Raising a Riot

Sheltie Trial

This weekend we were at the Shetland Sheepdog of Greater Baltimore Agility Trial. We had never been to the facility before and the surface was a bit older and bit slicker than the indoor turn we’ve seen in the past. The course on both Saturday and Sunday were quite technical and challenging especially for a young green dog — not that excellent courses shouldn’t be technical and challenging. All four courses were nice to run, if not a bit tricky.

I was not thrilled with his contact performance this weekend, so I’ll have to add board work to the list of things we’ll work on this summer. His weave pole entrances were all really nice this weekend. And he paid very good attention to me while waiting his turn up until the dog before him was running. I didn’t get any barking out of him this weekend, which I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Saturday started with Exc A Std. I had a hard time running on this course. I felt like there was lead in my shoes. I knew it was risky to do the rear cross between 4 and 5 will a young dog and ideally I would have liked to have fronted, but really I was just trying to make it though the course. So I’m not too upset about the off course. His a-frame performance shows I need to work on independent behavior with him a lot more. I was initially planning on front crossing after the double, which I started and then didn’t complete, but he read the rear cross beautifully. I pulled him too far off the jump two jumps later and caused the refusal and that was just me over-handling the baby dog. I’m very proud of him for coming with me, but smacking myself for that.

The Exc A JWW course that afternoon was a really nice course. Riot came out of the tunnel (the second obstacle) on fire and there was a long line, but after my lack of running this morning, I took off booking it down the line to not fall too far behind. I’m not sure if my booking it, Riot’s speed, or if he slipped on the surface, but he knocked the bar on 5 or 6. This was the first time he knocked a bar in a trial. I don’t have it on video and no one I know saw the run, so I still don’t know why it happened. The rest of the course ran really nicely. If only he had kept the bar up.

Sunday, Riot ran really well. It was even more hot and humid than the day before — well into the 90s when we ran JWW in the afternoon. I crated them out of the car today which I think helped as there was an occasionally breeze and it was a lot less chaotic than the space inside had been the day before. 

Our Exc A Std run was pretty nice. He didn’t hold his dog walk contact, but we got through all the tricky parts. I was a bit worried about the entrance to the weave poles since more experienced dogs were having issues with it, so I booked it from the chute so I could get up there in time. I was so thrilled with him for nailing that entrance that I told him what a good boy he was and that caused him to come out of the poles. <smacking forehead> The rest of the run was clean but he did seem to lose speed on the second half of the course. I’m not sure if that was heat related or what.

Out last run was Exc A JWW in the afternoon and it was hot and humid and sticky. People were pulling dogs left and right and those that were running seemed to be melting. Riot did seem a bit less motivated than he usually is, but turned it a very nice run. I probably should have/could have put in a front cross after the weave poles, but I was a little hesitant to do that on course. Riot saved my butt after the tunnel. I forgot for a moment that there were two jumps in that line before turning and started to pull after the first. fortunately, he listened to my “go” (almost a little too well) and took the next jump. He was about 8 seconds under course time and was the only Exc A 20” dog to qualify and the Q-rates on the course overall were not that high.

Riot OA and OAJ!!!

This weekend at the PVGRC agility trial, Riot completed both his OA and OAJ titles!

Saturday

First thing Saturday morning was Open JWW (not on video). The course was nice and flowy. We had a refusal early on on a jump and I’m not sure what happened. I don’t know if I pulled him off of it or he wasn’t paying attention to it, but I managed to pull him back around and we finished the course without any other incidents. He even nailed his weave entry. Riot Q‘d with a 95 and 3rd place. This was his third leg and completed his OAJ title.

That afternoon was Open STD and Riot Q‘d with another 3rd place. Riot’s a-frame contact was not very good and his teeter wasn’t great, but he had a nice dog walk contact. I’m still holding contacts longer than I would normally with him as we have plenty of time to spare and I want to reenforce good habits. I made a bad assumption and didn’t support the dog walk after the tunnel the way I should have. Riot got a refusal there, but otherwise had a very nice run.

