I haven’t really talked in depth about how Groovy is doing in a little while so before I forget to chronicle some of the stuff that’s been going on I better do that. This whole blog thing has come in handy for being able to look back and see how she was acting at various times in her life so far.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago she has re-entered some sort of fear period. It’s right on time for her age – though her last one was not “textbook” in its timing – it was late. It started the day we left for Skyhoundz (Sept. 24th). An hour into the trip I got her out of the car at a stop we made and she started woofing at a man across the parking lot. That was new. Then at the competition she got freaked out a few times and at the hotel she’d woof at people on and off. We missed agility class that week due to me not feeling well. The following weekend we had a trial down at Palmetto and as I mentioned she did OK on Saturday but didn’t even want to leave her crate on Sunday. Hmmm… That Monday in class she was scared of the teeter noise and of the chute noise but otherwise was happy to be there and to see everyone. She did pretty well on our road trip to USDDN. A few freaked out moments but more “good” moments than bad and she even played a little disc off to the side with Jack and had a blast herding ducks. When I walked her I walked her with Mickie who LOVES every person she has ever met – I think that helped Groovy be more confident. Monday night in class however was a bit of a disaster. She was good at first – happy to be there and see everyone. We did a lowered dog walk twice and she liked that. Our first “station” however was next to the teeter bang game and that did it. The first bang came and she wigged out. Wouldn’t play with toys at all anymore and would barely take food within 20 feet of the teeter. She would take food further away and did well on the stations where the reward was food but would not play with her toys at all. I left feeling really down and out. Luckily the next session doesn’t start till 11/2 so we don’t have to go back and continue experiencing that and I have a little time to work on the issues away from class.
This past weekend was a CPE trial up in Groveland. I took Groovy along on Saturday. Jack came too. I only walked her by the ring 2 or 3 times and she did well. She woofed at a few people but would eat treats from them and be happy about them after that. She’d play disc with Jack in the field and did pretty good considering there was sheep poop all over the field. So as to ensure we ended on a good note I left her at home on Sunday.
Yesterday Groovy stayed the day at Sarah’s while we were at work then afterwards we went to Bev’s to work on Groovy’s teeter issues. Groovy was cautious in Sarah’s backyard and got spooked by a folded up patio table umbrella in the neighbor’s yard. She sort of got over it. She was willing to play disc a little so that was good. At Bev’s she started off quite scared of the teeter noise (had another dog working the teeter while Groovy and I stood 20 or so feet away from it). After some time and rewarding with cheese by the end of our time there she was making the teeter bang herself (it was raised about 10” and she’d put her feet on it to make it go down). Hooray! She enjoyed playing with Kate and trying to play with VooDoo. We’ll be returning to continue working on that. In the mean time I found some YouTube videos of dogs playing the teeter bang game on aluminum teeters. I think I’ll play those at random (and loudly) while she is playing with the other dogs in the house. Not sure if it’ll help but I figure it can’t hurt.
At home she freaks herself out on occasion – not sure at what but she finds something to be scared of and bark at for a few minutes and once the other dogs get all upset, go investigate and find nothing out of line she eventually calms down. I figure I’ll just let her work through that stuff on her own… that’s pretty normal for her age… even Jam went through some of that around this same age.
The good news about Groovy is that her disc drive is growing daily and she can catch and return 10-12 yard throws on occasion. The other day she caught two in a row! She’s so funny – when Jack or I come in from working a dog in the front yard Groovy runs to the back door and stands there staring at us with this look of “OK – it’s my turn!”. She doesn’t get it isn’t her turn EVERY time one of us comes in though we’re so thrilled by her excitement we do indulge her much of the time but are always certain to end each session with her wanting more (which sometimes means she gets carried in the house because she doesn’t want to come in yet). We even played disc with Groovy in the front field last Sunday without her being on a long line and it went quite well! Last time she was out there not on a long line she went and found her own fun so her listening skills and willingness to work with us are increasing too! Below is a link to some photos of her playing "long line free" in the front field!
http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/GroovyFrisbee101809#
Friday, October 23, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
USDDN Finals
The weekend before last we drove up to Cartersville, GA for USDDN finals. Tali was qualified with Jack in freestyle and in D&A with me. Ruckus was qualified in D&A with Jack. Groovy and Mickie came along for the ride and Jam stayed home with grandma for the first time.
