WordPlay

by Doranna

For starters, an update on Miss Belle–she’s doing well on her bucket list, and has regained some weight and energy on the new feeding protocol.  She’s having some good days, and we’re grateful.  It doesn’t seem as though it’ll be too much longer.

The Dartspression at the end of a training sequence, where there will be COOKIES forthcoming. Or a TOY. You just never know, do you?

Days of Dart should pretty much be called Month of Dart.  The World of Dart.  The intensive all-consuming “HOW many events in a row?” weekends of Dart.  And the preparation for same.

With Connery on rehab, Dart has a spotlight on the training and trialing stage.  Not to mention he’s in a pretty intensive proofing/generalizing stage beyond what my previous dogs have asked for.

So he’s going to handling class, tootling around in the car to work in a variety of parking lots, biking with Connery for Connery’s rehab, had a big playdate, and this month has one weekend after another of events–agility trials, a seminar, obedience trial…

This means I have one weekend after another of same.

So with any luck, the blog will be full of doggie pictures and doggie fun, and maybe even a couple of doggie surprises.

(Even though, I should probably add, I have a book coming out in just over a month.  This is it.  Here.  TAMING THE DEMON.  That one.  There.  And if you have a review blog or active, widespread review habits and are interested, I’ll be glad to send out a copy while they last.)

Our most recent outing was to partake of a Gerry Brown seminar–Dart’s very first such thing–which was awesome and gave us some tools I think will be critical to helping Dart’s confidence on course.  Piccies currently in development!  Meanwhile, here’s a bit of Dart from the latest agility trial–a twisty little course on which he never did give me full speed, but he did manage to stay on that tricky course after an *ahem* rocky start line.  Go, Dart!

by Doranna

I’d thought that I’d write a blog this weekend, and I’d thought it would probably be about Dart’s first agility trial in four months.

It’s not.

It’s Belle Cardigan’s blog instead.

Miss Belle and one of her agility prizes...can't see, can't hear...but she can still smell the treats!

Belle is now just past thirteen years old, and we’re suddenly–very suddenly–getting ready to say good-bye. 

She’s seen a lot of changes in the past year; she’s now mostly blind and profoundly deaf, and I thought that explained some of the new behaviors that have crept in over the past couple of months.  And maybe to some extent, it did.  But suddenly other changes piled on in the course of the last week, and a visit to the vet quickly revealed the worst–the cancer that Belle has been hiding from us.  Never mind her gorgeous coat or the fact that she looked so good on her Christmas Eve birthday that I thought I’d have years more with her.

Belle was a gift from writer/breeder friend Jennifer Roberson at Cheysuli Kennels, way back when I first moved to the Southwest.  She was too small for conformation shows, but she grew into my first serious agility dog, and she marched through rally excellent and novice obedience with a steady stream of blue ribbons.

She was the first dog in this area to get a PAX (and that was the first PAX title that judge had given).

She was one of only 50 dogs to have a PAX2 at the time she earned hers.

When (in July of ’12)  AKC instituted the more demanding PACH title, she earned her first PACH and very nearly her second; she was at that time #2 Lifetime Preferred Cardigan Corgi.  When I retired her at the end of last year at the age of twelve, she was 100 speed points away from that PACH2 (and nearly a PACH3 with her double Qs).

This is all in spite of calcifying disk disease that struck when she was five years old and partially paralyzed her, a condition from which she was not expected to recover.  Between five to ten years old, she sat out more trials than she ran because of flares, and then the calcification stabilized.  (She continued to run agility at the vet’s behest; keeping her strong was the best thing I could have done for her.)

Belle is my princess dog.  My tries so hard to be perfect you want to cry dog.  My sweet, sweet little blue merle girl with the blue eye.  Bellicious, Bellevator, BelleBelle, Miss B, Princess Belle.

I’m not sure how long we have.  I know it’s not long enough.  And so I am making a bucket list for her, the things I think she most wants from her world in these scant remaining days.

