On the first day of Christmas

....my true love gave to me - a beer. In a tree.
Sadie channelling Bob & Doug McKenzie.

Snow Princess

Sundog

Elliott checking on things in the yard. He is continuing to recover
from his ACL surgery. He has built up considerable muscle mass and has
almost complete freedom generally. However, he is still weaker on his
left side and cannot yet frolic with abandon in case he might injure
himself. But he is slowly, slowly improving.

Cuddles

Frozen Dog

Sparkles in the winter sun.

Snooze Alert Level: High

Dog in a box

Strider behaving at HDOC.

Seen at the show

Seen at the show

Seen at the show

Let's Pretend!

As I learn more and more about doing competitive obedience, I discover more and more the usefulness of something called a correction match.

At work the other day someone asked what I was doing on the weekend, and I said I was taking Sadie to a correction match.

- A what?

- A correction match. It's a sort of, um, well, it's a pretend obedience trial. The difference is that you can help your dog if she makes a mistake.

It's hard to explain obedience activities to people who are really only asking to be polite, and whose eyes begin to glaze over the instant you start using terms like "q" and "nq". So as I tried to distill the essence of the correction match into a simple phrase, this is what came out.

As I have discovered, the correction match can be a very powerful training tool for any dog and handler team. You have the full experience of the trial: you travel to a hall, which may be completely new to you and your dog. This was the case on Sunday. We went to a nice facility called The Poodle Farm in Vanessa, Ontario.

Just as at a real show, you set up your crate, you check in and find out where you are scheduled in the running order, you warm up your dog, you put yourself in the ring with a person who may be a complete stranger, who has a clipboard and who runs you through your paces as though it were an actual trial. In classes that require stays, you can test the strength of your dog's stays, and if you choose to, you can stay in the ring to help your dog, or you can come back intermittently to reward your dog. You see the strength of your competition, you watch other handlers and pick up tips you can use in your training. You commiserate with the teams that are having a bad day.

Sadie does not yet have what I would call a great deal of ring experience, so she still finds things overwhelming and stressful when we go out to new places. I am trying to take her out as much as possible to expose her to new people and new places, and correction matches are a safe and positive way to help her grow in confidence and develop her trial skills.

Unlike in a real trial, if she makes a mistake, I can correct her, re-do the exercise, break off the exercise and start over, encourage her when she is doing really well, and communicate in ways that are not allowed in an actual trial. So, for example, when we were doing our heeling pattern and instead of following me through an about turn (this is a u-turn to the right to send you back in the direction you just came from) - where was I, yes, so, instead of actually doing the "heeling" bit of the exercise, when I turned into the u-turn, Sadie decided that it looked like much more fun to jump the fabric-draped gating that we were just coming up to, to see what might be on the other side, and took down most of the line of gating in the process. Much tail wagging and spriteliness on the far side of the gating - look what I just did, mom!

Had this been a real trial, my mortification would have been extreme. Since it was a match, we were able to laugh it off, put the gating back up, and I was able to immediately re-do the exercise and make sure that she stayed with me, and reward her for doing it right.

I do have some jitters even at matches, so this is good too. Because I can talk to her, and encourage and help her, the whole experience is positive for us both. One of the things I try to do mentally at a trial is to hold on to the feeling of enjoyment I have when I work with my dog in a non-trial environment, and the feeling of calm, and to remember it as precisely as possible so that the next trial I go to, I can bring it back to mind and try to put myself in that positive, happy frame of mind.

I think that when I go to our next trials, I am going to try to convince myself that it is in fact no different or more important than a match. I need to stop investing so much emotion into the trial situation, because I keep sabotaging myself with my nerves.

A fellow match attendee mentioned yesterday that it's natural for us competitive types to enjoy the pretty ribbons and try to get them and that it is a good feeling to earn them. But the ultimate goal of doing dog sports is to spend time with our dogs and have fun with them. At the end of the show, you go home with the dog you love, ribbons or not.