The run down...
Tali and Jack finished the National Freestyle finals in 16th place out of 44 teams (the cut was at 15). We were pretty disappointed they didn't make the cut but oh well they did awesome regardless! Well the next morning we found out one dog had to withdraw due to illness (last I heard the dog was going to be fine) and so Jack and Tali made it into the finals. Another person dropped out after that and two more teams made it in so there were 16 teams competing in the international finals. Tali didn't have as strong of day on Sunday for the international finals but still managed to come in 14th place. Not bad for her!
Tali and I competed in the national D&A finals. I had no hopes or dreams of making the cut to the international finals - just was proud to have qualified and wanted to go out there and do my best. Well I met that goal for sure with a 15 in round 1 and an 18 in round 2! That put us 23rd out of 37 teams! I was very happy with that! Tali was awesome and caught everything I threw!
Ruckus and Jack had an awesome weekend. They came in 5th in National Toss N Fetch finals and 8th in International TNF Finals. Not bad for a 9.5 year old dog that is a good 3-5" shorter than most of the dogs competing in that division! :) Red Dogs Rule!
Groovy had a good time on Saturday when we tried our hand at duck herding! They had a little instinct test set up at the event. Groovy did great!
Below are links to videos from the weekend... enjoy!
Tali and Jack - National Finals Freestyle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4C8pqnhFmg
Jack and Ruckus - International Finals Toss N Fetch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Wct2HzhiI
Groovy herding ducks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dNZOVEtdb0
The run down...
Tali and Jack finished the National Freestyle finals in 16th place out of 44 teams (the cut was at 15). We were pretty disappointed they didn't make the cut but oh well they did awesome regardless! Well the next morning we found out one dog had to withdraw due to illness (last I heard the dog was going to be fine) and so Jack and Tali made it into the finals. Another person dropped out after that and two more teams made it in so there were 16 teams competing in the international finals. Tali didn't have as strong of day on Sunday for the international finals but still managed to come in 14th place. Not bad for her!
Tali and I competed in the national D&A finals. I had no hopes or dreams of making the cut to the international finals - just was proud to have qualified and wanted to go out there and do my best. Well I met that goal for sure with a 15 in round 1 and an 18 in round 2! That put us 23rd out of 37 teams! I was very happy with that! Tali was awesome and caught everything I threw!
Ruckus and Jack had an awesome weekend. They came in 5th in National Toss N Fetch finals and 8th in International TNF Finals. Not bad for a 9.5 year old dog that is a good 3-5" shorter than most of the dogs competing in that division! :) Red Dogs Rule!
Groovy had a good time on Saturday when we tried our hand at duck herding! They had a little instinct test set up at the event. Groovy did great!
Below are links to videos from the weekend... enjoy!
Tali and Jack - National Finals Freestyle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4C8pqnhFmg
Jack and Ruckus - International Finals Toss N Fetch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Wct2HzhiI
Groovy herding ducks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dNZOVEtdb0
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
From USDAA to USDDN
The dog world sure is full of acronyms... let's see how many I can fit in.
Last weekend I took my ASCA/AKC aussie to a USDAA agility trial to work on her AD and a Q for the DAM team "TRD" - we earned several Q's and a couple of NQ's. This weekend I am taking my ASCA/AKC aussie and my non ASCA/AKC aussie to USDDN in GA to compete in disc dog events that they Q'd for at previous USDDN events.
Or in English...
Tali and I had a great time at the agility trial last weekend where she did very well and did a good job of helping earn a qualifying score for her team "Tuff Red Dogs". She did not earn any qualifications for her Agility Dog title however but the team classes were more difficult than the regular classes so it's great she could run the harder courses clean.
