" but, unfortunately, she started on the wrong side of jump 1!

Friday morning

Nothing like waking up at 3:00 a.m. (2 a.m. Missouri time) and not being able to get back to sleep. Then IHOP was closed, even though the sign said "open 24 hours Friday and Saturday." Hmmmm. It's Friday everywhere except IHOP I guess.

But it's exciting too. Bustling, and ISC is walking. Rings 1 and 2 will be 12" and 24" so maybe I'll be able to sneak some peeks.

A few more pictures

My guess is this person has Yorkies. And does agility. What do you think?

I'm ready. You?

The main discussion; which will be the party stalls?

Mad shopping frenzy

Running order not complicated. Not complicated at ALL.

non-sequiter...

Okay, I realize I'm in the South, I'm FROM the south. But geez-o-pete things are slow here. Lights? I sat at a traffic light last night for one solid minute with all lanes, all sides, showing red. We all just looked at each other. What's with that? My hotel wireless connection is so slow I'm amazed it even functions at all, sometimes it's running at a max of 28k. I didn't know wireless came that slow. Traffic is slow too, with the startling exception of the few Dale Jr. Wannabees who slice in and out of traffic at about 95mph.

My most boggling experience so far? The lady on the moped in the 45 degrees of fog and rain, complete with flapping trench coat and, get this, flip-flops. What's with that?

Where the heck am I???

Pea soup fog this morning, and I got lost on the way down from the hotel to the arena, almost ended up back in Charlotte. But I did get a tiny glimpse of Lowe's Motor Speedway, basically a wall looming out of the fog.

The display is setup and ready for tomorrow and looks good. The arenas are getting groomed and prepped. No exhibitor checkin until 3:00 this afternoon, then the real deal starts tomorrow. There's already a sense of excitement and electricity.

I'm here

Tried to post this last night but the wireless here at the hotel was so slow I had to give up. Now now it's 6:30 a.m. on Thursday. Feeling kind of groggy, my room is supposed to be non-smoking but obviously a lot of people have smoked in here, it reeks of stale smoke. They did promise to clean it today so hopefully it will be better.

Viva apparently wailed in anguish for *hours* after I left yesterday, but managed to get over her self-pity well enough to snarf her food at her usual pace. The rest of my guys are doing fine in their temporary digs.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with myself today. I need to go set up the display, which will take, oh, 30 minutes max. After that I'll probably drive into Charlotte from Cabarrus just to get the lay of the land and see where I can drop off the display on Sunday, etc. But that's it. We don't actually start until tomorrow. I did buy a new camera (bad me!) and hopefully will have lots of pictures later on.

Off to North Carolina

I'm off! Well not quite yet, but soon. To North Carolina and the AKC Agility National. I do so wish I had a camera and could take pictures. But I'll at least try to keep the blog updated with reports. I hope to be able to see some Min Pins and some Dobes running. There will actually be quite a few Dobes there, I can't wait!

Back to work

I'm so excited. I'm going back to class tonight! It's 3 weeks to the day since I tore my calf muscle at the very start of agility class. I had to leave that night. I came back the next week but could not run at all, and Zipper's performance reflected it. Last week I was still very sore and it was cold. I didn't even go. But this week I'm there. I won't be able to run full-out, but I think I'll be able to at least jog IF I'm careful and I warm up properly.

My calf is not yet back 100% and it will probably be at least another 2-3 weeks before I can really begin to push it. My goal is to be able to run Zip at Lake St. Louis the weekend of April 10. Meanwhile this class is pretty much a wash. Tonight is the 4th week and I've only managed part of one week. Next week I'll be gone to NC for the Agility National, leaving only one week left when I return. So I'll retake the entire class next session!

Is it show nerves? Or what?

I know this is a Min Pin blog, but I'm going to talk Dobes a bit. So sue me if you don't like it.

Last weekend, I entered Cala the Doberman in the Columbia Kennel Club show both days. She has her Rally Excellent title and I decided to try for her RAE, which is the highest level title you can currently get in Rally Obedience. It requires you to qualify in both Advanced and Excellent on the same day (double Q or QQ) 10 different times under at least 3 judges. On the surface, the outcome seems good. She QQd both days, so got her first two legs and only needs 8 more for the title. Sounds great, right?