1. 

   The Beloved Tripping Position

   Pleasant afternoons of snoozing in the sun.

2. Evenings of snoozing in the forbidden “trip me” spot RIGHT BESIDE MY FEET at the standing station.
3. Nomming down extra coconut oil, fish oil, and big heapings of yummy meats.  Her appetite is still fine, and she needs this tripled intake to maintain her otherwise rapidly falling weight.
4. This includes Second Breakfast.
5. Getting the office princess bed whenever she wants it, no matter who the boys think owns it (or what they think it’s called).
6. Not worrying about piddling indoors because the office is now one giant incontinence pad.
7. Many couch cuddles.
8. Playtime with the mommy on the floor gently pinching her toes so she can pretend to FIERCELY BITE.

It’s a start.

PACH Cheysuli's Silver Belle, CD RE MXP5 MXPS MJP6 MJPS PAX2 XFP EAC EJC CGC (Belle)

by Doranna

With a title like that, you might be tempted to think I’m talking about the international editions of my books, or the cool covers that sometimes result when the book comes out in a different country.  But no.  Because when my life isn’t all about writing, it’s all about training the dogs.

Yup, it’s time for another Dog Agility Blog Event.  (One of the perks of participation is totally selfish–it spurs me to read all the other blogs, and to look at the subject a whole new way.  Check ‘em out!)  This month we’re pondering the internationalization of the sport, a matter which brought some puzzlement in behind-the-scenes discussion.  “I’ll never compete internationally, so…?”

I am pretty darned sure I won’t ever compete internationally, either.  Never mind being good enough…I don’t fly!  Boom.  Grounded.

But I have a very strong belief in the strength of options.  Options when it comes to training techniques, training tools, training theory.  In fact, I feel strongly enough about having options that even when I run across a technique that makes me wrinkle my nose, I check it out.  You never know when some little piece of information will crop up as useful later on–another dog, another situation, another task.

Just TELL me what to do. Really. Then we'll all be happy.

Once upon a time (she says, by way of illustration), I was new to the idea of shaping behaviors.  Not to mention I had a young dog (ConneryBeagle) who didn’t like shaping behaviors.  Connery wants you to define exactly what you’re asking of him.  Do this; don’t do this.  He doesn’t like being asked to suggest things.  Furthermore, if he thinks his way is valid, he will suggest the same thing over and over and over and over and…look at you in disgust and quit.  Whereas if he does suggest an alternative to a previously defined behavior and you say, “Nope, do it this way,” he will then happily do it that way.

Our experimenting with shaping behaviors was very short lived.  Now that Connery is much more seasoned, I can give him broad hints about what I’d like him to do and then clicker reward, but that’s really a different thing, and I fade the clicker as soon as I can.  But at the time, I read up on it, learned about it…watched other people doing it, and tucked it away.

Fast forward a number of years, and along comes adolescent Dart Beagle–who has flunked being a show dog because he forgot to descend both testicles (this doesn’t surprise me; he’s inordinately fond of them), and who couldn’t be placed in a pet home because he vibrates with intensity.

(The number of people to use the word “vibrate” to describe him, completely independent of one another, is no coincidence.)

So lo, Dart came to my house where I love him fiercely and am willing to be humbled by his antics in agility.  And obedience.  And tracking.  And where in spite of all that, he’s also taken on the mantle of service dog.  (That’s another blog.)

On the other hand, Dart does not love the flash on this particular camera...thus the squint. But he does love the bucket, which--with shaping--he not only learned to balance on in a single session, he also realized that in order to balance on it, he'd have to flip it back upright when he knocked it over.

Dart looooves shaping.  Dart loooves figuring stuff out.  He loooooves knowing he’s clever and proving it.  And Dart LOVES the clicker.  Dart loves the clicker SO MUCH that I use it as a reward during times when he seems stressy.

