cypher photos | sherunswithdogs

One Week Old Furry Rugrats

Posted on October 6, 2009 by sherunswithdogs

LOOK! An October post actually in October. I could be on a roll now.
As promised here are the one week old shots – Spryte is feeding them well but annoying the hell out of Robyn with her insistence that she is a house dog and should therefore not be away from her puppies any longer than fifteen minutes. Pretty sure that’s not going to wash with Robyn.

Boy 1

Boy2

Girl 1

Girl 2

Girl 3

Girl 4

Girl 5 – Who was a flea but is now bigger than some of her
littermates!

Oh and not to be forgotten Mr Cypher turns five years old today. I told him he better start acting like he’s middle aged and his prompt response was to shove the closest toy into my hand and demand he get an extra birthday play session. As far as he’s concerned you are NEVER too old for toys. I tend to agree with him.

So here’s a photo of him at 9 weeks (this is where I get all nostalgic for the puppy days *sigh*)

And here’s a photo of him at 5 years of age: Hmmm….looks like I haven’t got one. Guess I’ll have
to groom him up pretty and take one in the backyard, I’ll try and do it at the same time of day and in the same place as the one above so we can compare and contrast. Watch this space!

Happy Birthday Raven!

Posted on March 14, 2009 by sherunswithdogs

Been back in Perth nearly a week now and have finally found the time to update my blog. I forewarn of much euphoric happiness in this post because yes, our trip was just that good. Better even than the Victorian Nationals last year (Even better than winning three events and making three finals!).
We left Perth around 4.30pm on a Thursday afternoon and the flight was pretty smooth and uneventful (apart from a guy falling unconscious momentarily and a concern that we might have to divert – no chest pains though so he survived just fine) and we landed in Canberra around ten past ten at night. I had ordered a Ford station wagon from the hire company which apparently translated to a Toyota Kluger 4wd. *Shrugs* No extra charge but not quite as roomy in the back as the station wagon so Spryte’s kennel travelled on a slant which was no problem for her – just annoyed me. But the superior driving experience of a nearly brand new Kluger made up for it. Took us around 45 minutes to follow Glenn and Robyn back to our accommodation which was about 35 minutes out of the Canberra CBD (and therefore in another state! We crossed over into NSW on the way!). The Christmas Cottage was great and is probably one of the best places to stay when you have dogs. Between the 8 of us we had 18 Border Collies and 1 German Pinscher and there was plenty of room for them to run around in.
Friday was a fairly laid back day – we trooped down to EPIC (Exhibition Park Showgrounds Canberra) to watch a bit of the herding, scope out the grounds, put up shade and collect numbers. That was all good and then we (Rosanna, myself and the three dogs) took off for a drive towards the Snowy Mountains and visited a very pretty little town called Cooma. I really wish I had taken my camera and taken pictures but it just got forgotten. Anyway this town was gorgeous and we had lunch there and the dogs got to run around a bit before we checked out a few spots for look outs and had some spectacular views. Stopped in at EPIC on the way back after stopping off at the grocery store to pick up a few items to give the dogs another opportunity to stretch their legs. Spryte was the only one going in the show and I soon realised the Canberra red dust was going to mean her bath on Thursday just wasn’t going to cut it for the whole weekend. Canberra grounds are very dry, red, caked and baked clay and dusty. We came home and had a BBQ with some decent scotch filet steak that I filled up on knowing I had 15 runs ahead of me the next day and knowing that I rarely have the time or the inclination to eat anything at trials.
Next day we were up at 6am in order to get our asses into gear quick enough to get down there for 7.30am given the first showing event was on at 8.30 and that people would be walking the first course in agility then. I also had to give Spryte’s legs a clean up with some spray on water and soap, the soap ended up a lovely caramel colour by the time I’d finished but with a bit of talcum powder she was looking freshly bathed again so all was good! Novice Agility was first and none of us were in that but next up was Excellent Agility and it was a nice flowing course that didn’t look to have too many possible problems. Spryte found one though! Deciding to self release on the a frame because apparently she knew where the course was going next, she cut across the front of my feet and took a spread jump backwards instead of heading to her left and onto the seesaw! Instant DQ but I was happy with her run apart from that. Next up was Open Agility and this was nested with Excellent so it was no time before we were walking this one with the distance being a number of jumps on a pinwheel. They started with the 400 height and so Spryte was up pretty quick and I am pleased to say she did this one perfectly, held her seesaw and handled very nicely to go clear and eventually win the class! This is awesome because Raven won this class back at the first BC National in Sydney 2006. Raven also did the course beautifully but I think the first run of the day and she was feeling a touch punchy and decided to apply her brakes a little late on the seesaw the first time and came off it when it was still in the air! After we redid that though she had no issues with any other contacts all day. Cypher was going very well till about 5 obstacles from the end when he hit the weavers for the first time and didn’t quite cope with how springy they were as they were nowhere near as pegged as we have them here and he kinda bounced off the first two poles more than usual and it literally looked like he got sling shotted out of them and missed a gap! He kept weaving completely oblivious! The dag! Took him back and redid them after realising he needs more of a stride check before entering these poles. Apart from the weavers his run was very smooth.
Masters Agility up next and just Raven and Cypher in this one. Raven handled like a dream even with her handler interrupting her flow a little when she pulled her off the right jump and had to bring her round! Raven was heading straight for the spread and for some reason in my head I had “No no! We pull right hard here Rave!” Well yes Simone you pull hard AFTER the spread you idiot! Anyway we ran clear in that one with her doing everything perfectly and it was good enough to win the Masters Agility class at the 2nd BC National! Onya Rave! And on your 9th birthday too! How cool is that?
Cypher did everything I asked and I couldn’t have wanted anything else from him but I think I must have overcompensated (read: got a little paranoid) about the weavers thing because I ended up getting a refusal at the weavers with my dithering about getting him to stride check more – he just ended up barking in my face as though asking what my problem was and are we doing the weavers or not?? Ooops. Oh well you get that…his run was very nice apart from that little glitch.