Other certainties of dog shows - there is always another show next weekend, and you never, ever know what the dogs will do. Every dog and handler team has their day, and every superstar has unpredictable days. If you put in the effort, you and your dog will accomplish the things you want, while having a good time. The same person also told me "it's funny how the harder you work at something, the luckier you get".

A bonus to yesterday was the glorious weather. It was a beautiful early autumn day. Full sun, moderate temperatures, no humidity. The drive to Vanessa was filled with trees just beginning to turn colour, fields of pumpkins ready to harvest, corn as high as an elephant's eye.

On our way back home, we passed through Ayr and visited Riverside Park. Sadie jumped up into my lap and we watched the world go by for a bit.

Elliott is Improving!

Elliott has been on antibiotics for 18 days now and we are seeing good improvement in his leg. He is once again walking on the underwater treadmill at the rehab clinic. Last week he did 20 minutes in there at 2.7 mph. He is no longer hopping around except occasionally when turning to the left (the surgical side) and he is starting to voluntarily bear weight when standing. He is also volunteering encouraging movements like moving backward. I am cautiously optimistic that this was in fact an infection and I am hoping we can get rid of it and start to move forward again. Last week one morning I took along the camera to get a bit of film to look at later to check his walk, and was thrilled to see he is starting to bounce again. His normal gait involves a bouncy step as he pushes off his feet. He still has a hitch on the left side which you can see, but he has continued to improve over the past week and is now walking mostly at a normal walking speed, not just slowly, and has been able to bounce for longer and longer periods during our walks. He is also back to doing gentle hills and is doing much, much better again. Thank you for your good wishes and I will be sure to post further updates as he continues to (I hope) improve.

Every Diva Has Her Day

I love doing obedience with my dogs, and it is a great feeling when they do well in the ring. However one of the best aspects of obedience is the humility your dogs remind you to observe when they don't have a good day in the ring. As a trainer who I respect a lot has said many times, these are not robots we are taking in the ring. They are dogs and we don't know what they will do on any given occasion.

Personally I like to use the "failures" as learning opportunities. No work in the ring is a failure because you spent time working with your dog, and you gained an opportunity to learn and observe your dog's behaviour, and insight into ways to help your dog do better the next time. This is a dog beside you, not a robot. How is your dog feeling physically? Have you done everything you can to care for his needs? Has your dog had some exercise the day of the trial before you go in? Have you played with the dog that day like you would normally? Have you done your best not to stress yourself out to the point where your dog picks up on it and decides that whatever this is we are doing, it's obviously not going to be fun because you are freaking out?

In spite of doing everything you need to do, you will still have days when your dog surprises you in the ring. This past week we did one Rally trial at the German Shepherd Dog Club of Canada National Specialty. They generously offered one all-breed Rally trial and although the entry was quite small, several shapes and sizes of dogs apart from GSDs were present. I entered Sadie in both Advanced and Excellent, hoping to get another RAE leg towards her title.

Sadie passed her Advanced leg, but pretty much fell apart in the Excellent leg. She lost focus, spent a lot of time looking around and exploring, and I worked quite hard just to get through the course with her. We nq'd of course, and I realized it about halfway through but tried to just complete the course in the best way I could and to stay positive and get her through it.

The course was in an arena we had never been to before. Maybe I should have made an effort to get her in there earlier in the day than I did to let her see where we would be. The ring was indoors, inside an arena, on sod. Sod had been brought in and laid down on the cement to form the ring. I think she was surprised when we started working the course to discover that she was on grass. The arena was large and spacious, and not too many people were around. So at one point when the air conditioning unit came on overhead, she stopped and looked up at it. This trial started at 6pm and we did not go in the ring until about 6:45 the first time. The second round was at about 7:30. This was a first for her and although we do classes often at night, we had never trialed at night. I brought her in about an hour before the trials started and let her walk around and explore but obviously there were conditions in place that caused her to not be able to do her best. In the ring I would not say she was actively deciding not to listen to me but displayed a level of distraction that I was not able to fully draw her out of. She would come back, make contact, do a station, and then I would lose her again. Out of this experience I can take several things to work on. I need to get her out more to different venues. I need to do all things possible to remove the stress from these situations for her. I need to take her to new places and work only focus and use quality rewards for that focus. We also just need to get to more trials and get more experience. She is only 3 years old and really has come so far in the past year that I cannot be unhappy with an off day. We ALL have bad days, including the fabulous dogs who so happily consent to come along with us to the shows. Even the best obedience dogs in the country make mistakes sometimes. After all, we the humans are the ones who sign up, pay the fees, drive to the show, and ask the dogs to come along. It's all our idea, not theirs. The fact that they are happy to come along and do the strange things we ask really is a kind of magic.

