agility | Rain in the Forecast

Reindeer Games, We’ll Miss You: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on December 18, 2019 by bookishheather

Rain at Beavercreek Park with Lens Flare

Reindeer Games has become a tradition at agility class. Held during our last session before the winter break, it’s a fun competition where the dogs get to demonstrate some different skills in Christmas-themed games that Molly makes up. I’ve looked forward to this class session each year since our first Reindeer Games, and I was looking forward to it so much this year that I was prepped for it a week early!

Rain and I went to Beavercreek Park before class, as always. Not only was the weather beautiful and relatively warm, but a day of rain earlier in the week meant that the puddles had finally made their seasonal return! Rain got to splash around the mudhole first, and hit up all the big puddles in the parking lot on our way out.

When we arrived at class I lead Rain around the side of the barn to get to the pens out back, just so she wouldn’t have any issues with dogs leaving from the earlier class. One of the calves (now dogies) that had been out from time to time on the neighboring property was about two feet from the thin wire fence that served as the property line! The narrow path that leads around this side of the barn is of course directly next to the fence, so I suspected Rain would get excited about the animal, as herding cows was in her DNA. As soon as she did get just the slightest bit excited though, the cow jumped and skittered off more quickly than I’ve ever seen a cow move.

Rain continued to give them a patented Aussie stare now and again until we made it inside the arena for class.

Whenever there’s food at agility class, we keep it on a table that sits in the hallway area just outside the arena so the dogs can’t get distracted by it. As I set up the goodies I brought—pumpkin cranberry harvest bread, a new batch of brownies, and clementines—I spotted the cutest cookie I think I’ve ever seen.

Squirrel Cookie — Turns out you can get the world’s cutest cookie cutter here!

I passed out the cards I wrote for our classmates and Molly, and gave Molly my special you-won’t-have-to-pack-it goodbye gift. As soon as I passed them out, I too received some gifts from our classmates! Linda gave us each a bag of homemade tuna dog treats complete with instructions on how to make more. The other Linda gave us each a small felt Christmas stocking with some Trader Joe’s dog treats tucked inside. After encouraging everyone to go have some treats out at the table, I put on my reindeer antler headband.

Back Up Contest

Once the four of us were paired up and came up with team names, Molly started things out with the back-up contest. Linda and Hunter hadn’t done Reindeer Games before so we briefed them on the rules. Complaining that Rain continues to not be very good at this despite our attempts to practice, I volunteered to go first and we established the line to beat.

Poppy went second, followed by Aria, who Molly was planning on making accommodations for because of her small size. NOT NECESSARY! Aria beat all the big dogs by several feet.

While we were doing this portion, Molly told a story of an acquaintance who had recently put her dogs’ back up skills to great practical use. In her home, some glass item fell and had shattered all over the floor. The noise made the dogs approach the area, but she was able to get them to back up out of the room with no problem, quick thinking that might have saved their paw pads.

Spin Contest

In the past we’ve done a tail-wagging contest and Poppy usually wins that one, possibly because it’s so hard to see Rain’s tail, especially when the rest of her body is moving all the time too.

Instead, this year Molly did a timed spin contest, where we’d get our dog to spin left and right three times. The only caveat was we couldn’t use food. EASY! As long as I could use hand signals I could nail it with Rain (she sometimes mixes up right and left when I’m only using verbal cues). I volunteered to go first again and our time was something in the nine second range. After we sat down I realized if I hadn’t paused between each cue we probably would have had a much shorter time.

Course with Time Estimate

Molly did have us run a course this year, but the game element came into play with timing. We were to guess how long it would take us to run the course, which had 14 obstacles, before tackling it! I asked her if there would be some Christmas crap on the course and while she said she had some with her, she never got it out to add distractions to the course.

My recollection was that I guessed Rain and I would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 38 seconds, with a point-something tacked on just as a sort of joke.

Rain failed to take a jump without wings early in the course, but we recovered well for the rest. I think our official time was closer to 45 seconds.

I think the winner of this round was the other team (Hunter and Poppy)—not because they had done the course faster, but because they were collectively closest in run time to their guesses!

Candy Cane Musical Chairs

Once everyone had run the course, Jackie’s husband Marshall showed up and Rain wasn’t a big fan of having a stranger in class. We had unsuccessfully tried to take a class photo with all the dogs and people at the beginning of class but it hadn’t gone well, so we restaged our photo for Marshall to take it. Between the dogs all looking different directions and Rain probably barking at the cameraman, I’m sure it looks like our typical agility class was a real zoo.