The point being, if I hadn’t explored both shaping and clicker use just because it wasn’t right for my dog at the time, I wouldn’t have had the option to grab those tools when Dart came along.

So no, I’m not going to compete internationally.  And I don’t particularly like what I’ve seen–safety-wise, fairness-to-the-dog-wise–on some sample AKC Masters C courses (although I also saw one that looked like challenging fun).

But I’ve been watching videos on some of the international techniques, and I’ve watched the videos of world competition, and if some of what I see makes me think “what the effing F is the point of THAT?” it doesn’t mean I won’t look into it, see what proponents of such maneuvers are saying, and see where such handling is supposed to be optimally useful.

Because you never know.  One day it might be the perfect tool to help one of my dogs understand whatever lesson we’re trying to learn on that day.

by Doranna
This is a Dog Agility Blog Event

Ten years after my introduction to agility, I’ve managed to acquire some equipment–jumps, some contact equipment, some tunnels.

And I’ve got a space dedicated to practice, such as it is–as long as I keep clearing the prickly pear, the yucca, the stick-tight burrs, and the stubborn juniper saplings.  The piñons, I run around.

But it wasn’t always that way–and even now, given that this area has a significant winter, desert adobe clay soil, and enough of an ongoing drought to kill all the stabilizing grasses, there are plenty of months when the agility yard footing is an astonishingly slippery clay sort of quicksand.

(You want to know how desperate I am about this footing?  I’m currently spreading horse poo to stabilize the soil on the way out to the agility area.  Oh yes I am!  Because walking on dried horse poo is at least possible.)

I love my agility area, but let’s just say I’m always ready to work around its challenges, just as I used to work around not having equipment at all.  For me, it’s all about breaking things down in a modular way–into component behaviors that build the foundation for the final, complex behavior.

That sounds very fancy.  But when I started doing it, I couldn’t have put those words together to describe it.  I wasn’t familiar with clicker training and the only agility instructor within 3 hours had left.  Then, as now, I did most of my training at home.

Under challenging circumstances, it becomes a matter of thinking about the pieces a dog needs to understand as part of the big picture–and particularly with regards to how that individual dog thinks.  With backyard pieces, you can lay a decent foundation for agility long before a dog is old enough to take jumps, wriggle through weaves, or face a full-height contact obstacle.

When I got ConneryBeagle, I knew I couldn’t target on contacts–in fact, I don’t even want him to think about putting his nose down at contacts.  He needed concrete, stable, environmental cues–not facing cues, body patterning, or amorphous concepts.

I used a single step in my house to teach him “run and sit with your butt on one surface and your feet on another.”  By the time he saw a contact obstacle, he had a very strong understanding of his personalized contact zone behavior.

Dart Beagle came to me with no idea where his feet were at any given moment.  He learned about those feet on the railroad ties that stabilize our startlingly narrow back yard (there’s a young arroyo behind us)–not only running along them, but perching in a neat down–feet tucked up, or no clickie-cookie!  For the same reason, he learned to climb and sit an upturned bucket; he learned to fling himself down on planks in the living room.  He walks curbs when we’re out, as well as those cement parking bumpers.

All those feets are tucked away--cookie time!

To this day, I keep a batch of planks leaning against the book case.  They served to teach a straight front (in progress), and to run ahead to his down on contacts.  They helped him understand the concept of the moving down and a straight finish–and I’m certain we’re not done with those things.

Dart, still figuring out exactly where his body is relative to the rest of the world... But he readily cleared the jump, so all was well!

Both dogs learned their running contact behavior in the house, and took it whole cloth to the equipment. To prevent contact leapage, they use a diagonal motion on the downside of the equipment.  Connery learned this at age five; Dart learned it from the start.  (Frankly, I never did have to worry about what Belle and Jean-Luc Cardigans would do on a contact.  Short legs and “keep ‘em moving” meant a natural running contact.)