From there we started the Masters Gamblers class and in the meantime the judges went for lunch and we could walk it as much as we needed to. Spryte was busy up in the showring by then with Robyn and I am pleased to say that from about 42 Intermediate females in that show class she got cut to the top 11. I was just chuffed she made the shortlist! Then I was back down planning for Raven’s course in Masters Gamblers. I was grateful to see no pissy little weave points – so no 4 poles or 6 or 8 poles….there was just the 12. And they were in the gamble with the dogwalk between you and your dog. The trickiest part was getting them on the right angle going into the gamble so that their momentum would take them out to the weave poles. I actually finished my opening sequence quicker than I thought (I had anticipated Raven tiring fairly quickly as 45 seconds is longer than she spends on any course usually) so getting the angle wasn’t a problem in the end and she completed the Masters Gamblers class clear and with enough points and a fast enough time to win! So that’s her second National Masters Gamblers win after taking out the Victorian ones last year.
Excellent Gamblers next and the gamble nowhere near as hard this time so I tried to make sure we got the weavers in twice and did all the contacts twice, Cypher gave me everything and I was absolutely thrilled with it despite a nail biting moment in the gamble section where he nearly didn’t find the dogwalk due to the less than ideal angle I’d put him onto the gamble with! But I just kept up my verbal cues (read:yelling) and he eventually got the message….luckily fast enough to complete the gamble, make enough points go clear and win it! What an awesome day it was turning out to be! Raven had completed two winning runs so far, Spryte had Open Agility and now Cypher had Excellent Gamblers.
Novice Gamblers was next and the gamble this time was completely different – four simple jumps made much less simple by having them span across the middle of the course virtually! It would be a challenge to make sure that A. The dogs didn’t take more than one of them in a row in the opening and B. To make sure that none of those bars got knocked! I came up with a plan for Spryte that steered most of her opening sequence as far away from those jumps as possible but that still accumulated enough points – I didn’t quite get through all of my opening sequence plan (seems the contacts were not quite what they were at the start of the day funnily enough and we had to redo an aframe) however we garnered enough points to pass and just had a minor hiccup with the last jump of the gamble, she’d thought we’d finished but then realised when I was still frantically running the gamble line and arm signalling the last jump that perhaps she had one more jump to do! The last jump was at a different angle so she just didn’t see it in her path. Thankfully she did it in time and surprisingly for me (since we didn’t get all the points we could have) she won this class too! The last half of the day was dedicated to jumping and we started with Masters Jumping. Brian Hillier designed a fast flowing course with a couple of subtle challenges. Raven and I got on the start line and it turned out to be one of those runs that you just want to bottle. She and I were totally in sync and the run was one of the smoothest, tightest MJ runs we’ve done in a while. I knew when we finished that it was a good time and she was more than ten seconds under the SCT. I was kind of grinning like an idiot by that stage, not quite believing the day could go any better. And then Cypher surprises me…I ran hard, really hard and he was with me the whole time on that course never letting me get to far in front of him, his ground speed will never be as fast as Raven’s but with closer handling his turns can be tighter and as a result he finished that run less than a second and a half behind Raven which for him is something special. Ultimately Raven and Cypher ended up in 1st and 2nd place respectively and really? Can’t do better than that. *Is still beaming*
Open Jumping was next and Spryte was first up in that and she felt a little slow through the weavers so I was wondering if she was feeling tired. Anyway she pointed out a challenge to me that I hadn’t recognised when I was walking it and couldn’t see a jump in a side by side jump tunnel discrimination. So I fixed that with Raven but by then I could see the efforts of the previous four runs had taken their toll and she dropped a bar. We finished that course with the one fault and I had never been more pleased with her than that day – she’d had a ball and had worked really hard to give me everything she had. That bar only came down because of a lack of confidence in my directional cues so for a dog who I have spent vast amounts of time on working on her bar knocking this effort today was just absolutely brilliant. Cypher came the closest to a clear on this one, he was four obstacles from home and shot out of a straight flexi tunnel so fast that I was unable to redirect his trajectory quick enough to avoid a refusal on a jump set slightly offside before the last line of jumps to the finish line. Think I must have been feeling tired by then too. It didn’t bother me in the slightest though I must admit…the day had been brilliant enough!
Last run of the day was about 5pm in the afternoon and they were hurrying to get through the runs before the light went. Spryte was in Excellent Jumping. And given her run in Open Jumping I decided she must be feeling as tired as I was by that stage (I had had little sleep the night before and had even consumed a V energy drink during the day which I normally avoid) and so I had given her a small handful of Advance biccies in some water after Open Jumping, hoping that might pep her up for Excellent Jumping. I don’t know if those helped or if she’d just managed to sneak in a super power nap between OJ and EJ but she was firing! We had about 18 obstacles and we finished that course clean and in 20.23 seconds! I think adrenaline was the only thing powering me by that stage and somehow I managed to keep up and a little ahead (the course design did help that – plus a dog happy to run straight out to a tunnel whilst you got your own ass in a better position) and we finished our last run of the day off with a win! Yes, I’m still beaming.
I was a little shell shocked by our successes that day I must admit. I’ve been playing this sport for nearly 14 years now and never has anything gone quite that well all day for me. I’ve had great days for sure and I can recall them just as vividly but this? This was just amazing…and all on Raven’s 9th birthday. A dog currently in remission from Canine Lymphoma and still receiving chemo. Out of the nine events I had entered that day, between the three of them they managed to carry off the first places from seven of them! I’m so happy I got to take them all. Spryte’s improvement from her first trip east back in August last year to now is really quite noticeable and I have to admit that whilst I know she will never be another Raven (honestly I don’t think there ever could be no matter how fast they were) she is proving to be just as much fun to run in her own right as Raven is. When the time comes for Raven to retire I just know Spryte is going to be just as much of a thrill to run as Raven was.
I managed to get some photos of the dogs – thanks to Lara Sedgeman, one of the National photographers and I post them here. For all her agility photos of the Nationals go here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/GunShotPhotos

Cypher looks rather pleased to be free of those weavers!

