ill post more in the cardio blog... and i should update about rah's and berlin's runs at the maryland trial -- but today is rah's 4 year got day.

im on the verge of tears and so stressed and worried about the procedure.

im trying to stay positive. really i am.

a trip to maryland... part 1 (rah's utility debut)

so i said i would post about maryland - im exhausted so i might not get to the entire show but ...

the show was a lot bigger and busier than i had imagined it would be -i thought it would have been a quieter venue for rah's utility debut. i almost died when i realized go outs wouldbe towards a walkway and not a WALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the stanchions were WHITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and we were next to a freight door entrance to the ring....

i was so nervous for rah's utility debut - haven't been that nervous with him in awhile, and it showed - because i really screwed us up!!! i am solely to blame for the most part!!!! as soon as we set up for heeling/signals, she says forward and i... go FUSS! (DAMNIT!) i didn't realize that it wasn't an NQ though, because i was kicking myself and thought the entire run was gone at this point - which is another problem because at this point i should have just kept working the class and go from there, but i "gave up" and screwed him - because the verbal at the start was apparently just handler error and points off. but i didnt give him the right wait signal after the stand and he walked in on me... no signals, NQ for real.

articles - beautiful on the first article, 1 point off. second article (leather) he went out, searched the pile and smelled the right article but did the thing where he sniffed the right one and picked up the one next to it. not sure what happened - he sniffs with an open mouth and im not sure if its because sometimes he goes too fast and isn't paying attention? but other times he can separate two articles that are stuck together... the GOOD news is that 1) his fronts were VERY NICE here and 2) his pivots were MUCH better - i did a normal right pivot for article one and mixed him up with a left pivot for article two and i got two sits out of him. i had no attention on either pivot - that is bad. of course, getting the wrong article on #2 is also NQ.

gloves - walked him over across the ring, we had glove one. set him up and he was bright and happy, asked him if he was hungry for gloves :) i pivot him to glove one and its right into the freight door. but it didnt matter because he didn't have his head up on the pivot (notice a theme?) and he had already picked his glove - but it was glove 2! i looked at him and he raised his head to me, so i dropped my hand and indicated glove one - he drops his head and looks at one, so i send him - he goes halfway to one, then veers off back to two - bad dog! i stay put and he comes to front, doesn't want to give me the glove back. but he DID bring the glove back!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it was a perfect front. so that was a nice change - he at least did the pivot, did the retrieve and did bring it back. need to definitely work these pivots.

moving stand - happened very oddly because the judge was kinda in the middle of the ring waiting for us? and she had me stand rah where she was, so she was the "Target" and rah just couldnt resist walking towards her - we've never trained that, and when she saw he was going to step in towards her, she backed up - except rah kept walking as she backed up so he couldnt "freeze". NQ!!!!!!! bad blue dog - she was joking its because she has a blue border collie :) i asked if she wanted to trade, since my blue dobe loved her. huge training issue here. at least he wasn't afraid of the judge. not really an exam, he got major pets in the ring since he ended up leaning on her. not exactly what i wanted him to get from that!

lastly, go outs. please god, lets do something right! i have him mark his go out spot and he's locked on... the judge asks me if he's ready and he almost takes off... she says send your dog and again he almost takes off. i send him and he goes out... gets to his turn spot 1-2 feet from the gate and starts to hesitate but DIDNT turn, just slowed - we're in the ring (but NQing... i wasnt sure if i should have turned him?) so i opted to turn him there - he would have turned on his own had i not done it - but it was a PERFECT STRAIGHT GO OUT! she says bar and i almost send him over the high - the crowd gasped when he jumped because he's such an over-achiever. over and time for the last go out - set him up and now he KNOWS where we're going... send him and he's even faster the second time, turn him because he's on a mission and he SPINS and its perfect and he's directly in front of me. send him over the other jump and he's flying, perfect front and finish! lost 1 point on the directed jumping total!

so, all in all - utility was a bust but we had some really good things. definitely things to work on though!