We did Dart’s early weave poles on the tiny patio outside my office (and inside the house!).  In the strip of a back yard–with its single jump–he first learned rear crosses, funky weave entrances, and “send to jump.”  To introduce concepts that will layer understanding in body use, attention, and release, and I use the walls of the hall, the back of the couch, crate entry and exit…all the pieces of their normal environment.  Dart doesn’t get dinner without performing some randomly chosen behavior–he not only needs the self control, he needs the constant structure.  So I’m using his basic needs to develop a daily reinforcement of bottom-layer agility and obedience skills.

You see where I’m going with all this.  I hope!  We don’t all have convenient training facilities; we don’t all even have backyards, or have them available all seasons of the year.

But we have our brains.  We know our dogs and how they think and what they need–and in fact, now that I’ve learned to think this way, I’d do all these things as foundation work even if I had a full-size agility yard out my back patio.

The house and yard–or apartment, hallway, and surroundings–are teaming with objects and circumstances just waiting to be co-opted into use.

Eventually, of course, the dog needs to put it all together on a course, and on real equipment–generalizing and proofing are necessary steps.  But if all the pieces are there, it’s suddenly not a big deal after all.

ConneryBeagle! Photo by ByVine Design.

Never a comfy feeling, that.

This summer, I’ve been pretending I’m not naked in public.  In fact, I’ve been pretending really hard.  But at some point, the gig is up.

Yes, I’ve been faking it.

There have been clues here in the blog, but not loud ones.  The truth is, after 25 years of disabling more-or-less mystery illness, late this spring I was diagnosed with long-term Lyme disease.  I don’t have a habit of talking about this aspect of my life, because after 25 years I’m used to it and I don’t figure there’s a lot to talk about.  I talk around it a lot, but it’s not much evident from the outside looking in–only if you already know.

The other reason is that when you open a dialogue about a disease as controversial as Lyme, you need to be prepared to follow up on it, and I haven’t had the energy to do that.

The thing about treating Lyme at this chronic stage is that the little spirochete bastards are buried deeply in your whole body–muscles, organs…nervous system.  Symptoms wax and wane–and in my case, frankly, had reached a point of steadily increasing affect–but none of it is truly acutely active.

Until you start to treat it.  Treatment dredges things up.  If you’re me, you also react to the treatment protocol itself.

So although I had all those years of coping behind me, suddenly I was in over my head.  I started committing Big Stupids.

Big. Stoopids.

The deadlines have been barely met; the dogs have been lightly trained; the horse has been barely ridden.  I’ve been skating through on very thin ice.  But sadly, I’ve reached that moment where I can’t fake it any longer, so here we are.

The crux moment happened last Thursday evening as I was preparing for the weekend’s agility trial.  (For some reason, our Q rate has plummeted.  I just can’t imagine why.  But the dogs are a big part of what keep me going, so we still go out to play.)  I had to check something on the AKC site and while I was there, I poked my nose into the dogs’ records–where I discovered that contrary to my belief, Dart had NOT earned his Excellent Standard title in August.

Therefore, I had entered him in the wrong class at the early September trial (Excellent B, for dogs with the title; he should have been in Excellent A, for dogs without that title).  And he was entered in the wrong class for this past weekend.  And there was nothing to be done to fix it, and yeah, there it was…

The really public Big Stupid.

So even though Dart qualified a couple of times these past weekends, and even though those courses were exactly the same as the Excellent A courses, and even though those qualifications would in fact have finished out his title…well, they don’t count for a thing.  In a few weeks I’ll get a letter from AKC scolding me for being in the wrong class and making sure I know that the qualifying courses don’t count and thanks for the entry fee donations and what was I even thinking?!

So there you are.  And it was embarrassing, and upsetting, and really, really frustrating–since had I not messed up, Dart would have the title in question as of today.