Yesterday Sadie participated in her very first Open trial. Unfortunately she made one mistake in the drop on recall which caused us to nq. But I don't care. It was a mistake we can fix. What I was absolutely thrilled about was that she did all the other exercises, and she did a great job. She got excellent marks on heeling, which has always been our weakest area. She did her retrieves, she did the broad jump, and she did her out of sight stays. She did everything with very little visible stress and with a happy wag to her tail when we were finished. I was delighted that she did such a good job in her first trial and I know that she is ready to continue trialing in Open. I know that with more training and more ring experience she and I will have success in the months and years to come.

Thank you Sadie, for being such a good teacher. I will try my best to make our competition time fun and rewarding for both of us!

Wordless Wednesday Part II

Wordless Wednesday

Sadie Got Her American CD

This weekend we ventured to Sadie's homeland, the United States, for our very first foray into AKC obedience. The show was the Western Lakes Training Club trials, in Buffalo, NY.

My friend Christine came with me and was so great all weekend helping out with things and most importantly taping all our runs, so that Paul could watch when we got home. We also were able to see friends who live in Buffalo and who we have not been able to connect with for several years. We had 2 evenings of good dinners and catching up. It was an excellent bonus to the weekend.

The trials were held in what was orginally an airplane hangar and is now a large indoor soccer field with astroturf on the floor. I had never walked on astroturf and it was quite soft and spongy and you could hear it squelching a bit as you walked. I think it would be a good surface for the dogs working in Open and Utility as it would be much nicer to land on after a jump.

As usual I did not have the control over my nerves that I would have liked. This is something I continue to work on as I compete. I know that I have no business indulging any nervousness on my part because that may impede Sadie's performance as she picks up on my different attitude. However we both held things together and she was able to qualify in 3 straight Novice trials to earn her CD (Companion Dog) title, and in the 2 Rally trials offered she placed first, earning 2 of the 3 necessary legs for her Rally Novice title. Unfortunately there were only 2 Rally trials offered, so we will need to find another AKC Rally trial to finish the RN title another time.

The weather was beautiful, moderate and no humidity. The club was very hospitable and the show was very well organized and run. The venue was gigantic and there were 4 large rings, 3 for obedience, and 1 for Rally.

In AKC trials, the ribbons are differently coloured depending on where you place in the results. We were very fortunate to place in all 5 trials, and so the 2 blue ribbons were first place for Rally, the 2 red ones were 2nd place for obedience, and the yellow was a 3rd for obedience. We also got a really lovely orange and blue ribbon provided by the club for the completion of a title.
There were also prizes - toys for placements and really cool poop bags and dispensers for first place. I have to admit I have never before seen hot pink poop bags with little hearts on them or purple polka-dotted poop bags. I may need to archive them to preserve their glorious coolness to share with future generations.

It's always a bit surprising how tired you and your dog become by the end of a show, and even more so after 2 days. The mental stimulation and tension take their toll, and the excitement of working in the ring uses up a lot of energy!

Right across the road from our hotel was a campus of the State University of New York, with a huge field in front of it. Many of us took our dogs over there for a romp after a day of showing.

Here Sadie is letting off steam after a hard day at the show.

She enjoyed all the toys and is thinking about maybe sharing them with Elliott.

Thanks to the Western Lakes Training Club for a great weekend of showing. I think we will be back next year. Maybe by then Elliott's leg will have healed enough that he can be back to obedience work, and he can try for his American CD too!