A four shot Cy On Seesaw sequence – he’s really quite polite
waiting for the cue to leave – either that or he’s just making
sure we can all see his best side.

I think this was Open Jumping – so not the pretty
jumping style Cypher!

Performing the difficult distance challenge with style!

Cy on the Masters Jumping course – on his way to second place!
Note the improved jumping style on this one!

Cy on the Excellent Gamblers course having fun!

Raven’s first run of the day – seems her ABS was not quite
up to par!

So we did that one again – and this time did it right!

Lara took good shots of Raven weaving!

Mandatory dog running photo – complete with shaved hock!
Having a ball on the Masters Gamblers course.

On her way to first place in Masters Agility!

Same jump two different courses! Top one Open Jumping
bottom one Masters Jumping!

Last run of the day and looking a little tired on the
Open Jumping course.

Two shot sequence of Spryte’s winning Open Agility
seesaw! She totally looks like one of those frou frou showdogs here!

Spryte weaving!

See what I mean about the Open Jumping feeling a bit slower?

Great tunnel photos – thanks Lara!!

And our last run of the day – no more feeling tired we were
hooning round this one!

So the upshot of this trial is that we came home with a seven brand new Silver Eagle Cool Coats, embroidered with the Nationals logo, a brand new Black Dog trialling gear bag (thanks to Cypher’s 2nd place in MJ) and seven 9kg bags of Purina Pro Plan. No I didn’t bring those back on that plane with me. I managed to sell four thank goodness and bring one bag home (along with a 2kg bag) and only ended up having to give away two of the bags. I’ve sold two of the Cool Coats, I’m keeping three so still have two available for sale if anyone is interested. They retail between $105 and $120 and I’m selling these for $100 each. The National logo on it is quite nice if anyone is interested let me know. Of course I need to show what the coats look like. 🙂

Raven

Spryte

Cypher

The Three Amigos

Now I’m pretty sure that Spryte has her JDX title but it seems I cannot find her cards for it. The cards I’ve found add up to four passes so far. I am going to have to go back through her results to see if I can find them and see if I can find the cards. Or maybe I’m wrong. Either way she has picked up her fourth pass for ADO so only one more to go on that one and she is now into Excellent Gamblers. She has also one more pass to go for ADX. Cypher has one more pass to go for his SPDM title and one more to go for SDX. Raven is now sitting on one pass left for SPDM, three for GDM still (that seems a lot to me but again I can’t seem to locate any more cards) and four for Masters Snooker. The next trial up is another games trial so that will be good to try and finish off some titles. As soon as Raven has her GDM title though I’ll only enter her at big events for that one – 60 seconds non stop at that level of intensity definitely takes it out of her energy wise (not to mention my obvious need for oxygen at the end of those runs and I’m not even doing any obstacles!) so really unless it’s a National or a Royal or a Classic we won’t be doing the GDM class too often.
Since being back the most I’ve done is take the dogs for a run around the Canine grounds so it will be back to training next week, our next big event being the State Agility trial I guess, Friday and Saturday April 17th and 18th. Spryte will need much more repetition on her contacts and further proofing. There are lots of smaller less used skills that we need to work on too. I was very pleased with her start lines all day Saturday, she was in a rock solid sit on all of them and I should remember not to let up on the reinforcement of that during our training sessions. The next Border Collie National is being hosted by the Tasmanian Border Collie club – hopefully in 2012. I just hope it’s in the latter half of 2012 because I’ll need some financial recovery time after doing a trip of around 5 months at the end of 2011, early 2012 to the US, Canada and Alaska. But I must admit I’ve always wanted to visit Tassie and really – what a perfect reason to do so. I’d definitely make it a two week trip at least I’d think. It would be fantastic if they could organise it in school holiday time but that could be just me.

In non-agility related news caught a horror flick last night at the cinemas – Friday the 13th and have to say, for a person who never does horror films usually, I was entertained.
One might suggest I’m easily entertained these days but I beg to differ, I am pretty sure the older you get the harder it is to be entertained by things whether they be people, books, movies, tv or various other past times. Perhaps it is because the genre is quite new to me, cinematically speaking that is. Anyway as far as horror movies go I can see why it broke opening box office records for the horror genre in the US. It did help that it had one of the Supernatural boys in it I suppose but still….worth the $8 voucher tickets we used.
Probably better than My Bloody Valentine as well (sorry Jensen) because there was a definitely much more on the edge of your seat kind of feel to it.

Another hobby I am currently trying to cram into my somewhat bursting schedule is learning the piano. I came home from Canberra to a Casio piano keyboard (yay for Mr Tim! *mwha*) and I am determined to learn how to play my favourite pieces of music.
It could be a challenge because I am not that keen on the actually learning how to read music part but god bless the internet and Youtube for wonderful How To Play videos that show you where to put your hands and fingers. In the back of my mind I’ve always had the impression that it’s a pretty special talent to be able to play the piano but in just these past few days I have come to be just in awe of those world renowned piano players because who knew how hard it is to have your left and right hand doing totally different things AT THE SAME TIME!!!! Honestly you’d think having the whole Gemini thing going on, split or twin personalities that I’d be able to just flounce on in and start playing but no…it would seem something like playing a beautiful classical piece takes practice and a helluva lot of concentration! Who knew!?!! No matter, I shall persevere and probably drive Tim mad playing the same thing over and over but in the end I and my piano playing skills (once I acquire some) shall prevail!

Cypher has a win in the rain…

Posted on April 6, 2008 by sherunswithdogs

and other dog related updates.