Sunday - Riot’s Excellent Debut

First up was Riot’s first time in Exc A STD. Riot’s contacts looked great this run. I did release him quickly off the teeter to the table, but he held both his dog walk and a-frame today beautifully. We had a bit of a bobble in the middle of the course with Riot taking an off course jump before the tire — something none of us saw as possibility (and I don’t think any other dog took it either), but Riot was absolutely determined to take it. I called him back around and then I have no idea what happened on the weave polls. He completely blew by them for some odd reason, initially I wasn’t going to fix them, then I decided I was going to go back and fix them, but even on the fix he didn’t stay in which was very odd. On video he looks like he’s say “come on there are better things to do.” I have no idea what that was about, and I don’t know why I was so lax about his not weaving. I don’t think my wishy-washy-ness (nice word, huh) helped the situation any and I’m not sure if that’s why he didn’t complete the weaves the second time. The rest of the course was really nice and I’m especially happy with how he read the closing sequence of jumps. Riot’s first attempt at Exc A STD ended in an NQ, but it certainly did have “moments of brilliance.”

Our final run of the weekend was our first Exc A JWW run. Riot was a little distracted and pokey for this run, but still managed to run clean, Q, and come in 3rd place! I’m not really sure what the pokiness/sniffing was about, he was nice and drive-y for the first 3 obstacles, but then had his nose down after jump 4 and after jump 6. The rear on the flat into the weaves worked out nicely and he nailed his weave entrance (no sign of any of the weave issues we faced in the morning). I did pull him out really early for this run. I think they weren’t even half way down the first page of 20” dogs when I brought him up to the ring and he was the 7th dog or so on the 3rd page of 20s. In addition, they weren’t even moving that fast even though the course was a fairly fast course. I was also really nervous for some reason running this course, so he could have picked up on that too.

Riot also decided against treats again this weekend. He did it a bit on Saturday, but then took treats later on. Sunday, I upped the ante and brought better treats and cheese (because of his stomach issues earlier, I try not to change up the variety of treats that he’s getting too often). Well, he refused cheese! I brought cheese with us to warm up for his standard run and he either spit it out, or refused to take it. I did get some really good tugging out of him shortly before entering the ring which was really nice. He still refused cheese before his JWW run, but he decided he would work for his kibble there. I’ve never had a dog that’s so picky when it comes to food. Last night he got a green bean that dropped while we were preparing dinner. I made the other dogs leave him alone because I wanted to see what he’d do with it. He carried it around and played with it for a good 10 minutes before he got bored with it and someone else ate it.

CDTC Agility Trial - Saturday April 10 

We only did one day of agility this weekend and Riot had a really good day qualifying in all three of his runs!

He got to run FAST for the first time (they don’t offer FAST a lot around here). His first time out in Novice FAST he Q‘d getting the 5th highest point total — I’ve never gone for max points in FAST, just plan for enough to Q and get out. It was a really nice smooth flowing course and the send was a simple jump tunnel combination. The only contact was an a-frame and hitting the contact was fine, however, he did not have a good stop on the bottom.

After that was Open JWW where he Q‘d and got 4th place. We’re still having issues finding/acknowledging the weaves poles on course — especially when the entrances to them are straight on or nearly straight on, so we had a refusal at the weaves again. His time was 32.38 and course time was 38. I’m very please with the way the first half of this course looks. He was nice and drive-y and waited very patiently for his leadout. I’ve watched the video a ton of times and I’m not sure what I could have done differently to get the weave entrance?

Finally Open std, he Q‘d, he was clean, and he had the fastest time in his class (10 seconds less than the closest qualifier) and he got 1st place! The course did have a couple of challenging parts to it, but he did well. At the end of the a-frame there was an off-course tunnel. I did hold his a frame contact probably for a good second and took a couple of lateral steps before I released him to pull him away from the tunnel which worked beautifully. The teeter was the obstacle before the table and I held his teeter contact for what seemed like an eternity — I always feel so silly doing that, but I know it’s good practice and he’s so fast, I don’t have to worry about making course time. The dog walk was the obstacle before the last jump and I didn’t hold it as long as the other two obstacles (actually I’m not 100% if he waited for my release or self-released). He did nail his weave pole entrance on this course which was a jump with a nearly 90° turn to the weaves. Course time was 70 seconds and Riot had the fastest time in the 20 inch class at 52.66. Without holding his contacts, that could have easily been under 50.