But here's the rest of the story. She was very stressed, especially in her first run of the day each day (Excellent). Disconnected, not giving me attention. I had to redo a station in Excellent on Saturday and she ended up with a 94 from a very lenient judge (100 is perfect, you lose 3 points when you retry a station, so she only got 3 other single points off but it should have been more). In Advanced on Saturday she was much more relaxed and we had a very nice run for a 98.

Sunday morning's Excellent run was pretty much a disaster. My dog who normally loves this sport actually left the ring. Okay, it was a poorly designed ring, with a jump heading directly toward the gate. But she went out and I had to call her back! We had to repeat two stations, we *missed* a station (which should have been a non-qualifying score but the judge failed to see it and wouldn't change her book). She ended up with an 86, by far her lowest score ever. Advanced was marginally better, but she was still very low for what she is capable of, a 92. All together a rather upsetting day.

See, here's the thing. Some people do dog sports because the person is totally addicted, and if the dog doesn't like it that much, well, as long as they're Qing and the dog isn't completely miserable or being hurt or abused it's not that big a deal. In fact, sometimes dogs start out not real thrilled but end up really enjoying what they are doing. So I actually understand that point of view but I'm not one of those people. For me, if a dog sport is not fun for the dog, why do it? It's not about me, it's about us as a team. And if Cala has decided that showing in Rally is stressful and unfun, I'll quit with her. Not worth the money and time to trial a dog who is not having fun.

But then again, could there have been other factors affecting her performance? She had her yearly shots earlier that week, and she was a bit loose stool-wise. She seemed really flat all weekend, not her usual screaming self. I was limping from my torn calf, unable to maintain my usual speed and flow on the course, and concentrating on keeping my balance. So I couldn't commit totally to her mentally or physically. The show site is hectic and noisy.

Not long ago, Linda Baschnagel came to give a tracking seminar at CCSC, and she said something profound. She said never give up on something based on one bad experience. Before changing your training, try something at least twice. If you get the same bad results on two different days, then you can start reassessing what you're doing and modifying your program. But dogs, just like people, are allowed to have bad days or even bad weekends. So maybe Cala has decided that actually showing in Rally isn't fun. Or maybe one of the reasons I've cited affected her. I'll try her again at a different show. If she shows the same level of stress and upset, I will probably drop her from Rally competition. But I'm not going to do it based on one single weekend.

Oh and as a postscript, I also had Viva, the 11 1/2 year old, there acting as courtesy dog. The courtesy dog facilitates the flow of the Excellent class by doing an honor down for the first entered team to work, then doing the Rally course itself for the last team, while that last team does an honor down. She is on a new series of joint supplements to help with her spondylosis and she did so spectacularly well and had SO much fun that I'm thinking of bringing her out of retirement to try for her Rally Excellent title. In her case I have no reservations except physical ones. She LOVES to work and hates being retired.

Startline stays and leadouts

Last night I took Zipper to class. I'm still limping and I cannot take any running steps. I can now walk faster than I could even a couple of days ago, but I am nowhere near my usual speed.

Fortunately Barb, the instructor, decided that my disability gave her a good chance to help us work on startline stays and startline sequences. We worked on whether to run or lead out, and if we did lead out, how certain sequences are best handled through a lead out.

Dogs who need motivation rarely benefit from a leadout and usually do better when you run with them. Dogs who are ballistic often need you to be able to lead out, so you can properly position yourself to help the dog get instruction on where he needs to go. But many people lead out incorrectly. If you lead out past a jump, particularly a spread jump, the dog is going to be accelerating and extending over that jump. If you then have a sharp turn, you may jam the dog or even cause the dog to go around your back. At the very least you're likely to get a wide, inefficient turn. A lead out should always help inform the dog of any change in direction and help shape his line.

In all of our sequences, we practiced both doing a lead out and not doing a lead out, and handling the sequence both ways. Or, at least most people did. I only did lead outs because I am really unable to run.