Well. Really, I have a system for keeping track of this stuff.  And really, I’m not just randomly dropping out, messing up, or just plain forgetting.  (In fact, it’s kind of scary to be me right now, knowing that in spite of my best efforts, the next Big Stupid is waiting right around the corner.)  But meanwhile, we took the dogs out for a weekend of agility fun, and they had fun, and on Sunday I even felt a little hint of acuity and Connery ran with resounding cheer and Dart had his best standard run ever, that silly little boy.

And now that I’m publicly naked…I hope you’ll pardon the Big Stupids as they come along!

ConneryBeagle has a big nose.

ConneryBeagle: YES I DO!  And I like it!

It forms the entire look of his face, from that big black button to his big, expressive round eyes–not to mention the incredible eyebrows.  Those eyebrows can follow you around a room even when Connery is tucked up in a Beagle Ball of apparent sleep.  They’re like extra sensory perception organs.

One might suggest that it’s not such a surprising thing for a scent dog to have said big nose, but it’s not a logic that holds true…for one thing, a dog’s sense of smell happens on the inside of his nose, not the outside.  And the most perceptive areas of his snifferoo are in the vomeronasal duct up in the roof of his mouth, and the ethmoturbinates. (Gesundheit!)

For another, Dart Beagle is a much more intensively scent-oriented dog, a natural tracker of extreme degree, and here is his petite little nose, at the same scale:

Well, we have no answers about Connery’s big nose–but the whiter his little prematurely grey face becomes, the more obvious becomes the nose.

ConneryBeagle:  It is MY NOSE.

In the meantime, because Incredible Bad Luck summer continues, at this past three-day trial, I wrecked my going-wonky foot on the very first run, and I wrecked it so badly that walking made me weep like a baby, never mind running agility.  And being agile.

So while Dart Beagle made it very clear he couldn’t possibly run with someone other than his mommy, ConneryBeagle is a seasoned boy who understands the game, and he’ll play for any handler who can instill him with confidence, and who can be where they need to be, when they need to be to support him.  This isn’t just anyone…but his willing honesty creates options.

This past weekend I was lucky enough that local handler Kim Terrill (NAC MACH2 Hob Nob Classic Tower Of Power UD [Steeple!]) was available and willing to run Connery, and he loved her!  Our streak of bad luck continued when he got a charlie horse in his neck (you can see it affect his jumping style as it kicks in at the end of this video).  We pulled him from the jumpers run after this course and he’s being tended, but meanwhile look how hard he tried for her!

ConneryBeagle: I gave her my BAWHL!  That is how mymom taught me to have FUN!

 Made the best of things lately?  I’m trying to take lessons from Connery…

Duh, right?

ConneryBeagle: Yes!  BAWH!

Or not so much, because not everyone seems to know that when it comes to training.

Maybe that’s why when I think coaches/trainers/clinicians, my first priority is to find someone who knows this particular duh and keeps it in mind.

I mean, yes–for me, I need someone who thinks and speaks constructively, who understands my goals and offers me tools to reach them.  I need someone with a good eye who can discern whatever Stupid Handler Trick I might be pulling this time.  Who doesn’t?

But the reason I habitually train at home is that I also want someone who supports my dogs for who they are.  And I really hate how long it took me to realize that not everyone groks the hound learning process (or has an awareness that they don’t).

All dogs are individuals, of course.  They’re not all typical (or stereotypical) of their breed; they all need to be treated as individuals within their breeds.  But breed matters.  Anyone who says it doesn’t, doesn’t Get It.

Dart Beagle is still figuring out how to use his body...

Beagles (hounds in general) are bred to be independent on the hunt.  They’re bred to make their own decisions and they’re bred to persist with those decisions–come hell or high water, terrible terrain or long hours or descending weather.  Humans may interpret their resulting behaviors as stubborn or hard to train, but context is everything.  (And any human who interprets these resulting behaviors to indicate that a little hound is stupid had best take a second look at their interactions with any such little hound and see who’s trained who…)

ConneryBeagle: BAWH HA HA!