coming soon -
rah in open (heartbreak) berlin in prenovice (superstar) and rally (too long of a day, but rah's first RAE leg)

a return to APDT rally

we haven't done APDT rally in pretty much exactly a year - one year ago last weekend rah finished his ARCHX at the k9crazy trial in NY! so this was our return :)

ill post more details later from maryland still, i know i owe you guys that -- right now i have to go do some laundry and rest a bit.
11 runs, 8 placements, 4 first places (they ran out of blue ribbons, so we're missing 3!), 2 seconds and 2 fourths, and one NQ. finished one title - mercury's RL1.

Berlin got two RL2 legs, one RL1X leg
Mercury finished his RL1 and got one RL2 leg
Rah got one RL1X2 leg, 2 legs towards his ARCHEX and 2 legs each towards his RL2X2 and RL3X

not bad!

maryland update

home from the dobe specialty. good things happened and not so good things. im disappointed in myself for how i handled things most of all, not in the dogs themselves because the dogs really did try hard for the most part. we really only walked away with rah's first RAE leg with a QQ in rally Adv/Ex B. ill update fully tomorrow when im not exhausted and feeling better but right now im beyond phelgmy and congested (showing 6 times in a building called the cow palace, all within 4 hours of each other, is probably not the best for your bronchitis and by the last 2-3 runs - all of which were within 10 minutes of each other, i had a REAL hard time breathing and i was coughing up stuff which was gross). conveniently i had 4 hours in the car on the ride home to let my lungs rest.

now i sleep. tomorrow i work, then birthday dinner 1.5 months early with the family and sunday we show. hopefully i will be better for the dogs.

all we really have to say about last night was that it would have been a qualifying utility run.

and at this time tomorrow morning we will be in timonium MD preparing to enter the ring for the first AKC utility ring time of our lives. ever.

argh! what am i doing?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??

our new glove method seems to be working. taking the only thing rah loves more than gloves and retrieving :)

dear rah pretend you've been trained in utility and retrieve a glove and bring it back to me ok?

vids, wednesday class, and holter

rah's wearing his holter monitor now and tried to go swimming!
last night -

started with agility - we did some skills - worked teeter and me fixing berlin flying off, then weaves and i worked berlins off side weaves (which i thought went well... until... ) and then we did sequences. since i have bronchitis and lydia will be running berlin in the USDAA trial coming up when i will be in NYC with ma mere, lydia ran berlin.

it went REALLY well except for the weaves - berlin had a lot of speed and confidence - but she entered on the wrong side of the poles both times. very odd, since it was ON SIDE weaves - and she's NEVER done that before. which leads me to wonder - in the off side weaves, when i clicked her for the entrance, did she start to think the goal was not necessarily "enter with pole on left" but instead, just nail the entrance opposite mom/handler? everything else looked really nice, including a nice serpentine INTO a threadle that she did jumping directly INTO me that she stayed WITH lydia and ignored me!!!!! so if she can handle like that at the trial (IGNORING THE STUPID WEAVE ISSUE) she hopefully will q :)

no other class until utility -

started with signals - mostly good. had some issue with people crossing in rah's path while i left him which makes him very uncomfortable with doing the signal - he freezes. but we worked through it. the funniest part was when i did the signals with my back to the door and the puppy that he really really hates outside the door and he really really really had a hard time doing them but he DID!! and then when he had ot do them with the piece of bread he really really really wanted to eat 10 feet to my left - he kept eye flicking over to it, but he did his job! (he did get the bread eventually at the end of the night!)

moving stand next, and he mostly did a nice job. earlier i was working on the finish from the stand - i had decided to try a left finish from the stand since all of a sudden rah has decided he can do one - but he was funny because he would act like he would go left and at the last minute tightly circle around to the right.