So when I last updated I had explained about the process/procedure for our attack on Raven’s lymphoma. A few things have passed since then. First of all the Gosnells Agility trial on Saturday the 22nd. It was a good night in terms of passes and runs, Cypher ran clear in three out of four runs picking up a 4th in Masters Jumping, a 3rd in Open Agility and a 6th in Open Jumping. In Masters Agility I just didn’t step in quick enough to pull him in tighter to the weaves and he went in the second gap, other than that I was very happy with his run on what was one of the more challenging Masters courses for a while.
Raven also had a good night although I must admit she must have been feeling a little less then a 100% because she held every start line as long as I needed her to and she didn’t knock a single bar all night. She picked up a 2nd place in Masters Jumping to the awesome Domino, and a 3rd in Open Jumping. I stuffed her up in Open Agility and Masters Agility, again with a slow reaction to an imminent and then completed off course into a tyre in Masters and then with a confusing cue for a direction over a jump causing her to back jump it.
Spryte also had a ball, we had one glitch in Novice Jumping with a lollipop tyre she wasn’t sure really was a tyre, in Agility we redid the weave poles and had a refusal, and in Open Jumping we ran over the line and she had a blast finishing down a long line of jumps without me.

So then to Tuesday and Raven’s 2nd chemo treatment, her WBC was 1.6 so it is still low but they went ahead and she didn’t seem to have any of the problems that she did last time with the vomiting and loose stools. I did up the fibre in her diet though. Her nodes were reported as having reduced in size already which was heartening.

This week she had her 3rd treatment (the 2nd dose of Vincristine that is in her four week cycle) and although her WBC was still low at 1.7 they still gave her the treatment. She bounced back from that very well without any side effects and they told me that all her nodes were back to normal. So clincially she is in remission now, we’ll check her cytological (cellular) status at a later point closer to the BMT. She now just needs to weather through the next five treatments before the big day of the Bone Marrow extraction. She must be feeling quite well because she pushed me on her start lines all day yesterday and had bars down in four of her runs and in Masters Snooker where she kept all bars up she missed an a frame contact! Can’t remember the last time that happened…but I was very happy with her run regardless as she made the time with 5 seconds to spare even doing the most points out of all the dogs there.

And here we are at week 4 just about with treatment number 4, the doxyrubicin. This is the one that causes heart muscle damage so it’s pretty nasty. From what I can recall of her last treatments (she’s had 4 doses so far) she came through them ok. So fingers and paws crossed for this one.

Cypher had a good day at the trial yesterday. He finally went clear in Masters Agility (ADM passes and Cypher have been like a barren wasteland), knocked a couple of bars in Open Agility, knocked one bar in Open Jumping and was clear in Masters Jumping till his handler had a brain fart on course and completely lost her way. I redeemed myself in Excellent Snooker handling him for a win there. It really is one of my pet hates though…losing my way on course. It doesn’t happen very often but when it does it drives me up the wall. And this is me who has improved at learning to *let things go* like that. *g*

Spryte was an absolute blast to run yesterday. It would appear that the rain just makes things that bit more exciting. She was in NFC for everything and ran clear in Novice Jumping. In Open Jumping we reestablished that our rear cross language needs much work but she did the distance challenge which wasn’t a simple one so I was very chuffed about that, we also took the opportunity to run our weavers again after she missed one (I have no idea which one). In Novice Agility she popped the last weaver and we reinforced that contact position on the dogwalk is still two on two off, not four in the colour looking angelic. She’s really starting to open up and I’m enjoying watching that. I can see at each trial she gets that little bit more bolder and creative and whilst I know I need to balance that out with reinforcing self control I don’t believe letting her have some leeway with this will harm, in fact I think it will have the opposite effect and allow our training to progress faster. Some photos from yesterday’s rained out trial.

Cypher

Spryte

Raven

Yes it is a good thing there are no penalties for dog abuse of handler,
did I mention she *hates* stopping?

But she’s a good girl really *g*

Sometimes…

Posted on March 16, 2008 by sherunswithdogs

Sometimes the world is just shit. A little shout out to a fine film by the name of Pay It Forward (go watch it if you haven’t) but also a pretty good summation of my reaction after getting off the phone to Ken Wyatt (Raven’s Oncologist) Thursday afternoon. As my gut instinct told me, Raven’s lymphoma was confirmed as having returned March 13th 2008. Stupid cancer. Seriously if I had three wishes only, one of those wishes would be to get rid of all forms of cancer forever. It’s a hideous, insidious disease that doesn’t discriminate in any way, shape or form. She will beat it back again. Of that I have no doubt. Now it is just a matter of selecting our treatment option. If we go the exact same route that we took last time no doubt she will go into remission again however our chances of cure have gone from 15% to 0%. So now we will be considering other options. I won’t know what till we see Ken Monday and discuss everything in detail. The good thing now is that since Raven’s diagnosis in May of 07 Murdoch has performed at least 12 bone marrow transplants in that time frame. If we choose this she will no longer be a guinea pig for the treatment and that’s reassuring for me however irrational my previous fears were regarding her being the first patient to undergo it at Murdoch. We shall see though. In the meantime apart from her slightly abnormal lymph nodes Raven is just fine, her behaviour, her attitude and her general health is absolutely normal, she was running round like some mad young dog last night at a fun agility event and unless I told you – this dog has cancer you would be none the wiser. Just like she is. I plan on keeping her that way. So that’s my rather sobering Raven update for now.