This weekend coming up Tali, Ruckus, Jack and I will be competing at a disc dog finals event in Georgia. We all had to qualify at previous events in order to compete this weekend so it's kinda cool that I get to compete too!
In Groovy news... we have most definitely hit a full fledged fear period again so we are doing our best to work our way through it. She didn't do too bad at the trial on Saturday but was totally overwhelmed at the trial on Sunday. Hopefully the road trip this weekend won't be too much for her but I feel safer having her with me knowing what she is experiencing than leaving her home not knowing what she is experiencing. We shall see how it goes... maybe I'll get lucky and this will only be a 2 week fear period and she'll be over it by Friday?!? :) I'm not holding my breath...
Last weekend I took my ASCA/AKC aussie to a USDAA agility trial to work on her AD and a Q for the DAM team "TRD" - we earned several Q's and a couple of NQ's. This weekend I am taking my ASCA/AKC aussie and my non ASCA/AKC aussie to USDDN in GA to compete in disc dog events that they Q'd for at previous USDDN events.
Or in English...
Tali and I had a great time at the agility trial last weekend where she did very well and did a good job of helping earn a qualifying score for her team "Tuff Red Dogs". She did not earn any qualifications for her Agility Dog title however but the team classes were more difficult than the regular classes so it's great she could run the harder courses clean.
This weekend coming up Tali, Ruckus, Jack and I will be competing at a disc dog finals event in Georgia. We all had to qualify at previous events in order to compete this weekend so it's kinda cool that I get to compete too!
In Groovy news... we have most definitely hit a full fledged fear period again so we are doing our best to work our way through it. She didn't do too bad at the trial on Saturday but was totally overwhelmed at the trial on Sunday. Hopefully the road trip this weekend won't be too much for her but I feel safer having her with me knowing what she is experiencing than leaving her home not knowing what she is experiencing. We shall see how it goes... maybe I'll get lucky and this will only be a 2 week fear period and she'll be over it by Friday?!? :) I'm not holding my breath...
Friday, October 2, 2009
Wow - I suck at blogging!
:)
Well if you are a friend on Facebook then you know what I've been up to... if you aren't and you care what I've been up to lately - well join Facebook and read over my profile for the last few weeks! ;)
OK - just kidding (sort of) - here is a quick run down of the highlights.
Canis Major #1 - rained out twice - 2nd time produced some awesome dogs playing in puddles pics. http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/CanisMajor5InLakeOtisAndrew# One highlight was Groovy choosing to play disc with Jack for about 10 minutes instead of chasing dogs - and she was off leash!
Trip to Skyhoundz Worlds - Chattanooga, TN: (Facebook has a photoblog of the weekend)
Thursday - left for trip - took 4 dogs - Mickie stayed home with grandma. Groovy puked an hour into the trip but that was it for the whole weekend so maybe she's getting better about that. We stopped in Calhoun, Georgia for Groovy to try her hand at herding. Took her a while to catch on but she did good! We met Donna and Tony Padgett of Coosawattee Aussies - SUPER nice people. I should be able to post the video soon. It became apparent on the trip up that Groovy is re-entering a fear period which she is right on time for according to many books so not unexpected at all.
Friday - Open Qualifier - Tali kinda sucked - wouldn't drive towards any of the discs on one side of the field. Ended up placing 40th or something out of 60+ teams... far cry from last year's finish around 14th or so place. Oh well... even dogs are allowed to have bad days! Ruckus was a superstar - he was entered in Expert and Masters (for dogs 9 and over) D&A. In Expert he placed 15th out of 149 dogs. In Expert he placed 1st (out of a handful of dogs). The neat part is that had he had his 2nd rd 1st he would have made the cut for Expert and his total score would have put him in 2nd place in Expert and he would have qualified for Worlds in D&A. Not bad for a 9.5 year old dog.
Saturday - Freestyle Worlds - we weren't qualified so slept in late - by the time we got going they had already called the competition due to rain so we spent the day in the hotel and at Walmart. Went to the banquet that evening - very nice event as always!