If you would like to see Sadie's final run in Novice, I've put up a video on YouTube. This is not her best work. The heeling lacks the attention I'd like to see, however, it was day 2, we were both tired, and there are fascinating sights and smells in a new obedience ring! You can watch at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuR_Au3jJPE
This run earned 2nd place and a score of 190.5.

Dog Shows Are Such Hard Work

Poor beleaguered Sadie.

Swanee

How I love ya, how I love ya.

Bottoms up!

This handsome fellow was feeding in the lake behind the Festival
Theatre in Stratford this afternoon.

Tracker Tom

Getting ready to go work again.

Tracker Tom

Elliott's cousin Tom works a track this evening. What a beautiful
night for it.

Setback

I have some fun here with my little blog, and I really enjoy seeing the comments from visitors. I love my Feedjit tool that tells me people are dropping in from Spain, India, Russia, and so many other exotic locales - the world truly has shrunk when international visitors can drop in to see the goings-on of two English Springer Spaniels in a mid-sized Canadian town.

I typically refrain from putting anything too profound or heavy on my blog because I tend to view it as a bit of fun and a nice way to talk about our obedience competition, and because I love my dogs (probably too much) I like taking lots of pictures of them and sharing them with other like-minded addicts.

Today, though, I'm breaking my rule of not getting serious on my blog. I will ask for the collective goodwill of the dog-crazy people who drop in, if you could, just send a good thought towards Elliott. He has suffered a gigantic setback in his ACL recovery, and so far we don't know what has happened or how to go forward.

About a week ago he started hopping on 3 legs seemingly out of nowhere. He has been to the rehab vet twice and, while she is pretty certain that his ACL repair has not failed, we are hoping to get together for a consult with the surgeon who did the repair soon just to see what he thinks might be going on. The knee itself seems fine. There is tenderness at the back of the leg, so we are hoping that what might have happened is a strain or sprain to a muscle. However, here we are at day 7 of basically what continues to be non weight-bearing hopping around. We have rested him aggressively and gone back to square one: no walks, or only very short 5 minute walks (hops); no stairs; no uncontrolled activity of any kind. I have to open my mind to the possibility that the repair has somehow failed or that something else quite serious is going on in that leg. After almost 6 months of good improvement this is extremely hard to deal with and emotionally draining.

I am not typically a touchy-feely kind of person but I will shamelessly ask for anyone who cares to, to send a good thought Elliott's way. Maybe it will make a difference, who knows.

This is neither a cart nor a carting breed!

Bernese Mountain Dog - NOT.

Elliott continues to progress in his recovery from ACL surgery. One of the biggest problems we have right now is that he has lost a lot of muscle on the surgical leg. He still goes to therapy and does work on the underwater treadmill, but we are now trying new ways to challenge different muscles in his leg and rebuild the muscle. One of the things we have been given the ok to do by our rehab vet, Dr. Leslie Woodcock, is to work sets of stairs every day as exercise. Another way to get him to dig in on the surgical leg in a controlled fashion is to have him pull a weight. She suggested a wagon or a toboggan with some books on it.

A great friend at work who is very sympathetic to Elliott and his rehab, and who has a whole passel of human children, loaned me one of her kids' toboggans so we could try having him pull it on our lawn. This morning Paul and I got Elliott suited up in his harness and set about trying to get Elliott to pull this toboggan. For now we are not putting any extra weight on the toboggan because it in itself weighs about 8-10 lbs. That's enough to start with.



Hooking up his harness to the toboggan with 2 leashes through the holes on the toboggan.

I was quite surprised that Elliott did not mind in the least when we hooked this thing up to him and did not freak out or even blink twice about us asking him to then pull it around the yard. I could see that it definitely made him work his surgical leg in a new way, but still in a controlled way. I think we will try to do this every other day to see if it will help to build up some muscle in his leg. If he becomes very good at it we can add a little more weight.

Quite the sight to see an English Springer Spaniel pulling a toboggan! Maybe this is an area for future competition!