Once some photos were taken Molly started setting up a musical-chairs type game using the weave poles as “candy canes.” She used a pole to draw an oval around the weave poles in the dirt floor. She would have each dog-human pair walk around the candy canes while she played Christmas music using her phone. When she turned the music off, we had to have our dog sit, then go grab one of the candy canes on the weave pole. There were one fewer weave poles than people walking, so the person who was last would be out and the next round would begin.

Unfortunately Rain was too distracted by Marshall, even after we had him feed her a yummy treat! This meant Rain was the first one out, as I could barely walk around the oval and I certainly couldn’t get her to focus on me and sit. Ah well.

Class was running at least as late as it normally does. In the end I think both teams had one two events each, and since people needed to start leaving for family obligations we weren’t able to have a sudden death round. I reminded people to please have some more treats on their way out.

Instead of bandanas, Molly had brought some holiday ties for her furry students. When I packed up the rest of the goodies I grabbed one for Rain and, with Molly’s blessing, I nabbed another one for Roy.

It was time to say goodbye to our agility class, and Molly, as we had to get going too. It’s possible that we all might see each other again, but not guaranteed. Nothing in this life is permanent, but for a few years the Friday afternoons we spent with this group of women and dogs was immensely beneficial for both Rain and I.

We’ll miss everyone.

Not Our Last Class After All: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on December 16, 2019 by bookishheather

Between Thanksgiving and teacher illnesses, Rain was getting restless when it was about time to go to agility again this week. One afternoon she even perched herself at the window, looking for skwerls to bark at.

Since it was to be our very last class together before Molly moved to Florida, I had a party prepared. I baked brownies, a mini loaf of pumpkin cranberry harvest bread, and brought a bag of clementines. I wrote up cards for each of our classmates and Molly. I wanted to give Molly a going-away gift but soon realized that someone packing to move across the country does not need more stuff—so I bought her a special chocolate bar to sustain her efforts.

When we got to class I pulled out a headband featuring reindeer horns and Santa hat just before starting to pull out baked goods. Expressing my excitement for Reindeer Games (a fun class competition that we do for our last class before the winter break), Molly said “Reindeer games is NEXT WEEK!”

Apparently I had made an error—I thought that we had just one class left after Thanksgiving, when in fact we had two. On the heels of Molly’s big announcement though, I was more than happy to have an extra week before saying goodbye!

Good thing I had brought Rain’s touch pads just in case, huh?

During class we ran a 20 obstacle course, which included a go at the weave poles.

I frequently volunteer to run courses first in class because Rain tends to settle down faster after she’s had a chance to use her brain. We were about 1/3 of the way through the course and reminding Rain about the triple jump when Molly’s husband appeared in the barn walkway outside of the arena. When he spoke, he must have startled Rain because she instantly snapped into alert dog mode, pulling out all the stops to give him the fiercest barky dog show she could muster. He was just there to drop off a hot drink for Molly, and he didn’t stay long since he continued to get the business from Rain. I picked her up in my arms to get her to refocus on me again, and after taking a moment to shake it off, we went back to work without much problem.

This is what life with Rain is like—still. It’s better overall, but she still has moments when she goes over threshold.

It was also one of those days when Rain struggled with the channel weaves. We didn’t spend a lot of time working on it, but it’s still frustrating to be so hit-or-miss with weave poles still.

When Rain and I weren’t running, I was experimenting a bit with the camera on my new phone. That’s right—my technological issues improved markedly a couple of days before class this week! Here’s a photo of Aria:

Hunter ran last during class.

Instead of doing the course again at the end of class, Molly started thinking ahead to her absence and the next step in working with the touch pads. Rain and I had been her guinea pigs for this method after she took a workshop which introduced this way of teaching contacts to dogs, but we hadn’t gotten very far and she was going to be leaving us!

Molly brought out a specially constructed box and had Rain and I do an exercise that was similar to the exercises we did a while back with the board. The lip of the box, as it turns out, is important to this exercise, as the dog can better tell when they’ve reached the edge of the box rather than just stepping off the end of the board. As Rain hopped a bit out of the box and then started trying to find it again with her back feet, our classmates were highly amused as she looked like a dressage horse. Linda and Molly remarked how you could almost hear the gears grinding inside her head.

