Motivation and Drive within Myself.

It's about time I write a new entry in my blog...
In case you're wondering where I've been, what I'm doing and when I'll be back...

This is the first year of my life that has been so different that it's been hard for me to handle... mentally. I started college in the fall of 2013 at Maryville University to study pre-optometry. Living an hour away from the school, it wasn't reasonable to have to drive to school 5 days a week from home for classes... So I moved in with my aunt and uncle, only 10 minutes from campus.

Life as I knew it suddenly changed. I went from being home every day to only being able to come home on the weekends. Studying and going to school 5 days a week, driving home Friday, working Friday, relaxing on Saturday and returning to Chesterfield every Sunday.

I have struggled for a very long time to keep my head up and keep moving forward. I can not bring any of my pets to live with me in the city, even my Mar (the cat).

Not only did this mean that I can only train my dogs agility two days a week at a maximum (depending on weather), but I could only see them roughly two days a week. I know my parents take great care of them and give them their supplements daily, but when you have to leave what you love so much every week, it's heartbreaking...

Ace is semi-retired from agility now for personal reasons, so I mostly just work with Strike in agility. Strike is 17 months old as of right now and has not competed, in result I have been getting questioned about why I haven't put him in the ring yet as I could be working on my titles. This irritates me, because the people who ask me this don't know my situation.

I've been on my own to train Strike. I can't afford online classes or seminars, and I am not even with my dogs during the week for the possibility of taking classes with anyone. My opportunity in regards to classes is zero, and that is just the way things will have to be.

Along with my training time cut short every week due to the lack of time I have with them, I have to do things different. Strike has a lovely running dogwalk and aframe. I worked very hard on this, but I am wanting to put a 2o2o on him as well, and as a result, I have received criticism for this. So let me just explain right here for those of you who are so against this idea. I do not want to attempt and expect a running contact hit when we begin to trial with the lack of weekly time I have to work on things. I want to have a solid 2o2o as a separate command (dual contacts) so that I can use that in trial until I have the opportunity to have him run other dogwalks besides the one I have at home. Until summer time, when I can work on things daily will things change and become more solid.

Let me be clear - I do not do agility for the title. I do not do agility for the aspect of competing against others. I don't do agility to "win". I do agility because it is a stress reliever and a way for me to have fun with my dogs. Agility gave me confidence, and although I still have a lot of confidence to build, I am so proud of present-day self. I went from a shy, quiet individual who thought communicating with anyone I didn't know would kill me to a confident young individual who can approach others with ease and engage in small talk - something I previously could have never done... and this was all thanks to agility.

I do not see myself in competition with anyone but myself.

I am not out to win. I am not out to necessarily have the fastest dog possible for the highest odds of winning. None of that matters to me. I have a BLAST running Ace, my slower and now semi-handicap dog. I wouldn't change the way he runs or anything about him for the fastest agility dog in the world.

 It isn't about the Q. It isn't about the YPS. It isn't about the placement.

It's about the fun and the privilege I have to run side by side with my best friend.

Yeah, it sucks that I will not be able to trial much anymore and that I can and will only be able to enter on Saturdays because of school and commuting back and forth to the city during the school year, but I still have motivation and drive somewhere within myself. Not do to good in agility necessarily, but to live life to the fullest and not give a damn about what others think of me. 

I am working very hard through my 7-8 years of schooling to provide myself with the best career for me. I love my dogs, but I also want to be very successful in life and that is why I am so driven to continue on this path - this long journey. To make something of myself. To have a career where I will be able to afford trialing, building my own facility, moving wherever I want to live, being financially stable and most importantly - being the happiest person I could ever be.

I wouldn't be able to have all of this drive and motivation without my friends and family there to support me and keeping my head up when the going gets rough. Thank you everyone who has positively impacted my life and helps me up when I fall down.

So when...?

"Wow Strike sure has grown since the last I've seen him! When can he start competing (in AKC I assume)?"
"December"
"Can't wait to see you at a trial next month then!"
"...I'm not entering him in anything soon actually."
"Why not? He's old enough and he looks great to me."
...
Honestly I've thought I've choked this question to death, but others must not read my blog or Facebook posts.