On a brighter note she had a wicked time last night – enjoying her two runs to the max (clear in jumping and a whole bunch of DQs in Agility because I didn’t go back and fix a missed weaver but boy they were fast DQs LOL!) and having fun in a tunnelling event and the 36 weave competition. Cypher also enjoyed himself with a clear in jumping, one almighty missed a frame contact in agility complete with enthusiastic ‘Woof!’ and he had a go at the tunnelling and weaving event as well. Spryte, I think had the most fun, she was flying on the jumping course and handler had a ‘bad handler’ moment telling her to ‘get out’ when she didn’t need to, so she did and I nearly caused a refusal but she saved my butt and tried so hard to clear the bar with an upright in her face, the bar was always gonna come down, however I was so pleased with her effort. She’s really starting to step up and do obstacles without as much support from me which is just what I wanted. In Agility she nailed the weaves with a badly lit entry and an incredibly appealing dog walk off to the side I was absolutely proud of her for that. We had a hiccup with a refusal at a tunnel entry but other than that she was clear….and having so much fun she jumped into my arms at the end delivering a face full of kisses. Sometimes the cuteness is just overwhelming. Who could resist a face like that? *Points below* I have also posted some pics we took yesterday to commemorate the rare occurrence of all three dogs being bathed, trimmed and groomed on the same day – Spryte is 19 months old, Raven is 8 years old and Cypher is 3 years old.

Spryte

Raven

Cypher

The Motley Crew

An Eventful Week

Posted on January 28, 2008 by sherunswithdogs

Phew. Deep breath. I think I’m sleeping in Monday. The past seven days have been a flurry of activity for me and I need to chill this week. Did the movies on Tuesday and watched The Golden Compass with some friends. I liked it, not Movie of the Year material yet still very entertaining and absorbing. It stayed quite close to the Philip Pullman books and I liked the theological aspects present in both formats. The bears were impressive and pulled no punches in the brutality of their hierarchy. Lyra was played by a girl who looked very much like the image I had in my mind of the main character when I was reading the books. Worth the movie ticket price. Cloverfield wasn’t. I left the cinema with a vague sense of being ripped off and a growing desire to write the film makers demanding my money back for what was obviously a fairly cheaply made movie with an underhanded marketing ploy. Last time I fall for that one. If you like hand held dodgy film work for an hour and a half combined with a few special effects of a monster, very little character development and no story apart from Monster destroys city then this is the flick for you. Just make sure you don’t suffer nausea with watching a screen constantly in motion with someone’s hand holding a mini-cam.

Wednesday and Thursday we (Tim, myself, Cypher and Spryte) took a trip to just outside of Dongara to stay on a rural property with family. 4 hours north of Perth, the property is huge and the beach side of the highway and is really in a great location. We had a relaxing yet energising stay taking the dogs on long walks, checking out the property, swimming in the pool, doing some dune 4 wheel driving to the beach and generally engaging in very pleasant chatter about what animals would be raised there, what improvements would be made and the benefits of a rural life. I have to admit I am very much taken with the idea of being able to step out the back door and just walk for ages without signs of neighbours, traffic, city noises, other dogs or people. Tranquil, serene and peaceful are all adjectives that apply.

There were a couple of other dogs there and Spryte learnt to deal with them whilst Cypher suffered in not so much silence but more with much vocalising of his displeasure with the arrangements. The boy really needs to realise that if I am within 10 feet of him he doesn’t have to do his manly macho posturing in order for me to feel safe and that everyone knows he’s full of the proverbial as when push comes to shove he’s the biggest piece of chicken faecal matter out there. So that was a very nice but short break from suburbia and one that we hope to repeat sometime soon! Photos posted below.

Some of the gardens round the house.

Cole – the most chilled out cat I’ve ever had the pleasure
of meeting. So does not give a stuff about dogs and can
intimidate them all with a single swipe of his paws.

This is Molly and no she is not fat…
that’s 11 puppies in there born 4 days after we left!

Beans – 8 months old and probably a cross between
a bully something and a kangaroo. She has the most
gorgeous temperament and is probably quite ADD.

Spryte likes to use her pointy end in playing.

Got back in late Thursday night and then was up again early Friday morning to ensure that I was down in time for the start of the seminars by Greg and Laura Derrett. Greg and Laura came out from the UK and gave us three days of tuition. Despite the stinking hot weather we’ve had around here recently (38 degrees celcius in the shade) I do believe that everyone got something out of their workshops. I had to help out a friend that day with an event up in Whiteman Park (remote control cars – buggys they call them). The State Championships were being held and I helped out with the canteen whilst Tim took photos. A couple of good ones posted below but he has more at his www.yourdogphotos.com website.

Back in the afternoon to get ready for a trial. Spryte was entered in NFC (Not For Competition) but I scratched her as she had run pretty hard at the beach and given herself a blister which broke causing her to limp. I trimmed the skin off and she was fine after a while. Cypher was feeling pretty wiped out I think. He’d swum quite hard at the beach the day before as the current was quite strong and spent a long time running up and down. I think he must have been feeling it because he dropped bars in a couple of courses, went clear in two classes but was feeling quite slow to run. Raven was very good. I pulled her out in her first run – Open Jumping as she dropped a bar. Then in Masters Agility she tried so hard and I was a completely crap handler and cost her a qually. In Open Agility she dropped a couple of bars and then in Masters Jumping crap handler came out again and opened mouth unnecessarily and pulled her off a jump. *Sigh* Of course she kept all her bars up. Grrrrr ARGH!! I seriously do not know when I am going to get it through my head that our silent runs are always our best runs. That was proven beautifully on Saturday night. Masters Agility was our first run and I was a wuss and released her before I got to the point I wanted to be and she dropped a bar so we withdrew. Then I had Open Jumping with her and said maybe three verbals at the most and she ran clear there. Open Agility she ran beautifully in a very fast time and I apparently kicked an upright as I ran past it knocking the bar off! Clutz! I didn’t even realise I’d done it till after the Judge and timekeeper told me. Then last run of the night was Masters Jumping again, kept mouth closed through most of it and she ran clear and came 2nd. I think my 2008 mantra for running Raven will be ‘Shut Up’. Or perhaps I should just invest in some gaffer tape.