Mid-Atlantic Agility Showcase

Riot was a rock-star at his first USDAA agility trial. He had 13 runs over the weekend and really did well. I was a bit worried about him having so many runs, but it didn’t phase him. Me? I was pretty exhausted. I can’t remember all the details of the weekend (and that would make for a very long blog post), but here are some of the highlights from the weekend.

FRIDAY

Jumpers - His jumpers run was one of the nicer ones of the morning. Most of the dogs were a little wild Friday morning and lots of bars were coming down. Riot kept all of his 26” jumps up and other than a wrong course (he was driving forward hard and I couldn’t pull him off before he took the off course jump), he had a very nice run.

Gamblers. We had a really nice opening sequence. I had held his a-frame contact for a good second or two before I released him (right now nailing the contacts are more important than course speed for him). So we were further away from the gamble than I would have liked to have been when the buzzer went off. The gamble was a jump to a curved tunnel to two more jumps. Anyways, I sent him over the jump and through the tunnel and he took off. I was too far behind him when he came shooting out of the tunnel, he missed jump 3 and had taken jump 4 before I had a chance to open my mouth. I can’t complain, he was fast and drive-y, and I was just not where I needed to be when he came out of that tunnel.

Snooker - I didn’t look at the course map (couldn’t find copies of the starters or advanced maps all weekend) and didn’t have a very good plan going in. I set him up with a really bad angle to a jump and he took at at a near impossible slice resulting in his only dropped bar all weekend. 

Standard - We had a few issues getting our weave entrance and had to go back twice to get it. Even with having to pull him back for the weaves twice and holding his contacts (well the two he stopped on) for an extra second, he was 10 seconds under course time. We did something wrong and didn’t Q, but I don’t remember what it was at this point.

SATURDAY

Team Gamblers - Riot’s first DAM team run was his first run outside on grass. The ring was defined by a single piece of rope on stakes, so no very defined for young dogs like Riot. As luck would have it, right as he was taking a line of jumps next to the ring gate, someone was walking by with their dog not 3 feet from the rope gating. Riot hopped the rope to go over to visit. I did manage to get him back into the ring and even managed to get part of the gamble and cross the final jump before the buzzer sounded. We didn’t get as many point as we could have, but we didn’t E either. I had so many people come up to me and say how impressed they were that he came back to me and continued working.

Team Standard - The team standard course was nice and challenging. Riot did managed to take an off course jump between obstacles 1 and 2 so unfortunately we got a dreaded E. And then on top of that, right as he was headed over jump 3, the leash runner threw his leash down right in front of where he was landing so he had to go investigate. I did manage to call him back and get him over jump 4, but he almost grabbed his leash as he was coming back to me. After that, we had a very nice remainder of the run. He even nailed his weave pole entrance (which was not all that easy) and gave me a bark as he was doing so. That’s the first time he’s given me a bark on course. So many people came up and commented to me about the “leash incident” and how good Riot was and how rotten my luck had been on the team events so far between the leash and the dog right outside the ring. Frankly they are both training issues and baby dog stuff that we need to work through and probably won’t happen in the future as he gets more experience (and hopefully more focus).

Standard - We ran a beautiful standard course on Saturday. He nailed his weave entrance the first time and other than me saying go and assuming he’d take the last jump, he missed it and I had to pull him back around to take it. We Q’d and got third place.

Team Jumpers - Another challenging course. We did had two refusals (but no E!) and he again nailed his weave pole entry. 

Pairs - We paired with Jimmy. Riot ran the first half of the course and Jimmy ran the second. I was a little worried how the pairs run was going to go since Riot is always wanting to visit other dogs and there was going to be another dog on course. Riot ran a very nice first half of the course and I immediately put him in a down and ran the baton over to Judy so she could run with Jimmy. Riot immediately went down and stayed down while Jimmy ran his half of the course. We Q’d and landed in 3rd place (Jimmy missed his dog walk contact).

SUNDAY

Team Snooker - I came up with a simple, yet flow-y plan for Riot. Since it was a team event, my main goal was to get out of there with a decent number of points and make it through. There were 6 weave poles that were worth 4 points. So my plan was red, jump worth 3 points, red, weaves, red, weaves, and then tackle the closing sequence. (We had to attempt 3 or 4 reds.) Riot ran perfectly. He nailed his weave poles all 3 times we did them on course (one time with a bark) and we made it all the way through the closing sequence before the buzzer sounded.