Beagles are linear thinkers.  They’re generally robust and square-built (this affects both jumping and weaves), and they like their rules of behavior written clearly in black and white.  They even have visual idiosyncrasies–many of them don’t tend to “see” an obstacle that isn’t moving relative to their own position.  Woe unto me if I do a front cross that brings ConneryBeagle into direct line with the weaves, because I’ve 1) interfered with his line-of-sight to the next obstacle and then 2) lined him up with a hard-to-see obstacle in a way that it isn’t moving relative to his own position.

ConneryBeagle: You should NOT DO THAT.

So why would I want to work with a coach who instead of accepting that (or knowing it to start with), focuses on “fixing it” instead of building awareness and alternate strategies?

In the Beagle world, it’s important to transfer motivation away from self-rewarding hunt behaviors to our interactions before asking for performance work.  And in Connery’s world, a performance choice is valid until he’s told that it’s not.  He won’t make a different choice simply because there’s no reward at the end–in that case, he thinks I’m the one missing the boat (see above, “bred to persist with those decisions”).  But he understands immediately if I stop him in the middle of that behavior and show him what I want instead.

ConneryBeagle:  Why didn’t you SAY SO in the first place?

And by all means, I know to avoid basing performance criteria on props that are faded–stride regulators and pool noodles and touch pads and hoops and….

They are incredibly literal dogs.  (And yes, all of my contact training is based on physical elements of the equipment that never change!)

ConneryBeagle: Things should BE WHAT THEY ARE.

More wrong thinking?  Looking at the green dog who goes out sniffing in the ring and thinking, “I need to stop that.” Yiii!  Sniffing is a highly self-rewarding default behavior, and it’s the first thing a Beagle will do when stressed.  Want him to stress even more?  Go ahead–make a big deal of it, and see where it gets you.  Support the dog, focus on the positive stuff, and the sniffing will fade.

ConneryBeagle: BAWH!  Respect the SNIFF!

A good coach knows that I celebrate my dogs for what they are and I respect them for what they are, and I don’t try to make them fit into the training mold that serves other breeds with their other breed habits–and neither should they.

ConneryBeagle: BAWHSOME!

Just this week I learned that Connery is among the top title earners for breed champion Beagles (it’s hard to pin that down, because there’s no single resource, but at the moment it looks like the top two).  And this is a dog who’s been through life-changing attacks by giant breeds, who’s been chronically ill from his first year onward (yes, all the proceeds from HEART OF DOG still go toward his medical expenses, which are profound even in a good year), and who spent most of the last 18 months dealing with a complicated mystery ailment that took him out of the fun for far too many months.  That’s what I call positive reinforcement for his handler!  ;>

So there you are:  That’s the deal-breaker for me when it comes to a coach or clinician.  Celebrate the dog; work with the dog’s foundation characteristics in synergy, not in conflict.  Don’t just say that you do…have the experience and depth of understanding to do it.

Respect the sniff!

