Back in Action

Seven long months ago Ruby was diagnosed with Idiopathic ITP. As a result Mary Jane and I had to pull her from competition and training while we treated her for low platelets. Last month we started her training again and yesterday returned to the ring for the first time since that horrible day back in September. The saving grace through all this, aside from the great medical help we have received from Texas A&M and Angela, our vet at Westlake Animal Hospital, has been that Ruby has never acted “sick”. She is as full of life as ever. When we restarted training, Ruby was driven! She was eager to play and seemed to have fun running with me.

This weekend MJ and I competed with Ruby in Belton, TX at an AKC event. We chose to compete on Friday as this is usually a calmer day compared to Saturday and Sunday, where emotions run high, and the number of dogs doubles. We ran in 4 events and I had one very specific goal “have fun”. I do love to win, and I do love the titles, but today was about getting Ruby back into the ring and just enjoying the day. Overall, she ran great, she had a few “Ruby Moments” but overall she was athletically beautiful to watch and clearly had a good time in the ring. Outside the ring she was relaxed and calm.

Back in action

In the coming months Ruby and I will work on her weaves to figure out why she balks. I was perfectly happy to finish this run in Second place with a qualifying time. Besides, red looks good on our girl!

Bizarro Ruby

Today was a weird day. Ruby has advanced to the Open class for her events. This means I have to handler her through more challenging courses and she has to pay attention to me more than she has in the past. We signed up for 4 events, two she excels at (Jumpers with Weaves and Standard) and two that we have not been successful at (Time to Beat and FAST). As usual, nothing we do goes according to plan…

Jumpers

This course had a couple challenges for us, the first is the turn away from the tunnel into the weaves. I knew I had to throw a big signal to Ruby to get her around (big dogs tend to take big turns). Next time I’ll get a flare-gun.

Turns like a Battleship

Standard

This looked like a fun and challenging course for us. Ruby has had solid contacts and her focus on me gave me confidence that we’d do great. Ruby had something else in mind, at the A-Frame she missed her contact and blew the run, then to add insult to injury (and thankfully she did not get hurt) she launched herself off the top of the down ramp to finish our run. Every thing else was beautiful. Back to remedial contact training for us!

No time for scratching

FAST

OK, to review, the object in FAST is to get points. You will hear the judge calling numbers out as we complete obstacles. We can run it in any manner we choose, except for the “send”. For that Ruby has to move to the other side of the line and perform two obstacles in order. After Ruby comes down the A-Frame you will not hear the judge…because she failed to get her contact…again. After that she is awesome and then I tried to push her into the weaves from a bit too extreme of an angle. Seeing her hesitate, I decided to move on. Listen carefully at the finish line and you will here the “buzzer of doom” just as Ruby crosses the finish line. Turns out she managed EXACTLY 55 points at EXACTLY the course time. That means, though it was not pretty, it was good enough for a Q and 3rd place.

Beat the clock

Time to Beat (T2B)

Time to Beat is new to us. There are no classes, all dogs run separated only by jump height. I know Ruby is fast, and these courses flow, so you can get up a lot of speed, but Ruby and I need accuracy. Ruby does a good job with the run, but I know we can do better. My missteps cost us time, as such we finished about 10 seconds slower than the fastest dog, still good enough to qualify.

Handler in training

Bizarre Day

So Ruby did great at courses she usually does not, and poorly on the ones she usually crushes. All day I was anxious too, though I don’t know why. I imagine that translated down the leash to Ruby.

Ruby’s First Open Trial

MJ and I entered Ruby in her first multi-day trial this weekend. We discovered that trialing on Fridays is very different from Saturday. First, it was more relaxed, it felt to me like a day off. Added to this is Ruby is now competing at the Open level. This introduced a higher degree of difficulty and more competitive dogs (and handlers).

My goals for this event was to get a feel for Open and try to attain Ruby’s final two Novice Jumpers Qualifying scores so that we can compete in Open for all events (last week Ruby titled in Standard and FAST).

Novice Jumpers with Weaves

Let’s get this out of the way…she did it. Her second run was NOT pretty, but even with all her goofing around, she was 2 seconds over standard course time, good enough for a Q. We talked about it later, she said she was sorry… :)

11/09 JWW Second Q

It ain’t pretty…3rd and Q.

 

Good FAST

Again, Ruby got a bit “zoomy” on me near the end, but I was able to redirect her and collect enough points for her to get her first Open class qualifying run.

Get the handler out of her way!

Crazy Standard and Crazy FAST

I am including these videos for those of you who have said that “You and Ruby make it look easy.” Up to now I have only posted the great runs. Her…less than prefect runs are pretty funny to watch as well. These 3 are from this weekend.