After Molly is gone, she says, she and I can correspond to keep working on the next steps of the contact method she was trying to teach us. Once Rain has the box stuff down, the box will actually be placed on the end of the contact obstacles (dog walk, mostly). She also pointed out that some of the other agility teachers we might end up going to were at the same seminar with her so they could be familiar with this way of training the concept as well.

Before we can do any of that by ourselves, though, we need a proper box! Jackie helped me measure and take notes about Molly’s box so we can hopefully get to work making one for ourselves in the coming weeks.

Does anyone have a yellow yoga mat they could spare to lose a section of, for our box? Get in touch!

Big News About Agility

Posted on December 13, 2019 by bookishheather

Rain at Agility Barn — Rain attends one of her first agility classes in 2016.

At roughly 9 PM on Thanksgiving Eve, I opened an email from Molly that had just recently arrived. In it, she made a wholly unexpected announcement: she would be moving to Tampa, Florida, almost immediately! The end of our current class session would be the end of our time with her, as she’d expect to be moving no later than January.

This was HUGE news, and on Thanksgiving Eve! My mind was caught up in itself the rest of the evening—I even forgot about my kitchen sink and it overflowed onto the floor before I went to bed a short time later.

My mind raced, so I had problems sleeping over the holiday weekend. In my mind, this would effectively spell the end of our agility career, as Molly had been so kind to work with Rain. She understood Rain, as she had had bossy Aussies before her husband got sick of the barking and they switched to border collies.

What were we going to do? The other teachers I was aware of were either working in locations that were much further away, didn’t have any open spots in class, might not be kind about Rain’s barkiness, or all of the above. I didn’t think we had any viable options to continue.

Skye was in agility back in the mid-2000s. She and my mom were asked to leave class because of Skye barked when other dogs were running the course. Rain is way barkier than Skye ever was!

After fretting about it over the whole weekend, it was time to get proactive. I emailed Molly some thoughts and questions, and she responded by forwarding a list of agility teachers to contact, including some in the same geographical area that I wasn’t aware of previously. I emailed a few teachers.

The next day I spoke to a teacher who said the Friday afternoon class before ours was hoping to keep their class together and just move locations and times. That class includes Jackie and Linda running their other two dogs, so perhaps I could get in on that action too! Suddenly I was starting to feel hopeful again.

Our next agility class, reindeer games, would be our last—and a perfect opportunity to give Molly a good send-off. I started prepping for a little party…

Cute Rain, Not Much Else: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on December 11, 2019 by bookishheather

Sunset has been getting earlier as fall wears on. Depending on the daily weather (how much of the sky is covered by clouds) it gets dark pretty early these days! Before agility this week, Rain was looking cute as we waited for class to start in the pens behind the barn, so I snapped a few photos of her. It was golden hour.

Shortly after class began, my increasingly fussy camera (phone) decided to die. Again. The battery was fine, but it tends to die if I attempt to use it in cooler temperatures, or it’ll decide at 67% charge that it’s actually dead, until I plug it back in. When the memory is relatively full, that tends to give it problems as well.

I’ve been having a variety of smartphone issues for at least the last couple of years. The carrier is forcing people with phones as old as mine to upgrade by the end of the year, because they’re dismantling infrastructure that will render them obsolete, supposedly as of January 1, 2020. While the phone issues have been increasingly annoying, I also know they’re relatively temporary at this point. And when I get a new smartphone, my photos of Rain will likely improve!

Thus, at agility this week the only photos I managed to take were of Rain looking cute. I took a few Douglas fir cones from the ground, inspired to see whether a photo on the internet was possible to replicate. (My suspicion is that it won’t be as easy as that photo suggests, but perhaps I can still use some seeds to sprout some Oregon state trees anyway!)

What did we do in class? It was just the Lindas and me, and my recollection was that most of class was dedicated to running some exercises instead of doing a course.

When we parted ways, Molly said that we wouldn’t have class for two weeks, as she’d be away in Florida next week, and Thanksgiving would be the following week. Rain and I would miss coming to class, but we knew our class session would be short as we were coming up on the holidays.

Rain and I headed home in the dark, and we’d miss everyone until our next class. Little did we know something big would happen between now and then…

A Beautiful, Silly Afternoon: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on December 9, 2019 by bookishheather

Our nosework trial was to be the next day, but I had just left my workplace of the prior seven years for the last time, and the weather was fantastic. It was a great afternoon! Heading to agility would be a great way to close the day.