Standard - Riot ran the course beautifully. I held his a-frame and dog walk contacts extra long, but released him almost immediately from his teeter. His time was just about 20 seconds under course time. He Q’d and got first place.

Pairs - Initially I wasn’t planning on entering him in pairs today, but someone I knew needed a partner, so I decided to. Our team didn’t qualify. Riot ran very nicely, but I did have to bring him back to fix his weaves (first time from Sat/Sun that he didn’t nail them). His partner was a little wild on the course. Since they were one dog short of having enough for even pairs, they needed an accommodating dog, so I volunteered Riot. He got to run the other half of the course with another partner and did very well (only missing his weave entrance the first time again). We did help Rosie pick up a Q, so that was good. Again, he had no issues being on course with another dog running and listened very well to me.

Our last run of the weekend should have been Team Relay (which Riot’s team did qualify to run in — only a certain percentage of the teams get to run). We were well below the cut-off for Qs (I think we were ranked 33 out of 51 teams prior to the relay). Since Riot’s team-mates didn’t care if we ran or not, I decided I was done running for the weekend so we didn’t run (instead I scribed the class).

Over all, not a bad debut for the little guy. If I had known that there was a chance we wouldn’t have run in Team Relay, I may have entered Riot in another starters class on Sunday. As it was it was a lot of runs for Riot, but Riot didn’t seem to mind. He was still amped up when we got home.

After the trial, I let Riot out to play frisbee with 4 border collies. He was keeping up with them just fine. And was thoroughly enjoying himself.

PVSSC Rally Trial - Sunday - Riot RA!

You know it’s been a wild ride when the judge hands you your leash at the end of the run and says “Yee-haw!”

Riot qualified today and came in 4th with a 93! A 13 point improvement over yesterday and all 7 points off were for heeling.

Riot warmed up really nicely today — both outside and when I brought him in the building. His heeling was tighter, his focus was better, and he just overall seemed more eager to please. 

I brought him over to the rally ring about two and half dogs before it was his turn and it was even tighter than it was yesterday. The best I could do warming up ringside was to work on “watch” and keep an eye out for wandering dogs invading his space all while blocking someone else’s view. 

Riot was very interested in the judge and I was half convinced he was going to go visit him when he came to take his leash from me. 

Overall the first half of the course was really nice. His heeling wasn’t as nice as I would have liked but it was much better than yesterday. The jump was so much better than yesterday, he actually returned to heel afterwards, didn’t back jump, and didn’t bark.

The second half of the course was a lot more open and all movement with no stopping exercies (other than the last) and two speed changes. This was going to be more of a challenge for us regardless and then the clapping started. In the obedience ring next to us (which we were facing at the time), they were awarding placements and clapping. This was a bit much for Riot to handle as he was convinced they had to be clapping for him and ran over to see what was going on. I told him to heel and he came right back to me. But from then on out it was a battle to keep him with me as things were just way too exciting.

We need to work on longer heeling patterns and more time between rewards when training. The 14 obstacles on course seems a bit hard on him and I think he would be better focused if he could be rewarded a few times throughout.

PVSSC Rally Trial - Saturday

We had a wild time at today’s Rally trial. I have so much fun with this dog, but he does keep things interesting.

This is the first time we’ve done rally since we started trialing in agility and I wasn’t sure what that was going to do to us. 

I brought him into the building right as dogs started running in his class (there were 7 dogs competing in advanced A). We worked in a separate room with very few distractions and I was able to quickly get him to focus. We found a quiet area in the main room and worked some more and he was doing really well. There was no real room to work close to the rings and we needed to pass by the regular obedience ring to get to the rally ring. We arrived ring side with 2 dogs to go and practiced some sits, some downs, and some very small heeling patterns. I had relaxed a bit as we headed in the ring.

I made the mistake of asking “Are you ready?” right before we headed in and he gave one loud definitive bark. We headed in and he sat very nicely at the start line — even with my fumbling to get his leash off. The first three exercises were okay. They weren’t as precise as I’d like and he was a bit ahead on his heeling, but we made it through. The 4th exercise I stopped mid step to remind him to stay before finishing my step and calling him to heel. The 5th exercise was the serpentine and he was so far ahead of me by the third cone I had to call him back into heel position. Our 90° right pivot was very nice and then came the jump. Oh boy.