The highlight for me on Saturday night was running young Spryte. I entered her in Novice Jumping in NFC and walked the course to see if I would actually run her. It was a very nice first course so I decided to go ahead. The SCT on it was 34 seconds I think. I was very pleased with her by the end of that run as not only had she run it clear she had also run it with the quickest time of the class in 19 seconds. That was a really nice way to start our trialling career. The judge wanted to know why I had her in NFC as she would have won but I explained the reasoning. To me this was like a show n go or a fun match just to see where she was at. Although she ran well I know she can run faster so I’m hoping with a few more NFC runs under our belt her confidence and speed will increase. A friend videoed it so it was good to watch it back. She took a couple of seconds to orient herself after the chute tunnel so I perhaps should have spoken to her there.

Tim was there taking photos with the new Nikon D300. I really like the speed of this camera, it can take up to 8 frames per second. Below is a four shot sequence of a seesaw by one of the fastest dogs in the country. Domino obviously executes a two on two off seesaw (and is one of the only dogs either brave enough or kamikaze enough to have his front paws hanging off like this) and is trained and handled by Gina O’Keefe. He’s owned by Gina and Liz Alcock. I daresay his seesaw is around 0.5 to 0.7 from paw on to stop.

During the day on Saturday I audited Greg and Laura. The Advanced session with Greg in the morning and the Puppy session with Laura in the afternoon. Both workshops were good in that they gave me exercises, drills, little games to work on with all my dogs. We watched some footage of the nose touch seesaw application and some of the jump grid work they do plus flatwork and how they use tugging. Greg spoke about teaching a running a frame and the issues associated with it. His Detox and Susan Garrett’s Encore are currently the only two dogs who have been taught it. He’s still not sure if he will teach his next dog a running a frame till Detox is 4 and showing evidence of it’s benefit over the nose touch. Lots of interesting discussions took place and I will write up some of my notes soon.

Sunday I had booked private lessons with Laura and we had one first up in the morning. Sue and I had our young dogs there and Cathy had Snazzy. She set up the double box grid and tested our dogs initially just to see if they were up to doing some drills on there. To be honest I wasn’t sure that Spryte would be, unlike Raven and Cypher she is not a dog you can train over and over and she’s still giving everything she’s got. I take the less is more, quality over quantity approach with her. So I brought Cy with me just in case. However she was great, she had several runs on several different sequences and she coped very well, Even when I brought the Frisbee out after using food she was keen to get to it. Not Cypher level keenness (let’s face it….that level is more a manic kind of keenness) but keener than I thought she would be. An absolute bonus was that we broached the cutting behind tendencies that show up from time to time not just with Spryte but with the other youngsters. I wasn’t sure how to combat that however Laura broke it down and explained very specifically what to do in this situation. We need to avoid at all costs the cutting behind to the extent that if we see them doing it we whip around and grab them to make sure they don’t complete the cross behind. It’s an issue that can become a huge bane in your training and trialling and it’s something we need to work on everyday. I also covered Cy’s seesaw behaviour (different in trials compared to training), the cue we use combined with deceleration to indicate a turn, rear cross timing, front cross timing. So much stuff to do I’m glad I took notes. I really need to write up a training program for me as I can easily see that everyone misses out training something. I think the best way to avoid that is to write up a training program. Yes because I have so much time to write these sorts of things! Hmmm….perhaps I shall write up a book, a week by week break down of what to train, the duration of particular training and when to train it; it should give, in the long term, complete coverage over everything! Sounds very technical and methodical to me (and so not my modus operandi) but surely it has to be better than the haphazard approach I have now which is “Oh crap that went wrong, I now know what I’m training next session”.

I have been mucking around with photoshop and some images. There are some really nice backgrounds out there on stock image websites and learning how to manipulate them, render and lift off foregrounds has been interesting. Not that I’ll ever use this name or prefix to breed but it’s fun to play around with it.

The next big event on the calendar for us is Friday night. I finally get to see The Police live in concert for the first (and no doubt the last) time ever. All I’ve heard about them so far has been excellent and I cannot wait! Agility people will realise how much this means to me when they know I’m actually giving up a trial for this concert. It takes a lot for me to miss a night of agility! However there was no hesitation on my part. That said, Rave and Cy are still entered, I figured Robyn can have some fun with them and she can remember all over again the joys of running Masters courses. *Evil grin*

2008 – Better than 2007 surely!

Posted on January 21, 2008 by sherunswithdogs

January 21st 2008

Well still have lots of updates to do here. I am just waiting on approval to post my Cathy Slot jumping workshop notes and the Stacy Peardot seminar review will be up here soon. Stay tuned. On other fronts things are moving along quickly. I’ve realised today there is ten days left before I have to go back to work. I really wish time could slow down during holidays that would be a very handy trick.

So the Spryte is 18 months old today! Officially legal for competition now. Our first real competition will be at the beginning of March at our Western Classic. I am entering her in the NFC (not For Competition) entry for a while first though – she’ll get a few runs in just to get some experience and for us to figure out what we need to target in training. I know we still have loads to work on and she is no where near the skill level that Cypher was at this age but then again I now have three dogs training and less time to train them with. We have made a concrete decision on the contacts – she is doing a 2on2off dogwalk and a running a frame. She’s played on the seesaw a couple of times but we’ve done no formal work on it yet. The weaves and the dog walk have had the most attention and now I am focussing on flat work and body cues and the turns/change of sides. She is not one of these dogs who will just train and train and train, so in a way it is good that I have three to train because it means I don’t overface her on stuff. Her toy drive is slowly increasing and I have to be very careful about when I use them because bringing them out at the wrong time certainly causes them to devalue in her eyes. It’s exciting though, having a new dog to take into the ring, I’m looking forward to it whatever it may bring.

Cypher had a great start to his 2008 trialling season on Saturday night. He had one run in Excellent Gamblers class and finished 1 point behind the winner yet quicker by several seconds. So that was a well earned 2nd place and his 4th leg of GDX, one to go! Then he had one run in Jumping and one in Agility for the fun teams event and pulled off two lovely clear rounds. I really think the grid work and exercises I have been doing from the jumping workshop have helped. So he helped our team to first place. Things I want to work on with his trialling this year is tightening up his turns and experimenting with transitioning to running contacts in trials.