Zipper is just starting to learn the startline stay. For him, I will usually drop and go, but I want the startline stay as an option. With me leaving him on a stay and leading out, he was a bit sluggish off the line. So we practiced sending him to a bait plate. But I learned very quickly that lack of motion on my part means lack of motion on his part. He was wandering and slow and did not want to move out ahead of me on his own. This is bad news in the short term, as I continue to recover from this calf-muscle tear. But it's great news in the long term, because it indicates he's learned to key his speed and momentum to my speed. That means I can use acceleration and deceleration to shape his line and get sharper turns. But it also means that later, if I want to do FAST and Gamblers, I'll need to teach a cue to have him move out ahead of me at speed.

After working on his startline stay in that first sequence, I decided I didn't want to press him on that, so I had Barb hold his collar while I led out. She whispered revving words to him while I led out, and he rocketed off the line. So I've also learned that for now, restrained recalls are great, and I need to start playing the ready-set-go game with him.

It was great to be able to work even if just a little bit.

When Aft goes Agley

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

--Robert Burns, To a Mouse, on Turning up Her Nest with the Plow

Yes, my Aft did indeed gang agley last Thursday, as I've already moaned about. Now, four days later, I'm walking, but slowly. I missed all three days of my agility trial last weekend.

The question is, how do you train when you can't move adequately? Tonight I did six poles with Zipper and he was beating me to the end, which is just wrong. But bless his heart he did move ahead of me and do them, good boy! I then tried some heeling with Cala. She's entered for the RAE for the first time, which means I'm supposed to be showing her in both Advanced and Excellent Rally on the same day.

Heeling was actually pretty comical. I was moving so slowly, she was anticipating that I was going to halt at any moment, so basically we had the boot-scooting boogie going on. "What? Am I sitting now? Okay, now?" But she was actually amazingly patient with me.

I've decided to borrow a cane again for Saturday. Since I'll be off leash, hopefully I'll be able to do the cane and move out a bit, but I'll need to practice with it so Cala can do her left-about turn and her right finishes without being bothered by it.

Being hurt sux.

Getting hurt

I'm talking about the human being injured, not the dog.

Around the end of the year we had a fun match at the building. It was cold in there, and about halfway through my first run I felt my right calf pop. I'd pulled a muscle. It wasn't too bad, in fact I went ahead and ran on it. It felt fine a couple of days later when I went to a New Year's day exercise class, until it popped again halfway through. I sort of muddled through the rest of that and, once again, it was perfectly fine within a couple of days; until I popped it AGAIN the next week in Aerobics class.

So I scaled back dramatically on my exercise and seriously began to rehab it. And it worked. I've been back to full-intensity exercise for six weeks.

The other night I was once again at our building, getting ready to start a new class with a new instructor. It was brisk but not terrible in the building. I was the first to try the sequence, and she wanted me to run with Zipper. I put him down, took three running steps, and felt excruciating pain in my right calf. I'd torn the calf muscle. I could not continue on, in fact I could barely hobble off the floor.

I was entered all three days at Lake St. Louis this weekend and, of course, that was impossible. My calf isn't surgical, and I can walk on it, carefully, but I can't do anything else. Nothing like watching over $100 in entry fees go down the drain.

Looking back, it's obvious to me that I am not warming up my calf muscles adequately. I *had* done some warmups, but obviously not the right kind or enough. If my muscle hadn't been cold, I wouldn't have torn it. I'm sharing my tale of woe to remind you all to warm *yourselves* up, to solicit ideas on good warmups that can be done at shows, and to share that I've decided to go with a Personal Trainer for awhile and I will share any ideas he/she comes up with.

It occurs to me that stretching at shows, for humans, can be difficult. Static stretching is bad for you before exercise, dynamic stretching is best. But the recommended dynamic stretching of jogging, etc. requires more room than you may have ringside. And ring delays can make things difficult as well. Getting the timing down can be problematic.

Anyway, it's been sort of a bummer of a weekend. Please be careful out there and warm yourself up as well as your dog!

New article on Total MinPin

I've added a new article on Total Min Pin on the Working Min Pin. Go check it out!