He did a very good job staying with me until I said jump when he took off, did the jump and continued forward to the ring gate where he decided to sniff. I had to call him to come back. He came back, back jumped the panel jump, and then as I told him to heel came back to me giving me one loud disapproving bark (apparently one jump wasn’t enough for him?). Of course I’m trying not to laugh at this point.

We actually pulled it together pretty nicely after that. His heeling still wasn’t where I wanted it to be (he was a foot or two further from me than he should have been), but the right spiral was pretty nice and the remainder of the exercises were completed decently.

We got done the judge handed me the leash and said we qualified. I think I just stared at her. She said we had an 80. I stared harder — my eyes might have been popping out of my head. Then she told me to put the leash on my dog.

We finished in 5th place. The judge asked as she was handing us our green ribbon if the golden was obedience bred. I sheepishly relied “yes” thinking about all the OTCHs in his pedigree and his fabulous brothers and sisters. She said that we were going to do fine. I guess she recognized some potential in my spirited youngster ;-)

On our way out someone stopped me and said that he was “full of life.” He’s full of something for sure. 

There were a lot of positive things about today. First of all his behavior was so much better than at the Blue Ridge agility trial a couple of weekends ago. I was able to quickly get his attention and focus outside of the ring. Inside the ring, there was still a lot of stimulation and it was harder for him to focus, but overall he did well (we need more opportunities to work on off leash healing in new environments). He really is spirited and energetic, but that’s exactly what I wanted. And he keeps me laughing, I can’t help, but laugh at his antics. Guess that’s what you get when you name a dog “Riot.”

BRDTC March 2010 Agility Trial

Riot was out in the agility ring for just the second time this weekend and he did a really good job. He’s still a baby dog, but his focus and determination in the ring is incredible. I absolutely love running this dog. He is just so much fun.

Friday

We started with Open Standard on Friday and had a really nice run. I babysat the tunnel to the weaves too much and tried to get his attention before the weaves that I think I made the situation worse. I also pulled him off the jump after the chute. But overall it was a really good run.

Our late afternoon run was Open JWW. Over all it was a really nice run. I need to work on our turns to make them tighter. We also missed our weave entrance again. We’ve spent so long working weave entrances, but not that much time working them as parts of sequences at speed. We also haven’t done that many courses and I think he does start to get tired part of the way through.

Saturday

JWW was first. It was a really nice course. I sat Riot at the start line and walked out past jump 3. He took off and seeing the drive and determination in his face was a beautiful site. After jump 5 I did a front cross and before I had completely turned around to move forward, Riot had taken jump 6, skipped 7 and was halfway over 8 (which got a collective sigh from the gallery). I called him back, and continued on from the missed 7 for a beautiful remainder of the run — including nailing our entrance to the weaves! A couple people who missed the run asked how it had gone. When I told them about getting behind on the front, they looked at me and said why are you front crossing that dog?

Open Standard was Saturday afternoon. I was really worried about the opening since it was tire to a dog walk/tunnel discrimination and we’ve had a lot of problems with this in class. Fortunately the tunnel opening was about 3 feet away from the dog walk so I made sure my lead out had a lot of lateral distance and we had a successful opening. We again had issues with the weaves entrance, but other than that it was a decent run and our first Open Std Q!

Sunday

There were no Qs on Sunday, but two really great runs. In Standard, Riot had one refusal getting on the table. Not really sure what happened there. And we had weave entrance issues again and for the first time did not complete our weave poles properly. Other than that, a great run.

In JWW, I made two handling mistakes. First I did not make sure I had his head when he came out of the tunnel (obstacle number 1) and second, I was a little paranoid about him taking the wrong end of the tunnel and over compensated when I think if I had just told him tunnel, he would have gone, but I confused him. We did get our weave entrance and the last half of the course was beautiful. 

Overall this weekend was a great success! This is only his second time out, only his second new environment (he did seem to be more interested in this floor than the floor in Cleveland). And this is a really chaotic trial — it’s crowded and the crating is practically on top of the ring. 

Riot’s First Agility Trial

Riot, Cisco, and I are up in Cleveland, Ohio for the Crown Classic Dog show. I decided to enter him no realizing exactly how chaotic it was going to be — big noisy building with lots of dogs and people and noise.

