Tara's first agility trials

It's been a long time since Tara and I have trialed, 2.5 years ago actually, when we got our 2nd and 3rd RAE legs. Anyway, this weekend we finally tried competing in agility. What an excellent weekend we had!!! We entered 8 runs at Gemini this weekend - 4 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday and managed to qualify in 3 on Sat and 3 on Sun. She was fantastic and we received lots of compliments. She was focused, super-fast and listened so well to my cues while we were running the courses. The Q we missed today was on her standard run and was totally my fault: I accidentally touched her when I was directing her to a jump. Yesterday we missed a Q in snooker, when I wasn't clear enough in my handling her around a jump. She finished the weekend without any faults on her qualifying runs. She was also 27 secs under time on her wildcard, 20 secs under on her colors, and 24 secs under on her standard run. I guess we don't need to worry too much about time! She is such an amazing collie girl! She finished her level one Handler games and Fun games titles.

Tara is now: Tamarack's Autumn Rain RE RL2 CL1-H CL1-F CGC

12 poles

Just a note to say Tara can now do 12 weave poles! : ) Yay Tara!

Tara has her weaves

Just wanted to share a quick video of Tara practicing her weaves today.

Here's to trialing in agility in 2010! : )

long time, mostly agility update

Its been far too long since I've updated. Life has been crazy for a long while. A lot has happened. I'm going to try to keep it brief.

1. Tara got her first two RAE (rally advanced excellent) legs over the summer, with 4 placements. A leg equals a qualifying score in both advanced and excellent on the same day. You have to get 10 total legs to get the title RAE. The only reason we don't have it yet is because I've been too poor and too busy to get her into trials. 2009 will be another big trialing year for us though, I can feel it.

2. We moved back to MA. ME was too difficult for us to sustain financially. We are now renting a cute 2 bedroom house in MA. Tara gets to attend classes much more frequently and has more dog friends to play with in our fenced yard.

3. Tara almost has her weaves! We are pretty much ready to start competing as soon as she gets her weaves. I don't think it will be long now at all. She's so close. I'm actually hoping to enter her in agility for the first time in the Collie National Specialty in MA this coming March (i think). We'll also enter rally. Maybe we'll go for our HIC again too, just for fun. I think she would like that. I can't believe we are almost ready to compete in agility, we're going to have so much fun. I would have some video of her running courses if my camera wasn't busted -- I need to get another one so I can post her on youtube. She's awesome and so fast! She's really going to excel in agility.

4. We had a great workshop this weekend just on jumping. We learned a lot and Tara had so much fun. It was the longest I have ever worked her for in a group setting: 3 hrs. We obviously had multiple breaks, but she did very well, and now we have lots of fun jumping exercises to work on. I can't wait to trial with her.

5. Rally run-thrus start back up tonight at our local training place. We're kind of out of practice, so this will be good for her. We've got to start practicing so we can place at Nationals. : )

6. We're going to be taking an advanced clicker class with trainer Carolyn Barney at Dogs Learning Center. We get to pick our own projects to work on, and I've decided to work on freestyle with her. I really want to get working on a routine with her. She has a lot of freestyle skills already, but we haven't put any of them together. I think its really cool that you can enter freestyle competitions via video. That way we don't have to travel! Again, I need to get a new video camera.

7. Come spring we will get started in herding. There's a new positive training herding place that's 25 mins from the house we are renting. Tara really liked herding the one time she tried it, so I would like to be able to let her experience it more. I think its cool for dogs to do what they were bred for. Maybe someday we'll get to compete in herding too, but right now that's a ways off. We'll see how she does.

Anyway, I guess that's about it for now. Tara is such a great dog. So much more than I ever could have hoped for. She's pretty much perfect. : )

Update

Tara's friend Ash was here this weekend and she was happy to see him. We've not had many boarding/foster dogs for a while, so it was about time she got some good play in with one of her friends.

This weekend we also went to MA for a Kathy Sdao seminar. She had a blast greetings some dogs, running in the fenced in yard and going for walks on my breaks. She also got to practice chilling while we are at gemini, which is hard for her to do, since she's so used to be working while we are there. She was pretty good though and only let out a couple frustrated barks. : )

My summer goal is to really get cracking with her on agility. Since moving to Maine, its really not something we've spent much time on, due to lack of a close training facility, especially in the winter. This year I am determined though. I like agility and so does she, its something we should really find time to do. So today I busted out our weave pole set. She was excited to see them and immediately was where we left off, many months ago. Weaves are going to be our first focus. We also need to work on front and back crosses, which we can practice with chairs, and heeling on my right side. We spend so much time working on traditional heeling with her on my left side, because of rally, that she's not great at working on my right side. I can work on all of that at home, and we can also work on some jumping. Now that its warmer I will also be back in MA more, so getting some equipment and class time at Gemini should be easier. I'm really going to make an effort. I get so sad when I watch youtube videos of everyone else's dogs doing agility, because I know that my dogs are capable of it too. I hate missing out on that fun! I really want to get a teeter at home as well, cause that's something both dogs need to work on.