ConneryBeagle:  BAWH!

~~~

PS! This is a DOG AGILITY BLOG EVENT!  Want to see more on the subject of agility coaches?

Yes, I am one of those.  Are you?

If I start reading a book, I feel compelled to finish it.  If I start a series…yeah, that too.  The same goes for writing a book…working on goals…getting things done.

My critter activities aren’t immune.  Do I like the FAST game?  No.  But that didn’t keep me from putting excellent titles on Connery and Belle, because IT WAS THERE.

When Time to Beat (T2B) came on the scene last year, I was excited about it.  It sounded like a lot of fun–fast, flowing courses built at Open level, with a focus on speed–courses that by class definition, even a Novice dog and handler have the chance to complete.  And with the fastest dog setting the pace and determining the point distribution, it invites spectators and interaction and cheering and yeah, FUN!

We tried it at the first local trial to hold it, and it was a blast!  We were hooked!

But a strange thing happened.  While the official description of T2B remains the same, suddenly we’re more likely than not to be facing twisting, technical courses that don’t reflect the spirit of the game in the least.

At one recent trial, we ran a really technical excellent jumpers course. It was a fun course for excellent jumpers–challenging and interesting. Very much what excellent jumpers is all about.

On that same day, we ran a T2B that dropped jaws.  (In fact, you saw a video of it here last month.)  I think there were five direction changes in the first six obstacles, including a terribly difficult teeter entry angle (Dart fell off), and after that there were only *coff* direction changes an average of every other obstacle.  The teeter itself pointed out to nowhere, requiring acute turns to reach the next obstacle, and creating a blind weave entry.

One of the handlers was there with her first dog.  Her first trial.  Her first course.  She left that course completely demoralized and ready to quit the sport–because if THAT was the definition of fun, flowing, and fast at Open level, then my golly, where do you go from there?

It turns out that the course was, in fact, exactly the same as the excellent JWW course–except reversed, which changed the flow for the worse, and with some obstacles swapped out in places that made those approaches even harder.  AKC, what are you thinking?

I had both boys entered in T2B this past weekend.  On the first day, I had to pull Dart when he was completely overfaced by a technical and demotivating start sequence.  Suddenly I realized…I am done with this.  AKC, if you ever decide what this game is all about, let me know.  Because finally, Completionist Woman Opts Out).  I’m saving the money, the time, and the energy for other things.

Like THIS STANDARD RUN!  Right here, where Dart Beagle (finally!) earned his third Exc. Standard Q for his title!  W00t, baby!

Albedo’s Charter Member TD RA AX AXJ CA CGC!

Done any opting out lately?  And did it feel good?  This sure does…I guess that’s how I know it’s right!

Earlier this month, we headed up to over nine thousand feet and into the gorgeousness of Cloudcroft, New Mexico.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.  Totally different ecosystem.  Back into the pines I loved in Flagstaff, back into the coolth, into bear country, into altitude sickness…

(which of these things is not like the other..?)

Actually, we live at 6500 feet right now, which is about a mile up.  At Flagstaff I was at 7000 feet, which is when I discovered how much I like rarified air; I never had an instant of adjustment time.  Those couple extra thousand feet seem to make a bit of a difference, however, especially now that my exercise asthma is so easily triggered.

(I really really wish I hadn’t forgotten my inhaler.  And thank you, THANK YOU to Adrian for the use of hers that first day!)

But I adjusted after a day…and I wasn’t really the one to have trouble.  No, the one of us who got into trouble is the little dog who runs hot as a matter of course: Dart Beagle.  Oh, he got so sick!  And kept me up half the night just to keep an eye on him.  But youth being youth, by the next morning he was happy to run (as you’ll see!).

Cloudcroft is such a fun trial!  The company is wonderful, the trial committee works hard to add special touches, and if you listen to the background noise in the video (or read my inevitable smart remarks in the captions) you’ll see that the atmosphere is full of support and humor.  Judges often remark on what a nice area this is in terms of handler camaraderie.

As for that new math?  That was Dart’s idea.  Just watch the video, you’ll see.

Dontcha wish you were me on that weekend?  What do you do in your life that gives you the same grins?

ConneryBeagle wanted to write this post, but it took me too long to put the video together, and he went to bed.

It’s a longish video and it makes pretty clear that when your feet are permanently sore, you run kinda funny most of the time.

BUT if you want to see all the smarty pants remarks, you’ll just have to watch it anyway.

What good boys!  Does that Dart look like he might just be growing up, or what?

(Well.  Sometimes.)

Me to Judge: *hastening to collect wildly off-course Beagle*  He’s a very HAPPY dog.

Judge: I had sensed that.

PS Yes, I’m wearing shorts on Day 2.  They’re just sort of pinkish.