Sunday - D&A Worlds (and the rest of Freestyle) - Tali again had an off day - she did well but dropped the disc on two returns in the 2nd round which is very unusual for her. This caused her and Jack to not get in a 5th throw which caused them to be 1 place out of the cut for the 3rd round. Overall she placed 13th - so not bad at all considering she was competing against the top D&A teams in the world (Skyhoundz World) and it let us head home early as the competition didn't end until 3 hours later (7 or 7:30pm).
Groovy's fear period kinda acclerated on Sunday and she totally freaked out when we walked her without another dog with us - if we had other dogs with us she was fine. Hope this fear period ends soon and with no emotional damage as she was doing SOOO good before it came on.
This weekend coming up we have USDAA agility with Tali! We are running on a DAM team with our friends Sarah (with Java) and Michelle (with Sheltie - Tuff). Our team name is "Tuff Red Dogs"! Tali is also entered in starters standard. We have our Q's in all the other starters stuff so that'll be it for the weekend! Looking forward to it!
Well if you are a friend on Facebook then you know what I've been up to... if you aren't and you care what I've been up to lately - well join Facebook and read over my profile for the last few weeks! ;)
OK - just kidding (sort of) - here is a quick run down of the highlights.
Canis Major #1 - rained out twice - 2nd time produced some awesome dogs playing in puddles pics. http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/CanisMajor5InLakeOtisAndrew# One highlight was Groovy choosing to play disc with Jack for about 10 minutes instead of chasing dogs - and she was off leash!
Trip to Skyhoundz Worlds - Chattanooga, TN: (Facebook has a photoblog of the weekend)
Thursday - left for trip - took 4 dogs - Mickie stayed home with grandma. Groovy puked an hour into the trip but that was it for the whole weekend so maybe she's getting better about that. We stopped in Calhoun, Georgia for Groovy to try her hand at herding. Took her a while to catch on but she did good! We met Donna and Tony Padgett of Coosawattee Aussies - SUPER nice people. I should be able to post the video soon. It became apparent on the trip up that Groovy is re-entering a fear period which she is right on time for according to many books so not unexpected at all.
Friday - Open Qualifier - Tali kinda sucked - wouldn't drive towards any of the discs on one side of the field. Ended up placing 40th or something out of 60+ teams... far cry from last year's finish around 14th or so place. Oh well... even dogs are allowed to have bad days! Ruckus was a superstar - he was entered in Expert and Masters (for dogs 9 and over) D&A. In Expert he placed 15th out of 149 dogs. In Expert he placed 1st (out of a handful of dogs). The neat part is that had he had his 2nd rd 1st he would have made the cut for Expert and his total score would have put him in 2nd place in Expert and he would have qualified for Worlds in D&A. Not bad for a 9.5 year old dog.
Saturday - Freestyle Worlds - we weren't qualified so slept in late - by the time we got going they had already called the competition due to rain so we spent the day in the hotel and at Walmart. Went to the banquet that evening - very nice event as always!
Sunday - D&A Worlds (and the rest of Freestyle) - Tali again had an off day - she did well but dropped the disc on two returns in the 2nd round which is very unusual for her. This caused her and Jack to not get in a 5th throw which caused them to be 1 place out of the cut for the 3rd round. Overall she placed 13th - so not bad at all considering she was competing against the top D&A teams in the world (Skyhoundz World) and it let us head home early as the competition didn't end until 3 hours later (7 or 7:30pm).
Groovy's fear period kinda acclerated on Sunday and she totally freaked out when we walked her without another dog with us - if we had other dogs with us she was fine. Hope this fear period ends soon and with no emotional damage as she was doing SOOO good before it came on.
This weekend coming up we have USDAA agility with Tali! We are running on a DAM team with our friends Sarah (with Java) and Michelle (with Sheltie - Tuff). Our team name is "Tuff Red Dogs"! Tali is also entered in starters standard. We have our Q's in all the other starters stuff so that'll be it for the weekend! Looking forward to it!
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