So, hopefully we will have a busy summer with the dogs and lots of time to work on dog sports. I have some pics I need to post, but I've been lazy about uploading them. Hopefully I'll get to it soon, they are already old, from before all the snow melted.

Right now its raining, and our spring stream is wide and roaring down our hill. Tara loves to run and jump in it, and bites at the water as it makes its way down the hill. Sometimes she gets so excited about the stream that she gets the zoomies. I love it when that happens.

Some Tara-girl brags and what's to come

In list form, because I'm lazy and have hardly updated in so long!

- Tara was walking off-leash with Orion, Oen and I the other day, when I saw 8 deer come out of the woods to cross the dirt road we were on, I called Tara off them (she was just starting to hone in on them) and she came and sat at front. What a good girl! Big rewards for that for sure! I don't think she's ever even seen deer, definitely not that many. She's soooo good off leash, and always comes when I call her.

- In our last obedience class, we were complimented on our "perfect" figure 8! Woo-hoo! Competition obedience here we come! She's also catching on to "stand" too, even though I'm horrible about working on it with her.

- Our agility class has been canceled temporarily, but we got to play on the agility equipment ourselves the other night at Gemini. I was working on serpentines (with 3 jumps) with her and she caught on so fast! I'm not really worried about our agility future either (unless you count my lack of handling skills as being worrisome, lol)

Upcoming for us:
4/5 -We go for CGC (Canine Good Citizen) on Thursday! I'm pretty confident we'll pass, but you never know.

4/14 - We go for our 2nd RN (AKC Rally Novice) leg. We've missed our past 3 shows (the Dec. one cause I had pneumonia, 3/2 because Tara came into heat, and 3/17-18 in NH because of freezing rain and snow that made driving 3 hrs impossible). I'm expecting a snow storm, lol. : ) The show is in Bath, ME

5/19-20 - We go for our 3rd (hopefully) RN leg and our first (hopefully) RA (AKC Rally Advanced) leg in Scarborough, ME

5/25 - We go for our 2nd (hopefully) RA leg in Fitchburg, MA

5/26-27 - We go for our RL2 (APDT Rally Level 2) title, and 4 more RL1 legs (when you get 10 Tara's RL1 after her name will become a RL1X)

5/28 - If we're lucky, lol, we'll be going for our 3rd and final RA leg in Fitchburg.

If we accomplish all that it'll be very awesome! We'll see, Tara's really good, but you never really know what might happen. I'd like Tara to finish her RN, RA, and her RE titles for AKC, and her RL2, and RL3 titles for APDT, but we definitely have some work today for the advanced classes and a whole lot of work left for the excellent classes. I think the hardest thing for her is going to be the exercises where we have to heel through an offset fig. 8 of food dishes with food in them! She'll be off-leash and she has to ignore them! Yikes! : ) But we're working on it. Hopefully we'll get there in time, if not we'll just wait.

She's an awesome girl and I think we are starting to get a handle on her stomach upset with some new digestive enzymes added to her food. Hopefully there is still raw in her future.

We are also taking our trailer with us to VT for the first weekend in May, hopefully we'll get plenty of fun outside hiking time while we are there.

Pics are coming as soon as I can get them up, I've just been super-busy and neglecting her site.

So lots of things coming up!

Tomorrow Tara and I start attending our Competitive Obedience Class, finally preparing for our elusive CD. I'm so happy to start going, and happy it's going to fit with my schedule for the next 3 wks, because I definitely need some guidance as to how to take things farther with Tara. She's great and I know she's capable of everything she needs to do to get her CD, I just don't know how to get there the best way. I know it involves lots of practice, lol. I didn't get her into that freestyle class because I know the next few weeks are going to be super busy for me, so maybe we'll hit it next time around. I know that she would love it and we've started putting a few cute tricks on more fun cues and in sequence, like bowing and weaving all around me and through my legs, and then coming to sit between my legs. She really likes those games.

Tonight we are finishing up our 17'x10' dog room in the basement, complete with horse stall matting padding the floor. We will be picking up our set of weave poles in the next week or two, also, something that I will start seriously working on with Tara around her birthday, we have to wait until those bones stop growing first!

No heat yet, but we've been battling some GI issues with diet and are now going back to kibble, so her weight has fluctuated lower than I like. I don't know what sets her off, she can't handle raw and I'm sick of cooking for her, so back to kibble we go. She doesn't care what she eats at all, she'd eat pretty much anything. So we'll see how this goes. One day we will figure out what sets her off and get her on raw, that day is just not here yet.

