Agility Blessing

May the tunnels not have too much suction,
May the course be fun and fast.
May your dog not stop to say "hello"
to the photographers they pass!

May the table not be too slippery,
May the chute house no scary beasts,
May all the yellow parts be touched
with one little toe, at least.

May the wind be always at your back,
May no bars fall on the ground.
May the A-frame have no stop sign on the top,
May the judge's whistle never sound.

May your dog obey all correct commands
And ignore the ones that are wrong.
May your heart be light, your feet be sure
and the bond with your dog grow strong.

At the finish line, may great joy abound,
regardless of your score,
You have your dog, your dog has you,
and who could ask for more?

Written by: PJ Hughes

Our first private lesson...

was a huge success! And we owe a huge thanks to Erin for giving us the chance to do privates and for being such a great instructor.

Above all else, I've learned that I know nothing of threadles and serpentines, but of course, I knew this. But! That said, I feel like we made a lot of progress. Of course, Psyche and I weren't spot on 100% of the time, but what fun would lessons be if we were?

I left feeling very encouraged and like I knew what I needed to work on, and that will be good I think. I feel like Psyche and I need more planned training sessions, so I'm thinking of starting a training plan for Psyche. Well, less of a "training" plan, and just a "plan" in general. What day's we'll just play chuck it, what days we'll work on obedience, what days we'll work on agility, etc., you get the point. I think it would be good for both of us to know what we were going out to do when we went out to do it. And to make myself follow through with this, I think I'll get a neat little notebook or day planner to do so in.

Anyway, not really much to say as of right now. Though I do have another copy and paste post coming right up (like, in a couple of minutes).

I think she stole a piece of my heart...

Ira went home yesterday.

I knew I'd be sad to see her go, but I didn't think I'd be as sad as I was. I got up early to scrub her crate, get her dog food all packed up, let her out to pee, etc. And by then, I was feeling sick to my stomach and like I needed a good cry. So I laid down for a few minutes before I needed to leave to bring her home.

I took her outside to get into the car and she resisted. She never dogs that. She always meets everything with a "Oh HAI! I'm not scared!" attitude, but yesterday, she didn't want to get into my car. The tears started that moment. And they went on and on the whole 45 minute drive there. Ira would sit in her crate, looking at me, thump her tail, and lay down. She kept checking on me.

We got there, and I cried some more. Told her momma how good she'd been, and then she went to take her out of her crate, and Ira wouldn't come out...This is the dog who's usually barreling out of her crate to come play bitey on your limbs. She had to be physically taken out of the crate, and then her momma sat her on the ground and was speaking to her, and she kept coming back over to me. Even though I wasn't saying anything to her. And when she took her in and put her in a bigger crate she cried and screamed until I was gone and couldn't hear if she still was.

I sobbed the entire way home.

I'm still sad thinking about it. I don't know what it is about that Satan spawn, who most of the time irritated me, that makes me miss her so much, but man oh man, I sure do miss her.

Individuals make the world go 'round.

Let's let this be known, because I feel the need to say it.

My dogs are their own dog-sons. They're each individuals, they're all a little different. There are no other, and never will be any other, dogs who are exactly like them. Close maybe, in looks, training issues, breeds, any of that, but they are not Psyche, Zoey, or Crash.

So when I say, "She was so fast!" I'm not comparing her to the dog who runs the same course 10 seconds faster. I'm comparing her to her previous training attempts, trials, or sequences. Agility has always, and will always, be about bettering ourselves as teams. When I run a course I don't do it with the intention of getting a faster, better run then Sally and her dog Fido who just ran it. I do it with the intention of seeking improvement in the teamwork between me and the dog I'm running.

Like teachers comparing me to someone else in my class, it's not far for me to compare my dogs to someone elses. My dogs will always be individuals, and that's why I love them. How fun would it be if we all owned the fastest, most accurate agility dog?

I love my dogs, even with all of their good and bad traits, because above any dog sport, my dogs are my best friends.

I own the definition of "amazing".

Seriously.

Psyche is amazing. No doubt about 'er. She's my girlie, and such a good girlie.

I just took her out for this amazing session, working on getting some more enthusiasm and drive for sequencing without her toy in my hand. I honestly had no thought in my head that I'd get what I got out of her. She was so amazing tonight.

Well, really, only video can show you what I mean. She was just so good.

Ah, man. :)

Rain, rain, go away.

Today's my day off. My plan all week has been to do agility with my day off. I wanted to do some quick sequencing, and some circle work with a jump thrown in here and there.

But today, my one day off until Saturday and Sunday (both of which may be spent 4 hours away, dogless), is a rainy day. Of course.

All day I whined about the rain, and then just now decided, you know what? A little rain never hurt me before. So I donned my mismatched rubber boots, my purple PJ pants, and I headed 'er out to the field, with my double page protector-ed Clean Run under arm.

We mostly worked on just fun stuffs at first. A few sequences. But then after I decided I wanted to work on getting her to run without her toy. So we worked on me dropping the toy, her NOT rushing to it right away, leaving it, and going and doing one jump first. Then 2, then 3, etc. I think the most we got to was 5, but of those 5 a couple took her running right past the toy.

As of right now, she's not as fast without her toy, which is okay. I can deal with that. So the next time we go out, what I'll do is focus on less jumps/obstacles, more drive. So when she does ONE jump, with a lot of drive, I'll let her go to the toy. Ideally, in a week or so, this would lead to leaving the toy at the start of a sequence, driving through, and coming back to our toy. Like we'd do at a trial.

It was interesting for me to see just how different she is without the toy. She slows down a lot, and just looks like she's enjoying it less. Too dependent on the toy, maybe? Not sure. Anyway, we're going to work on it. Any ideas, suggestions, thoughts, are appreciated.

Bella sent me a sign.

It's been a while since I looked at something and thought, "That was Bella's doing." The last thing was a split second look in Crash's eye, when he first came here. I knew right there and then that Bella had brought him to me, somehow, and for a second, I felt like she was looking out at me through Crash's eyes.

Then the night before last she sent me another. I was driving home from work, after a 3-11 shift, and I was driving the back woods. It's common there not only to see moose, but to hit them. I was anxious the whole drive home, until about 20 mins from home, I saw a shooting star. Now, remember that I'm practically holding my eye lids open, trying to see as much as I can at one time, and somehow, for some reason, at the split second that I glanced upwards, I saw a shooting star.

I rarely see shooting stars, but after this one, all the tension left my body, and all I could think to do was look up and say, "Thank you, Bella. I got your message."

That said, the rest of the drive home I didn't see a single critter.