then we moved on to individual things. rah started with go outs, which really wowed me. there were toys scattered on the floor, and i just walked him in, set him up, and sent him to go out - he ignored all the toys. next go out, as he was going out, kathy threw a db right in his path - in fact she almost hit him with it !!! (we ALL know rah's deep love affair with the db!) - he didn't even flinch or look at it - stayed on his course and ran straight out to go out and turned when i told him, never looking at the db. sent him over a jump (i was also afraid he would get the db on the send to the jump) and he was great. on the next one, i sent him and she threw the db again, but then said " GET IT GET IT GET IT" telling him to go after it - still no movement from him towards the db! good boy!!! on the last one, as i sent him, kathy (who is the ONLY person on earth rah respects!!!) halfway started to tell him to sit - and told him repeatedly SITSIT SIT and he ignored her command, but turned and sat the minute i said "sit!" - GOOD BOY!!!! so i was VERY pleased with that performance from him - he ignored her and listened to me! (though to be honest, i wouldnt have been surprised if he HAD listened to her after all, she's done some of his training!)

moved to articles and he did a nice job there - his fronts could be closer and he was weird with the number 2 leather and wanted to carry that one even though it was DEFINITELY the wrong article - i did it over the weekend and he still insisted on indicating that one. must have really scented it, but he is taught on hot scent, so its wrong! but he did find the right ones. and he sat on all the pivots!!!!! but i can see where our pivot problems for gloves starts on the articles, because he sits so far back on the article pivots...

came to gloves. worked independent pivots first, and he did nicely. then got out gloves and worked those - im using mercury's smaller gloves and he did a nice job with them - if i use smaller stiffer gloves, rah can't shake them and they aren't fun and he doesn't seem to forget to come to front!! so that will be the plan for right now.

i was really happy with the utility run he had. it was solid and i couldnt have asked for more right now - there are definitely pieces that need work still though!

tagged, im it...

i was tagged in the photo game...

1) open your first picture folder
2) find the tenth picture
3) post it
4) explain the story

the irony is, the picture isn't even of my dog, its of lydias :)
this is lydia trying to stack bunny - she had just groomed her and she was trying to get an indoor stacked shot of her almost a year ago to see how she was growing and to send it to the breeder.



this past weekend we had the match on saturday - i worked the entire match in the utility ring, mostly as judge (even with my bronchitis!)

rah had 2 utility runs, 2 open runs and berlin had 2 novice runs.

berlins novice run (the first one) was great. she was almost wonderfully perfect. slightly back on her straight straight sits, but nice. great heeling - slight lag (like, cm lag?) for a split second on the outer post of the fig 8 but she pushed up and fixed it on her own. perfect SFE. funny fronts and we need to fix that. heel free was marvelous. i was so happy with it all, i just played with her later.

rah's utility was disaster. not really, but i feel very not hopeful right now. signals and articles were fine. moving stand not bad, neither was go outs. but god, gloves are broken.

open wasn't bad, just maintenances pieces.

gloves. ugh. ugh .ugh.

class tonight

got to class early tonight, had some dinner, coughed up a lung, and then got to working some gloves with rah.

worked on pivots with gloves on the ground and just rewarded pivots - we were good.

worked on glove marks, we were good.

put it all together and he was fine with going out - but wouldnt come back with the glove and instead wanted to shake shake shake the glove and kill it and take his time coming back and play around.

put him on flexi and back to our problems. no pivots dont want to mark definitely dont want to go out. PAIN IN MY BUTT ARGH.

played around with fixing in, took him off the flexi again, followed him out and played from there.

went to berlin's class - almost noone showed up so it was just me and terry with law in this class so we worked some heavy distraction.

started with high jump and recalls - berlin doing ROH while law did recalls right next to each other and each dog had to wait and have the other dogs commands called for them. berlin did really well and never anticipated anything! we worked on trying to find her right distance - she's having trouble collecting herself to hit the front - but with all her agility work and grid work she should be able to gauge the distances just fine. we gave her more space and it didnt get better - so its going to be that she just needs to fix her front herself :) we will put down guides and work them again on our own.