My business is picking up ( http://www.canineaspirations.com ) which benefits Tara greatly with lots of good doggie friends. The reason we are going to be so busy coming up is that we have two border collie mixes visiting for 23 days! Tara's going to have so much fun with them! Especially Shadow who is closer to her size and closer to her age, they had a blast zooming around Shadow's yard when they met for the first time. This weekend we also have a German-short-haired Pointer, Dookie spending a night. So we'll have our foster crested Lucky, Tara, Orion, Suki and Shadow (the bc mixes) and Dookie (the GSP) for 2 days, it'll be intense. Maybe my friend Sarah will come by with her 3 dobies and shih-poo and then we'll really have a party!! Next week Mea and Slate, the two Australian Terriers I've taken care of before arrive. They'll be spending a week and for sure won't put up with any of Tara's puppy shenanigans. Mea will be good for running around though, even if Slate isn't because he's too much of a stately gentleman. Lots of dogs in and out!

Right now Tara is kicking around her Buster Cube for dinner, she really knows how to work that thing!

We also had a visit last weekend from Collie Rescue of New England, doing our home visit so we can foster collies. We got an email mentioning a 13-month old female, and I replied saying that I knew Tara would love to have a collie visitor so close in age, so we'll see what happens with that. I'm looking forward to fostering collies and I'm sure Tara is too. The couple that did our home visit brought their baby Brayden with them, which was good for Tara who loves kids, but hasn't had a ton of exposure to babies. She liked nosing him and sniffing him all over and he didn't seem to mind too much. : ) They also brought their newly adopted Sheltie, who played with Tara in brief spurts.

So we've been crazy busy as you can see, and coming up in less than a month we have our next Rally trial, at the Collie Club of Maine Show, 3/2. We'll be going for our 2nd of 3 necessary legs for Tara's RN (Rally Novice) title. We are always working on rally (for all our meals, walks, showing off in pet stores, etc -- kinda like that NILIF plan Tosca, lol), so I'm not too worried about the show, but I'll be sure to spend some time working with Tara around the distractions of all the dogs that will be here over the next 3 wks.

The third weekend in March, 3/17-18 we will be at the Collie Club of NH show, also competing in Rally hopefully finishing up our RN and maybe going for our first RA (Rally Advanced) leg. I don't know when we'll ready to try for our first CD leg, but as soon as we are we'll be going for that as well. And hopefully our novice agility titles over the summer and heading into the fall. We definitely have a full plate ahead of us. : ) Tara loves working though, so we have lots of fun!

There is also the possibility of a 3-4 wk trip this fall driving cross-country, I'm sure Tara will love that as well, she really loves doing anything.

I feel like there was more I needed to report on, but I guess this will have to do for now. It's been a while since I updated.

A Visit to the Farmers Union

Tara wowed everyone today when I brought her in to visit my friend Sarah at work. She was practicing her rally moves, lots of stays, and some very cute leg-weaving. I got asked if I was a dog trainer, to which I replied, "Not yet, but I hope to be soon!" Lol. Anyway, she is such a good dog. A local club is offering a freestyle class beginning the first week in Feb. that I might enroll her in. We'll see.

I am now cooking for Tara girl, we've taken a break from raw again because she had a few bouts of upset tummy, even though she did quite well for a while. At least with the cooked food I know that she's getting real food, not anything processed. (Not that there aren't good dog foods, there are, but I feel better about this.) Her coat has felt kind of dry so I started with some yummy Salmon oil which she loves, and her coat seems better to me. She really doesn't shed very much at all. Only when I'm brushing her which is nice. BTW, she has gotten alot better about being brushed too.

Anyway, she is so good that I often forget that she's still a puppy, and I think alot of people are shocked when I say her age too. It's a wonderful feeling to have such an awesome dog. Thank you Kay! : )

We've been hitting our agility class in MA, approx. every other wk. and she is progressing very rapidly, comfortable with all of the equipment now. We're working on our contacts and handling more than anything at this point. Last week when we were there she did the teeter at half height without a problem, I think I'm more nervous then her. We've bought some weave poles and we'll start working on those soon, but not yet. That's the last thing she will learn as the movement the body does weaving is quite hard on a dog's joints so we went to make sure she's done growing before that happens. (I think we're up to about 40 lbs at this point, and the last time I measured her she was 23" at the shoulder) I told Carolyn our instructor, that she was almost as good or better than Orion is at agility, and he and I have been taking classes for a lot longer (about 15 months). She was like, "well, she's a herding dog! This is what they're meant to do!" I really think she will be absolutely fantastic at anything we do. What a well-rounded dog. : )