Ruby’s focus was elusive this weekend. On her fist Open Standard run I think she spotted MJ in the stands when she was on the starting line. You can hear MJ on the video and see Ruby’s head pop up on the dog walk, that’s when the wheels fell off.

Look mom, I can FLY!

On her second standard run she blew the down contact on the dog walk. Then, she goes on to finish with a beautiful, near perfect run.

Nearly perfect

Her second FAST run was a bit better than her first. I was the weakest link, nearly running her over in a poorly executed cross. Then she begins the send, the part where she has to cross the line that I cannot and execute the jump-tunnel-jump combination. She clears the jump, dives into the tunnel and the gets that wild child look and tears off. We’ll get it next time.

Zoom, zoom…

Chilax

As a parting shot, weather you train dogs or just love them, I always set a “calmness goal” for our golden girl. In early shows it was that she would just relax and stop panting (the trial environment can be very stressful to first time dogs). Later we wanted her to be calm enough to rest (dare I hope for a nap) during the trial. I would model this for her with Willa by crashing for 15-20 minutes right there in her crate, Ruby would sprawl out on the mat touching me and Mary Jane for security. Later, only a few months ago, we began to bring Shamu with us, and Ruby relaxed enough to enter “the Shamu zone”, where she meditates while nursing on Shamu’s head. Up to now she still did not like the crate. This trial saw a change in that too. Here it is, your moment of Zen.

Me and Shamu, watching the world go by…

Three for Three

What a great day! Mary Jane, Ruby and I were up early for the hour drive to Belton, TX for another AKC Agility event. The Bell County Expo Center is a huge facility, so there are always a couple of different things going on. Last event it was a conformation dog show (a ’la “Best in Show”). This time it was Dinosaurs! So we could hear the roar from the other side of the blacked out fencing. (Training Note: You NEVER know what sounds you need to prepare your dog for…ever.) The side benefit was that there were tons of parents and kids standing in a line that wrapped around the building, so, many of them came to our event to cheer for the dogs while they waited out the line.

I love having new folks in the audience. They have tons of questions and “Ooooh” and “Ahhhh” at all the right times. The adults watch in amazement at the dogs, the kids laugh and sometimes wonder aloud “That looks easy” and “I could do that!”. Then the wise parent asks “Could you get OUR dog to do that?” or “Can you imagine [insert pet name] climbing the teeter totter?” to which the child usually begins to giggle at the thought.

We got to talk to one such family who came for the dinosaurs and stayed for the dogs. The mother asked about Ruby and we got to talking. Turns out mom’s name is Ruby too! When I began our pre-run routine with Ruby I pulled out her favorite treat, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. Their son commented “Mom loves vegetables too!”. Way too funny!

FAST

Our first run of the day was Fifteen and Send (FAST). This is a game of points and time. You can make up any course you like as long as it includes the “Send”, a group of obstacles with a line that the handler cannot cross that must be performed in a certain way. You have to get 50 points (including the send) and run under 32 seconds. Ruby got 61 (and first place) even though she got a little “zoomy” near the send. The thing I like about running FAST at the beginning of the day is there is no penalty when the dog gets a little crazy, so you can get the “ya yas” out before the more challenging runs.

This was Ruby’s third run in Novice to receive a qualifying time, so in the next event we’ll be running in the Open class.

AKC Novice FAST with Ruby

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jumpers with Weaves

With all of Ruby’s great runs, Jumpers with Weaves has alluded us. Once she left the ring to investigate the arena seating, another time she broke her starting line stay and was past me before I knew what happened. This time she was focused and brilliant! This was a clean run and Ruby’s first qualifying time for JWW and first place.

AKC Novice Jumpers with Weaves with Ruby

Standard

Going into the last run of the day Ruby was being very social. At this point the kids from the “dinosaur line” were hovering, petting and cheering for the dogs. At one point I looked over at MJ who was busy with about 5 kids, from toddlers to 5, all loving on Ruby. I think the parents were wise to capitalize on the free entertainment. While we were preparing for our run a loose dog ran into Ruby’s face. She was unphased but clearly a bit tired from the day’s activities. For me, this means she’s focused. Like FAST, we needed one more clean run to Q and advance to Open class. Ruby delivered the Q and took first again.

AKC Novice Standard with Ruby

A Great Day

It really was a great day. Mary Jane and I are figuring out how to manage the events and keep Ruby in the zone. (A big shout out to the crew from Trials by Lotus for their smooth handling of the event and the amount of coordination that they perform!) And we got our BBQ on at Miller’s Smokehouse in Belton. The next trial is next weekend in 11/15 and 16 in Austin! Ruby will be competing in the Open class both Friday and Saturday.