Day 1

Riot seemed to have a few ring nerves this morning in JWW. He was looking all around and sniffing the ground and I had a hard time getting his attention. Because of this, I moved closer the second jump than I had been to get his attention and then pulled him off the second jump when I was moving out further (it’s so easy to pull him off things sometimes). After we missed that jump, he kind of took off to investigate. I was able to call him back, but he back jumped that second jump giving us a wrong course. Oh well, I’m just happy he came back. We took jump three and then ran out to investigate the cone for the weave poles. I brought him back, he did the poles and ran beautifully for the remainder of the course. His time was 42.10, SCT was 45 seconds.

For his Standard run, I was completely freaking out beforehand. I couldn’t believe I had entered him him Std when he’s see a standard course twice before, there is no way he’s ready for this. Well, he totally proved me wrong. The course went pretty much as planned. I wish I had taken the time to hold his contacts longer (he was 25 seconds under time, I had time to spend on contacts). And I had planned a front cross between jumps 3 and 4 well, that didn’t happen.

Day 2

Day 2 again started with JWW. I got a two jump lead out and pretty much ran the course as expected. He was clean on paper since the don’t count refusals for weaves in novice  but he did enter the weaves at the second pole and had to re-do them. He did the course in 10 seconds under course time even with re-doing the weaves.

It was a really long wait until Standard. We didn’t run until 6 o’clock. I took him out a little early and I didn’t bring enough treats over with us so I had a little bit of trouble keeping his focus while we were waiting. By the time the dog in front of him was going, he could barely contain himself. I got two barks while the dog ahead of us was finishing up and one more at the start line. He did hold his stay, but the rest of the run felt as frantic and hinging on being out of control — the way I’ve felt the few times I’ve run someone’s border collie. I’m not happy with the way I handled jumps 5 and 6. On paper I was thinking a cross would have provided a better line to the table, but when I walked it, I didn’t think it was necessary. With Cisco, it wouldn’t have been necessary. With the wild child, I should have figured a way to get it in there. I did learn, that I can call Riot off a jump though. His contacts were a mess, he did stop on the dog walk, but my intention of having him hold it was shot when he decided to fly through the tunnel. His a-frame, I released him almost immediately because I was pretty sure if I didn’t he would be releasing himself. By the time we got to the teeter, I was just barely hanging on — my brain does not work that fast! We again has issues with the weaves — he started with the poles on his right instead of left. Which, I have suspected we need to work on collection on courses — something we have not had practice with. But the run was clean and he got first place (he was also the only 20 inch dog to qualify).

Day 3

I’m happy to report that Riot hit his entrances to his weaves the first time both runs. But I didn’t get his runs on video.

JWW was really nice except  I totally blew it and did nothing to indicate the last jump (he’s been doing so well I forgot he was a baby dog and assumed he’d take it). So I cost him a clean run and we ended up in 4th place. He still had the second fastest time at 23 seconds, but did get smoked by a BC.

Standard was a gorgeous run. I held his dog walk and a-frame contacts for a long time after the chaos the day before. I was convinced the judge wanted to tell me to move on the a-frame.

Day 4

Today started with a 3:30 am wake up from Riot that he had to go out. This was followed by him getting sick at 4:30. I took him out and again and proceeded to lock Riot and myself out of my cousins’ house. We ended up not leaving until 7. I got there and took Riot and the entry papers out of the truck, got in, put him in his crate, and managed to get the last 3 minutes of his walk through. I went got Riot, gave him an imodium, let him pee, and went to wait his turn. I was hesitant about running him, but at the same time he was acting like himself so I decided to go ahead and try and if I saw any signs of pokiness or stress, I’d pull him. Well, he did great (he really loves this game), I was so busy watching his beautiful weave entry that I forgot where we were going and got lost on course. He saved my butt by choosing the right jump and we went on to run clean.

I took him out a little later and his stool was still not right, so I decided to pull him from his first Open Standard run and come home a day early.

I’m not sure if his tummy issues were cause by the stress of the environment, the number of treats and the different kind he had had the day before or he caught something at the show. He’s still acting like himself so I’m not too worried, but at least he’s home relaxing tonight instead of trying to play with his 2 yellow lab cousins.