Yes, Strike can start competing December 8th.
No, I am not planning on competing with him that early for a few reasons...
1. Contact training is not finished!! This may take a while...
2. He hasn't even ran a full course yet, he didn't start serious training until just the other month.
3. I'm not in a rush or race to a certain title or accomplishment, I'm just as satisfied with taking my time.
4. I'm a poor college student.

Yes, Strike did really well at Purina practice.  His weaves are phenomenal,  his teeter is great, he keeps bars up, but there is so much that goes into the training of everything that I would have had to start training obstacles at a lower age, which I am highly against, in order to compete the day of his 15 month birthday and feel completely confident. Mainly because I don't live at home during the week. I don't have the option of daily training, so that sets us back a little bit as well.
I don't plan on competing until Strike is 18 months old. Sure he could have advanced into a higher level of AKC by then, but I honestly do.not.care.
I play this game for fun and because I have a true passion for the sport.

So stop asking me why I won't compete with him next month. K thanks.

Rant over.

My 5 Rules.

Where to even begin...
    Now at a year old, I've been going back and watching videos and awing at pictures from when Strike was younger. Do I regret anything? Not one bit. Some people have asked what my plan was with Strike. How I went about "training" him his first year and what my thoughts were on everything.
This was basically my rubric, if you want to think of it that way... My five major rules in "training" a puppy.

1.) ALWAYS FUN NO MATTER WHAT!
 Training rule number one of course also. Never get mad at or scold the puppy. Never instill fear into him. Be his best friend; the one he can trust. Positive reinforcement, playing, and letting him be a puppy (in other words, let him play and have a puppy brain. Maturity will form eventually).

2.) LEARN THE BASICS FIRST.
Of course I would hope anyone would follow this rule... It would only make sense. Teach them basics while they're young. In a fun and appropriate way, of course.

3.) STIMULATE THE BRAIN.
Self explanatory... Tricks, making them think, get their brains to start functioning. Shaping is especially a great way of doing this!

4.) FOUNDATION, FOUNDATION, FOUNDATION.
Puppies have so much coordination, body awareness, and basic knowledge to learn before anything big. Running around a cone, walking through a ladder, building muscle, strength training, etc. -- all vital to building a performance dog. (Has a lot to do with #5.)

and now for the big one...

5.) BIG DOG EQUIPMENT CAN WAIT!
First of all, you can't compete until the dog is 15 months old at the earliest. Please tell me why in the world you would stress this equipment early on in a puppy's life? If it's muscle you're looking to build, putting your puppy on a full size, lets use the a-frame as an example, is not the way to do so unless you want to risk injuring the puppy. Remember, puppies, like human babies, are not fully developed. There are things called growth plates. Disrupt their growth plates or damage them and well... The outcome may be devastating later down the road. It's a scientific fact, you can't say it isn't true. I just can not bring myself to understand how one can think that performing these full-height obstacles at a young age is healthy. You know that puppies are growing and developing. How can you not see that high impact training like this can damage your growing teammate?

 Plus there is SO much more to do, why rush into things? I really stress this factor in my own training because I want my puppies to be healthy and able to form and have their growth plates close before ANY jumping, weaving, climbing, etc.
So you say that waiting too long will result in undesirable obstacle performance and difficulty for them?
Okay, so clearly my young pup will get no where in agility because he started/will start these obstacles once his growth plates are closed... This is what foundation is for. Build your muscle and drive in foundation training. I find it extremely offensive that people think that younger is better for everything, because it scientifically, is not. You may get lucky and your dog may not develop any major problems, but the risk should be scary enough. We all want our canines to last as long as possible as well as being as healthy as possible.
Strike is a powerhouse. Probably the most muscular pup I've ever met. And he didn't get this from obstacles. Oh no... He got it from **foundation** training. Living on a farm also gave him an advantage, but mainly the foundation. The learning how to run, coordinate his body, and build muscle. /end rant

So, my five rules. What I follow for training puppies. (Yes, I have more "rules" but I just wanted to share 5 of them.)

and some photos for no reason!!

(I mean really, he can fly... and run extremely fast. Some say it's the freckles) ;)

My Puppy is already ONE?!

I am just mind blown by the fact that my sweet little innocent Strike is already 12 months old (as of September 8th). Honestly I thought he would be a little taller. He just seems so small to me, but I'm probably just so used to seeing and being around monster collies.
 So...What now? What are our plans?
Well, I am living in the city during the week to go to college, and I come home Friday afternoon- Sunday afternoon, so my training time and availability is literally cut in half, plus it also depends on the weather.