Today it's cold, again. Zip and Cala just came in from outside and he immediately jumped into his sun chair so he could warm up. The old gal, Viva, is not at all interested in stirring from the couch; I'll have to kick her out later to go potty. Otherwise she'll just try to hold it forever.

Crates and well trained dogs

Last night, on my way home from taking the dogs for a run, the thing happened that none of us want to happen. While driving down I-70 (the busiest interstate in the U.S.) my right rear tire blew. I managed to get off onto the shoulder then limped, very slowly, toward the next exit ramp.

None of us wants something like this to happen. But if it does, it sure is nice to have well-behaved, trained dogs who are used to crates. I called my friend Kathy, then I called Triple A. Kathy came and helped me offload dogs from my car to hers. If my dogs had not been crated, if they were not well-trained, the chances of them making it even from my car to hers would have been small. Traffic was roaring by at well over 70 mph mere feet away. But everyone was under control, and because they were crated we were able to move one at a time.

The dogs then went to the training building and put into their crates there, and they then waited, quietly, for me to get back to them after the car was fixed.

Good dogs!

Startline Stay (SLS). Is it essential?

In agility these days, pretty much everyone strives for a startline stay. They can be very difficult to maintain though, because breaking them is SOOO rewarding. And often handlers inadvertently teach the dog to break through body cues.

This weekend I was talking to a gal who runs a lightning-fast Whippet. She said, "I just figured out how I'm cueing the release for my startline!" It turns out that though she thought the release was a word, "OK," the dog had figured out that after she looked away to see where she was going, the moment she looked back, even the merest glance, he could leave.

Oops.

I know of OTCH dogs who have broken startlines. I know one dog who was so keyed to go that even when he got pulled for breaking, he'd still have the reward for that one jump. So his owner had a friend pull the bar down from the jump if he broke, so he couldn't jump it. It worked, sort of. Then there's Cala. I had a startline stay on her as a young dog, but then she started fudging it. So I pulled her at a couple of trials. Her solution? Break faster so she could take off and do more agility before I yanked her off the course. Try fixing THAT one.

But do you really, honestly have to have a startline stay? Will dogs without them be doomed to certain failure? Well, no. You don't. In fact, with some slower dogs a SLS can be demotivating. And a bad leadout is just as likely to result in failure as no leadout at all. My "favorite" is the leadout of two jumps to a sharp turn. Often the handler cues late, crunching the dog as he tries to stand on his head and turn at the same time. If it's a high drive dog you sometimes hear justified verbal protest from the dog at this treatment.

If you can get a startline stay, it can be very beneficial. In some courses, being able to lead out and draw a line can really help with efficiency and eliminate traps. Some judges design courses specifically to punish those with no leadout. It's a tool you should add to your toolbox. And for really drivey dogs, it can help reinforce that you're team captain, you get to say when to go, not your dog.

Now Min Pins aren't that big, and some of them aren't that motivated. For our breed, I think it is beneficial to experiment and see what works best. If your dog is faster doing a running start, then do it. If it likes to be called to you, try that. Zipper seems to like both the "drop and run" and the startline stay. So I think I'll be able to use both.

If you aren't able to get a stay, here are some tips.

If there are two jumps pretty much straight out to a turn, consider setting up well behind the line and doing a cross between one and two. Be sure to angle the dog the direction you are facing, so you are using the rear cross as a V set. As an example, one of my jumpers courses had 2 jumps out to a right hand turn, with a trap on the left. I actually kept Zipper on my right, set him down a good distance from the bar so he could get up speed, then rear crossed him between one and 2, which turned him nicely to get to three. An alternative to this would have been to set him up on my left, but come into the pocket between 1 and 2 and wrap him around me in a V set, sending him over 2 at an angle to the right.





If there is a jump and a sharp turn with a trap jump straight ahead, set up closer to the bar so the dog has a bit more collection and is less likely to wildly run straight forward. But be sure you leave plenty of room to get yourself by the jump without having to dodge a wing.



There are ways to manage without a startline stay, but if you can get a reliable one, it's a formidable tool.