switched it up and worked recalls while law was on the ROH - at one point the db came right into our path so berlin ran and retrieved it and came to front, what a silly girl :) she's so cute.

went and worked fig8's - she was PERFECT. did it off leash and she was just ON ON ON. terry said there wasn't a single thing as a judge she would or could have taken off for it. YES!!!!

moved onto ROF and broad jump - berlin did flat first while law putzed around on the broad. again with front issues - now its that she wasnt paying attention and when i reminded her, she over corrected. so that is something we will have to work again - she needs some front work on the flat before we incorporate it with the db i think. like rah, have db in mouth, front goes away :)

her bj was BEAUTIFUL - we did our first real official ones and i eliminated her double commands (SINCE THIS IS HOW I NQd RAH) and just sent her on a verbal. she was setting up like a dream, getting nice air, and had very cute fronts.

terry was commenting that berlins training was REALLY coming together and all the parts that had been causing a problem were really working.

went to heeling and at this point im practically coughing up a lung... the utility class shows up and we do some group heeling and i decided to drop berlins leash and start heeling. we did some pick up into heeling games so the dogs were working at catching up so they could figure out that they COULD be lagging and find their way back into heel. berlin was ON . then we did some heeling patterns on our own. i screwed up a few parts (didnt do a real fast, because i couldnt at this point run after 2 hours of training because my lungs were dead, and threw her out on a right turn) but she was right there with me and i loved it.

so berlin was such a good girl. THAT DOG I CAN TAKE IN THE RING. i have to have this confidence in her and she can do it. we can do it.

rah i have to beat him to get these gloves to work.

entries sent for berlins first USDAA (agility) trial... lydia will be showing her since i will be in NYC with my mom... and then that night we will be packing up the dogs and leaving for FL!!!! talk about cutting it close :)

no agility class tonight because debbie was stuck in court... we ended up going to class early because they had air and i havent turned the air on yet (im angry at the thought that 5 days ago, i had the HEAT ON and now its 93 outside and were dying out here!!!!)... didnt do open and im still feeling sick, so just did utility.

started with signals. all the dogs had issues when people were crossing the paths of other dogs/handlers that they would get distracted and miss a signal, or see it and just not move, even rah. so we tried to avoid doing it, and rah and most of the dogs were spot on. he didnt move at all on the stand either, so that was good!!!!

next we did rotating go outs - every dog in the class rotated through and we did one go out like we were in the ring - walked in, set up, did a go out, and then walked out. rah aced every one of them, it was very nice!

moved onto articles - rah was funny and brought back last weeks articles (which were LYDIAS SCENT!) before mine... weird. then he found mine... need to work those fronts. im not going to nit pick him. get the UD and then work the fine points.

moving stand - PERFECT. very nice for him, considering his issue with not wanting to be examined and moving when the judge finishes the exam and when they say call your dog.

gloves we fell apart... so much falling apart. i need to work pivots and dead recalls with gloves and dead retrieves and all the pieces again because he fell apart this week. ugh. of course.

we can do it. we can do it. we can do it.

if we can ever get past this whole thing with rah being vWD affected rah's stem cells are scheduled for may 4th... nervous. very nervous.

rah is entered in utility april 23rd.

he is also entered in open B, and rally adv b and excellent b that day.

GO HARD OR GO HOME.

(berlin is entered in rally nov b and prenovice as well).

nothing like showing 6 times in one day. mercury was going to be entered as well, but lydia forgot to enter him.

im sick again - so some funny videos

so i havent done much - thursday i skipped training. wednesday was a small agility class - worked weave entrances in sequences and berlin was AWESOME - then she got sick :( did rah in utility but by then i was so sick i cant remember much of it.

but instead, i leave you with this -
there's a reason why dobermans aren't a grooming intensive breed.
on the bright side, berlin is the only dog in the house that really likes the high powered blow dryer. i mean, really likes it. it's even better than air in a can.

for some reason, lydia considers this less than helpful and has to lock berlin out of the room.



i cant imagine why.