I STILL need to get the rubber on my contact equipment (I know, I'll get it done soon).
So where is he in terms of contact training?
1.) Dog Walk - On an elevated plank on the ground. About a 90% Jackpot rate right now. Wanting to get that higher before we raise it (or get him on a short dog walk, because I am adjusting my current to do so).
2.) Aframe - Waiting to rubberize my aframe before we get any further in to training with it. Thinking about adding a box, because he's kind of a maniac and likes to two stride the aframe. We'll see when the rubber gets put on!
3.) Teeter - We've been playing the bang game for a long time now. He loves it. I'm very pleased with how he is driving to the end of the plank also (not at full height, obviously).

I raised his jump bar to 14" recently. We're going to start working more on grids, wraps, and all that fun stuff as we build the height of the jumps. So far he is doing excellent!

I have him on channel weave poles that are still almost completely open. My stick-in-the-ground poles are pissing me off and it doesn't help that the ground is hard as a rock right now. So I'm not sure when we'll be able to actually get real weave pole training done soon. Oh well, it can wait!

Mostly we've just been working on handling and reading my body language better. He's a crazy pup, that's for sure.

Trialing? I don't even want to bring that up! Sure, he COULD debut the weekend he turns 15 months, but I'm going to work on taking my time with him and molding and shaping him into a great, prepared dog before I throw him on course. (Not to mention my contact training will most likely NOT be done, and I won't be able to get much practice in during the colder months!) It's NOT a race. Many people sure do act like it is, but screw that. I'm taking my good ol' time and will debut him when he and I are both ready to start our agility journey together. I think we may just debut in ASCA first if there is a near-by trial when he turns 18 months. Ah, I love ASCA.

Can't wait to see what the future has in store for us!
And here is a picture I took of him, drooling from excitement, on his first birthday!
Happy birthday, you crazy little ball of insanity!

Contact Entries

This past weekend I was at an ASCA trial competing with Ace, one of my border collies at Purina Farms.
Friday we made it through our first standard run and got ready to run the second. In ASCA, your second run is typically the first course, only backwards.

Walking the course, I didn't see anything as much of an issue, I felt confident in where I was going and how I was going to handle things. The teeter did feel awkward to me, as it's entry was on a 90° turn from a jump, it just sat back further from the jump. I just thought, "oh, I can just push him out".

The run was going great... Until the teeter, the third to last obstacle. I pushed him out as far as I could before I had to run ahead (I was going to front cross after the teeter), until I looked back as Ace was getting onto the teeter. The extreme angle for his size made it difficult for him to get the right side of his body onto the obstacle.

He started to fall at the pivot point, but somehow grabbed the pivot bar and was trying to hang on to pull himself up (yes, he was upside down!), I start to run back to him, but by that time he let go and fell onto his back and laid there for a second.

Terrified of injury I quickly sat him up and had him walk a few steps to see if he hurt anything. He appeared fine, the judge came over to pet him (Ace loved that), and we had him go back over the teeter, which he luckily had no fear of. Needless to say he got a very long message and stretching after that along with Traumeel.

So I got to thinking and looking at course maps. This was not the first time a weird entry was placed, it was only the first that actually got to us.

The judge seemed concerned and looked back at the angle and luckily the rest of the weekend was friendly with entries.

Today I was watching Youtube videos of friends running agility and I noticed awkward dogwalk entries. (please see drawings below to see what I'm talking about, as I do not have a copy of course maps).

There are a lot of ways of making courses challenging, but perhaps entries to contacts should remain in a definite safe zone, especially for those like me who have large but fast dogs.

Although the dogwalk and teeters' 12" wide planks are obviously more at risk for entries, the aframe can still have risky entries. For example, over my years of trialing I have seen aframes on strange angles. The dogs run to it and have to scramble to the center after almost flying off the other side due to the approach.

Thank God Ace's incident didn't happen on the dogwalk. The pivot point on the teeter is no where near as high as the top of the dogwalk. However, I've sadly seen dogs fall off the side of the top of the up ramp on the dogwalk and land on their backs or side. Yes, these were a result of bad approaches to the entry of the obstacle!

I'm not a judge, I do not know the regulations for how entries to contacts should be set (if there are any), all I know is that giving an usafe approach can and will result in an unsafe performance and may cause injury.