Raven also had a great start to the year, still in remission (despite Simone being paranoid at one point, booking an appointment with Ken and then being told quite happily that I should go home and enjoy Christmas with my very much still in remission Border Collie) and enjoying life to the full. She has the equivalent of a puppy coat on now, which is great for summer but does make her look so much smaller and younger (till you spot the grey on the face!). I was a bit concerned that perhaps I had been too relaxed with her over the break as when we came back to training she was knocking bars all over the place. Then I started to do some grid work and set point work with her and it must have helped. Three runs last Saturday for three clear rounds! She won the Masters Gamblers class with 99 points for her 2nd leg (her third go at GDM) and then she pulled off two clear rounds for the teams event despite being the Reserve dog! So she helped us get rid of a DQ and faults score and put in a cracker agility round. She was quite simply a star and I was absolutely chuffed with her. I really hope this sets the tone for the year but one can never count on *anything* with Raven!

So the big events coming up – Greg and Laura Derrett arrive on Thursday and are here for workshops on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We have two trials on the weekend – Friday and Saturday night as well. So it’s going to be pretty hectic. The club goes back on the first Tuesday in February and that is going to be full on, we have so much to to try out this year. The big event for today – apart from Spryte turning 18 months, is that Tim’s new camera arrived, a Nikon D300 and of course we had to go down the Canine and test it out (despite the heat and the rather stark sunlight). So below are some pics we took today. I must say trained dogs are certainly easier to get photos of.

Cypher – throw the damn frisbee!

I shall use the ‘look’ and see if that gets me any joy.

Up…..!

Up….!

And away!

The Cypher Toy – World’s First Live Dog Tug Toy

Mouth open…

Mouth closed….

Does the hippy swivel shake aerial maneuver whilst
catching frisbee…see boys *can* multi-task

The joyful romp of the holder of the frisbee

Oh well least he won’t be unbalanced…she tugs on
both sides with equal exuberance

Raven – I don’t even like the frisbee that much

But if there’s a chance I can catch it before that riff raff does…

Then I will do my darndest!

Uh huh…there you go! That’s what front paws are for!

The Ready Steady Go! Shoot.
Take 1. Spryte can’t bare to look.

Take Two – and we all know Raven cheated and broke her start,
just look at that face!

Take Three – we’ve nearly got the hang of it

Take 4 – Hurrah! Perfect!
Ready! Steady! Go!!!

I had to do a closeup crop of Spryte with her eyes squeezed

shut! Hilarious! Think I’ll have to buy her some sunnies or something!

Spryte is very good at beating Cypher to the frisbee now,

much to his disgust though he pretends otherwise.

She definitely does the Nyah Nyah Nyah face quite well.

Spryte likes running. Fast.

Very Fast.
Especially when she gets the opportunity to
beat Raven somewhere. For a girl with short legs
she sure knows how to use them!

Evening Trials and Sprint Photos

Posted on December 2, 2007 by sherunswithdogs

Last night Southern River held its’ last trial for 2007. Raven was pretty much as feral as she was last week, two bars in Masters Jumping, one bar in Open Agility, and then we took a jump from the wrong way on Masters Agility (my fault), she also knocked a bar after that (her fault) and then in Open Jumping I didn’t actually get to walk the course and thus ended up on the wrong side of the line of jumps home and she went off course but absolutely jumped every bar clean as you do. Totally my fault once again!
Cypher – well to be honest I wasn’t expecting much from lughead last night. Spryte’s at Day 14 of her season and he does seem to be somewhat distracted by her – he has alot of nervous energy that keeps him checking in on me or Tim to see if we’re going to let him at her or if he is confined, to whining and squeaking his needs to us. He’s getting more and more stressed about it as the days go on, I’m sure he’s checking his internal calendar and is freaking out because he knows somehow in that fuzzy brain of his that the girl won’t be for the taking very much longer!
So with that in mind I would have beeen grateful to get him round the course without losing focus, and I am pleased to say he went clear in Masters Jumping for 3rd place in the 500 class, he went clear in Open Jumping, and I thought he’d gone clear on a really tough Masters Agility course when I looked up as I got his lead and saw a bar on the ground. He’d knocked it and I didn’t even notice! That was a bugger as it was a very challenging course and he did very well on it. In Open Agility he knocked the last bar jump – a spread. Roll on jumping workshop!!
Today we took Rave and Cy down the park and took some flat out sprinting shots of them with the view to getting a good one of each made up into a sticker. These are what I have so far to choose from but I’m not sure if I will try and get some more.

Look at that face! Fangs hanging out, flews flying….

there’s definitely a roadrunner somewhere.

The Cypher sprint…

there’s a frisbee up ahead.

Polite-li-ness and Blog-li-ness

Posted on October 6, 2007 by sherunswithdogs

It has come to my attention that there is probably a whole plethora of people who read this blog that I am not aware of. Stands to reason I suppose that once you put something up here on the world wide web and pretty much give a free reign to all and sundry to access, then it follows that there will indeed be others reading this blog apart from myself and any immediate family I manage to direct here. I’ve come to the conclusion that, frankly, this does not bother me in the slightest. However I have been remiss. *Ponders the term ‘remiss’* Yes, remiss is correct in this context. I realise with my last post that my comment about ‘substandard equipment’ may have been somewhat dismissive of the efforts of a few who work hard for the Royal Show Agility competitors. I take my hat off to those few who, without complaint or compensation, transport, lug and put up the equipment used. In no way did I intend to imply that your efforts are unappreciated. Indeed some of the equipment is brand new and in some cases we should be just grateful that we have easily adjustable and sufficiently functional equipment. So please, you know who you are, don’t be offended by my somewhat poorly placed sweeping statement of frustration towards the powers that be of the RAS, take it as ammunition to help compel the RAS ptbs to make an effort to make your time and efforts be well recompensed.