What are you doing back there?



Coming, Dad!!!!!

Smoothie

Woolly lamb no more! Post-groom smoooooooothness.

Woolly Lamb

Sadie gets very woolly when she needs grooming.

Lazy "summer" days

You would never know we are at summer's height here in Southern
Ontario. Temps are moderate, we are having more rain than I remember
in recent years, and it is not very summery in any way. Except that
Sadie still knows how to relax on the deck and wish for some
sunshine. Such a princess.

Making new friends

A couple of weeks ago, Tom, Libby, Sadie & Elliott and their people
went over to Rockway Gardens to enjoy a free concert. We spent most of
the time watching and chatting as one person after another asked to
meet the dogs. We do tend to get a lot if attention when we have all 4
dogs out together. We are often asked if they are cocker spaniels, or
simply "what kind of dogs are they?" - although on one memorable
occasion a husband insisted to his wife that they were obviously
Dalmatians. It's good to ask for ID. Here are my two and Tom doing
what they do best - spreading some Springer love.

Tried to Make Me Go To Rehab

I said.... ok. Sure. Here is Elliott working hard on the treadmill.

Only Other Dog People Understand

...that sometimes you share food with your dogs. At our house Paul
shares like this. Ew.

Sadie's First HIT

Last year I started taking classes at a school in Georgetown called Campaign Dog Academy. Each year for the past several years they have held an obedience challenge day for staff and students. When I started going to Campaign, I really enjoyed looking at all the photo collages and promotional posters on the walls that showed the students' accomplishments over the years. The school is obviously very proud of its students and all the work that goes into competing in dog sports.

The Campaign Challenge posters were especially nice, and showed the winners in each obedience category as well as an overall winner. I thought it was great that Deb Desjardine, the owner, would go to the trouble to put on such a big day for her staff and students, and to honour the memory of her dad, Ron Peterson.

I was excited this year to be able to enter the Challenge. With Elliott out of commission due to his knee surgery, I entered Sadie for the day. Challenge Day was Sunday, June 28.

New this year to the Challenge, the overall winner was going to come from the highest combined score across the Agility, Rally, and Obedience competition. Well, I've never done Agility, so I knew there wasn't a chance we would win, but I thought it would be good fun anyway. Sadie and Elliott have both had basic courses a few years ago when they were younger but I've never run a course or done anything outside of a class that was held indoors. Fortunately there was a class available in the Challenge for dogs with no Agility titles, a pre-novice level, so I entered that and worried about what a fool I was going to look huffing around an agility course but knowing that Sadie would enjoy herself. I entered the Rally Excellent class since she has her RE title, and I was able to enter her in Novice Obedience since she has no CDX legs and has never trialed in Open.

Our scores were all kept secret during the day, but placements were announced as the classes finished. No placement in Agility, but I felt she did a good job; she cleanly did about 12 jumps and 3 tunnels and had a great party and man was she FAST. I think this is where her strengths will lie in time to come. And the smile on her face was a joy to behold. Bonus - I did not fall down in the Agility course!

On to Rally, she gave me beautiful effort there including a flawless backwards heel. I was proud when she placed first in her class and got a lovely prize.

In the Novice class she did more good work. As always, heeling is our bete noir in the Obedience ring, but very nice nonetheless. Won that class, and got another prize.

Paul helped out as a ring steward for the rest of the afternoon, and I watched the Brace competition and some of the Open and Utility competition. I always enjoy watching and learning from the experience of these talented handler and dog teams.

Then at the end of the day Deb announced the overall category winners.

Agility - I knew she wasn't in the running because she hadn't won her class.

Rally, I hoped.... maybe.... but no.

Obedience, I knew others had done better out of the Utility and Open classes.

Then, the final announcement of the overall Challenge Winner of the day. Highest cumulative score over the 3 levels of competition, the first ever Campaign Challenge Versatility champion. I think I heard my jaw hit the floor when "Mary & Sadie" was called.