Rushed, Uneducated, or Oblivious?

Traditions throughout dog training have evolved in such a way that some people are stuck in the day of age where things have to be done this way and preformed that way.

Having an open mind is something everyone should have or try to have.

Sadly, one old fashioned way of thinking seems to stick around for some and that is negative reinforcement... Sad, right?

Scolding, grabbing the scruff and punishing, and negative physical contact are just some things I've witnessed people doing while training in various sports, including agility.  

Science has brought us a long way in understanding our dogs better by studying their emotions and especially the research regarding the growth and development of dogs.

Growth plates in most dogs close at around a year, give or take depending on the size.  So why are trainers still, with this knowledge available to them,  teaching full closed sets of 12 weave poles around 4-5 months old? What about jumps at competition heights or full size contact equipment at that age? 

It could be because that's how they've always done it or perhaps they want to impress others...(more like call negative attention to themselves). 

You may argue that training this full size equipment gives your puppy an edge, but are you really doing so? 

Like babies and children, puppies are constantly growing, developing and forming. Drilling activities such as weave poles or high impact jumping can lead to an injury, whether it be obvious or appears later in life because the growth plates were disturbed as a pup. 

Think about the impact of what you're asking your 5-month-old puppy to do. Think of some of the areas affected. Aframe: shoulders, wrists. Jumping: legs in general. Weaving: spine, hips, shoulders. All of these areas and more are taking a toll from this impact training.

Building drive, coordination, basic training, tricks, etc is a lot of what goes in to foundation training... What you should be doing with that pup instead of that full AKC course you set up at your club to show off your "prize puppy". Newsflash - you can't compete until 15 months anyway...

So what are they? 

Rushed?  Racing against someone else mentally to finish or begin training before them. One-upping. Must get everything trained to be a better competitor.

Uneducated? New to the sport or not knowing what is actually going on. Usually in need of a positive mentor to get them started.

Oblivious? Knowing the science behind how impact training too young is bad, but continue anyway because they've always done it that way or have seen others do it that way. 

Keep an open mind and do what you feel is safe for your pup . Don't let oblivious trainers tell you to start this impact training at 3-4 months(Yes, they exist!). 

Go out and have fun with your puppies and remember: foundation,  foundation,  foundation! 

Being seriously fun.

Something we see too often... The competitor in the ring at a local trial stressing and pushing their dogs to the limits in order for a chance to place (or whatever).

Recently the serious type of competitors have been raising some questions from me so naturally I  observed.

Being serious is not necessarily a bad thing, but it comes to a point where you're bringing your team down rather than up when taken too far.

Pushing limits. Pushing for speed. Who doesn't want to place or do well? Everyone wants to try their best to accomplish goals with their beloved dogs, but how far is too far?

Agility is a fun sport... FUN sport. Not cut throat, life-or-death runs. If you're too serious and pushing your dog, chances are you're just building stress. Stress in the ring may not lead to your "expected outcome" and usually doesn't. Learn to have FUN. The more fun you're having, the more fun your dog is having. The more energy you have, the more energy your dog has. Use that positive energy to enhance your run and avoid the cut throat feelings. Your fastest, most rewarding run will be the run that was the most fun for you and your dog (regardless of result, because we love our dogs and do our best to avoid handler errors, right?)

Pushing training. Training doesn't happen overnight. Agility training is complex and can take months to train. PUPPIES - Want to do AKC? Cool, you still have over a year to prepare before you debut at 15 months (if you are into debuting ASAP). Don't rush training in the most critical time of their little lives. Puppies have far more important things to learn before agility obstacles. Basic obedience, foundation, playing and HOW TO BE A PUPPY. Not to mention their bodies need to have time to grow and develop without damage for future injury. COMPETITION AGE ADULT DOGS - Say you adopt a 15-month-old dog, agility is not a training race. Take your time. Consistant, steady training will result in the best outcome, not obstacle preformances that were slopped together in order to trial quickly. Take the time to train a nice dog. Slow and steady (training) wins the race.

If you're rushing outcomes, you're setting yourself up for possible failure and disappointment. Take your time and have fun with it.

Try being serious...ly fun. No matter what the outcome. Your dog will love you for it, and your attitude with lift your spirits with every run you have... Because nothing is better than the bond and team work between man and dog.