On a lighter note it was the final day of the show today and also Cypher’s 3rd birthday. I simply cannot believe that the boy is 3 today, feels like a heartbeat ago that I was reaching to open the door to his airline crate and out came this bundle of fluff and fur, 8 weeks old and absolutely gorgeous. His full on personality and happy demeanour has meant that he has been an absolute treat to train and a joy to live with. There’s nothing quite like the Cypher Happy Feet dance either, I’m sure Disney got that penguin idea from him. He just doesn’t feel he’s greeted you properly unless he’s shoved his head between your knees and you’ve given him a quick rump massage whilst his back feet tap and dance up and down on the spot for you. His vibrant and energetic impulse to play can always make me smile even when I’ve had a crappy day at work or I’m muddling through some problem or issue. Sure he has his flaws but unlike us humans I could count them on one hand. He has a zest for life that is highly contagious, I wouldn’t swap him for the world even though there have been moments where I could have cheerfully throttled him. So here are some pics of Cy from today, at 3 years old and of the little 8 week old who had us suckered in from the get go. Happy birthday Tosser – here’s to many, many more!

Having a nap after getting off the plane – make yourself at home
Cy!

The dreaded first bath!

I am Raven – Miss Raven Bitch to you!

So the cute face grew…

Into a handsome lad…

Who qualified in Excellent Gamblers today at the Perth Royal Show

and generally showed how Strategic Pairs could be run

Pictorial Rationale 1: Why we scratched from Obedience this year!
I said “Ready?!” Cypher thought “Sniff harder cos I gotta go in a
second!”

Hind legs at the ready? Or start line funk?

Yay! Success at the Perth Royal again! With a little help
from his team mates of course (thanks Terra, Riot and Jess –
oh and your handlers too of course!)

More Royal Photos

Posted on October 2, 2007 by sherunswithdogs

Perth Royal 2007

Posted on September 30, 2007 by sherunswithdogs

Well the Royal Show started yesterday here in Perth. For those of you who don’t know the Royal is probably one of the bigger events on the calendar. It is one of the big three I suppose, up there with the State Titles and the Western Classic. It is a massive agricultural show that also has lots of side show alley rides, hundreds of show bags and lots and lots of exhibits. There is every kind of event from show jumping to dressage, sheep shearing, pig diving, to wood chopping, cat shows, cows, pigeons, poultry, sheep dog trialling and so on. In the agility trialling end of things there is a teams event every year – in Agility and in Jumping plus the usual Individual Classes and this year they have decided to include two of the games events; Gamblers and Strategic Pairs. Back in May I had been positive and felt sure that Raven would see another Royal and indeed she has! Yesterday was the Teams event – Cypher was in one team called the Master and Apprentices and Raven was in another called Could Be Brilliant. They got four runs each – two of agility and two of jumping. One of the attractions of the Royal event is that only one ring is run so you are really able to watch everyone else run unlike most trials when you usually have to be somewhere with a dog most of the time. It’s certainly one of the nicer things. Every year though it seems there are a lot more drawbacks for those competing. This year the RAS (Royal Agricultural Society) decreed that no one was permitted to bring their own shade (be it cabanas, umbrellas or whatever) as an extra marquee would be available for competitors. Well there was an extra marquee and still there was not enough room – we had people and dogs parked in the sun as well as those in the new marquee having to vacate to the back of it once noon passed due to the sun shining directly into it. They were all squished up in a very narrow area at the back between the marquee and the fence. We also had more restrictions placed on the unloading and offloading of cars meaning we needed to go up to an opposite gate to the agility area in order to be able to drive in and unload. These two things combined with the substandard equipment always brought out for the Royal tends to leach all the excitement and fun out of an event which should be and could be one of the biggest drawcards at the show and showcase to best effect for the public the absolute blast the dogs and handlers can have on an agility course. I think though I will always go to the Royal – as much as Raven turns up her feral meter whenever we run (I am yet to have a decent start line at the Royal with her and this is after 5 years mind you) I can see she absolutely loves the cheers and clapping of the spectators and laps up the attention from them. She’s an absolute rocket to try and handle and I often fall short of her demands on course I must admit. Whilst she is a super fast dog at most times, at Royal time she seems to step up a gear or three and unfortunately my handling and getting info to her in an expedient manner seems to be quite lacking. So we go without any expectations except for one – that we will have the best fun. Yesterday she certainly more than fulfilled that one. She had a few bars down and a few off courses but for the most part she handled well for me apart from one laps of attention in a jumping round where she thought she’d prove how well she could keep the jumps up by doing about 6 extra ones with me standing there waiting for her to figure out that we actually were not going the way she had just so gracefully indicated. She came back and we got back on course. No matter as our team had already bombed anyway so I wasn’t the least bit concerned. Cypher’s team did very well – we won the Jumping event being the only team without any DQs. Cy had one fault in each round as he dropped one bar (oddly enough the exact same bar both courses). His team mates pulled off 2 clear rounds plus a couple of rounds with just one or two faults each. In Agility he again had one fault in each round – got called for a pretty close a frame contact (think that’s like only the second or third in his career) and in the second round he fell off the middle of the dog walk. Yes the flat plank middle bit! Unbelievable really but may have had something to do with the fact that I had given the command to ‘contact’ a bit early, a bit loudly and a bit too close to him. We think he may have just glanced at me to see where I was and he mis-stepped the plank. Landed on his feet so no dramas but of course it incurred a fault. However he did well in that he didn’t DQ at all. A couple of team mates did so we were pretty much out of the running I believe. So all in all not a bad effort and lots of fun to run. Took Spryte with us and she had her first taste of the atmosphere at the Royal. I did a bit of target training work with her in the breaks. She was quite curious about the crowds and the people, especially the little people her size however when I put the target down she didn’t hesitate and went straight to it. I worked her for a five to ten minute session then put her away again. Photos below are from yesterday. Tomorrow we go back for the individual classes.

When good dogwalks go bad! Step 1