My little Sadie got her first High in Trial out of several classes of competition, across three dog sports, in a very special venue. It was an honour to compete with so many richly talented teams, and it was very special to be the top team of the day at the 2009 Campaign Challenge. We got more wonderful prizes thanks to the generosity of Campaign. Especially gratifying will be to see my Sadie adorning the next collage poster that goes up on the wall at Campaign.

WAY TO GO, SADIE!!!!!

Her Tortie-Ness

Yum

We wanted something simple tonight for a cold supper. A bed of field
greens, cucumber, mushrooms, diced cheddar, almonds, yellow pepper and
cooled, diced, PC World's Best Meatless Chicken (a soy product).
Topped with a little cucumber and dill dressing. Really good.

Happy Father's Day

Elliott and Sadie give their dad some love for Father's Day.

Wordle is Pretty Cool

....if you like tag clouds.

Future Fab Feathers

Watch this space. Baby feathers forming after three months. At this
rate both sides might match in a year or so. Sigh.

Fab Feathers

Elliott's feathers on his non-surgical leg are lovely and long and
luxurious. Note that he is no longer sporting a gigantic fluffball in
place of a proper tail.

Fresh Groom

Sadie looks lovely with her fresh haircut!

Grooming Day

First, she gave me a haircut. Then, she gave me a bath. Who do I call
to register an official complaint?

On the plus side, though, apparently I now smell really good.

Why Yes!

We *would* like some of your lunch!

Gorgeous

Mum, let's go!

Or maybe...

...that chippie went this way!

Chipmunk!!!

Sadie, Tom and Libby are positive the chipmunk went this way!

Trail Walkin'

A lovely view at the end of the trail the other day.

Sunday Rally at Poodle Club

Today I had Sadie out to CKC Rally trials in Etobicoke, held by the Poodle Club of Canada. We were trying
for our first RAE (Rally Advanced Excellent) legs. To qualify for the
RAE title, you must pass both the Advanced and the Excellent class at
the same trial, and you must do that ten times. In other words, you
must get 20 qualifying scores to earn the title.

In our first class today, the Advanced B class, Sadie was handicapped
by the ring nerves of her handler who made some errors, however she
still qualified in a fairly large group, but did not place. In the
second class, Excellent B, I was much more relaxed, Sadie was much
more focused, and she earned her first ever perfect score and placed
third. That's a thing that's a bit frustrating about Rally - you could
get a perfect score all the time and still not place if there are
other dogs with 100s who are faster. So I was thrilled to get a third
place.

On to the next trial and a second perfect score in one day! Sadie
took the Advanced class with that and a lovely fast time to edge out
the other dogs. She was working on a third perfect score, but sadly
got hung up on the backward heeling exercise and we had to redo it,
losing points in the meantime. She still got a nice q of 94 which was
good enough for 2nd place in that Excellent class.

So all told, 4 Qs, 2 perfect scores, 3 placements, and 2 RAE legs.
What a great day for me and my girl. Here she is with all her bling.
She likes her new ball the best of her prizes.

Conundrum

So, I saw this in the store and was struck by two things. First of
all, how unbelievably tacky. Secondly, and maybe the tackiness
requires it, how charmingly (or horrifyingly) inaccurate. "Golden Lab"
- maybe it's one of the new mixes or just an homage to the nonexistent
breed. And this is the awful result when indiscriminate breeding is
also mixed with electrical irresponsibility. Tsk tsk.

It's Official! Number 4 ESS in Canada!

I could not be more proud to announce that Elliott is the number 4 English Springer Spaniel in Obedience in Canada for 2008!
Elliott has become a beautiful friend, teammate and companion. He is happy-go-lucky, a delight to train, personable and sweet-natured. I am still in disbelief that we have achieved so much in the ring in such a short time as complete beginners to the sport. Thank you, Elliott, for making this dream of mine come true. Here's to all the great years ahead, my boy. The best is yet to come!

Behind Bars

Elliott is now allowed the freedom of the deck while we are out on it. The area is small enough that it basically functions as a large crate. It was recently upgraded and now has a spiffy barricade for pups! Such sad faces!