The afternoon was sunny and warm for November, with a light breeze that made the fallen leaves swoosh as we walked through them. It was so warm, in fact, that I didn’t think to bring a coat. And during class, it wasn’t needed.

We had a longish course to run that day, which included weave poles. Rain’s consistency on weave poles—even with channels—can vary wildly from week to week. Molly has had me start taking Rain’s harness off when we run (no harm in that, I suppose everyone in our class already knows she Talks a Lot :)), I think at least in part because she won’t have anything slowing her down while squeezing through the weave poles. This afternoon she nailed them pretty consistently!

We were missing Hunter and his person this week, so it was just the crew we’ve had for the last three years now. Since I was mirthful, when the group of us walked to a part of the course and Molly made some reference to dogs having their contacts down (aka two on, two off) , I decided to show everyone that I had mastered my contacts.

Jackie was so impressed, she took a photo! (Full disclosure: it also felt really nice to stretch the backs of my legs, as doing yoga regularly fell by the wayside a while back.)

Rain and I handled the course fairly well, although there were a couple of tricky spots we needed to work a couple of times. Since Hunter wasn’t around Rain was also more easily managed throughout class.

Fall means that sunset is getting earlier, and at the end of class I was regretting I hadn’t brought a jacket to wear. Everyone noticed how the temperature dropped several degrees once the sky got dark outside, so nobody hung around too much longer once class was over. Rain got perhaps one or two throws of the ball in the pen out back, just as a token so she wouldn’t complain too loudly about heading home.

Go On! Weekly Agility Report

Posted on December 6, 2019 by bookishheather

Halloween was over, and it was Dia de los Muertos, so I tied Rain’s sugar skull bandana around her neck before agility class this week. The sun was getting noticeably lower in the sky before class, but at least we saw the sun instead of the gray overcast skies that are more typical for our area in fall.

Molly dedicated our class session to revisiting the “go on” cue, for use when the dog should continue taking obstacles without you. She had a line of jumps along one side of the arena that would build the basis of our exercises over our hour together.

Hunter and his person were away from class this week, as one of them wasn’t feeling too well. The rest of us took turns practicing our go ons by first working the line of jumps, then incorporating them into a short circular course.

Unfortunately my phone decided to die partway through class, so visual documentation of this session is light.

As it had just been Halloween, there were also treats to be passed around in class! Molly brought in some leftover candy, so I pocketed a caramel apple pop for later. Earlier in the day one of my coworkers had randomly mentioned the chicken pot pie treats from Costco’s website that our agility class had also raved about in the past. When I asked Jackie to confirm the brand, she told me about an even better treat by the same company, their sausage sticks, which are more easily broken apart than the chicken pot pies. She gave me one for Rain to try, and as she did Rain’s nose closely followed the treat as it changed hands just out of her easy reach.

The challenges this week were fairly light, but Rain still had a great time enjoying the sun, her doggy and human friends, and getting to show off her mad agility skills.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Poppy: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on December 4, 2019 by bookishheather

Whew! We’re still catching up from being behind in October and early November.

Rain has been clearly maturing this year. I started noticing her energy level coming out of the stratosphere just weeks after her ninth birthday back in May.

These days when we go to the park before class, we only play ball for five or six minutes before we transition into walking around and exploring. Sniffing uses Rain’s brain cells, and she’s warming up her body by trotting instead of running the risk of getting too tired before class even begins.

It has been nice! Rain has been way easier to handle, and she has started feeling like a buddy in life rather than a chore to be dealt with.

Our agility classmate Poppy is just a year or so younger than Rain, and she’s showing some maturity as well.

During agility this week Molly was pointing out how far Poppy has come in agility over the last few years. Poppy is deaf and largely blind, and Jackie has struggled with handling Poppy through agility courses. Lately they’ve been making it look easy, running through whole courses with very few refusals or miscommunications. Poppy is doing at least as well as Rain at her weave poles too!

Jackie also brings Cedar (above) to the agility class before ours, and he stays in a crate next to them during our class. Jackie and I also cross paths at nosework, where she and her other deaf dog Emily are in the class before ours. (Hamish is her fourth dog, a more recent adoptee.) Jackie will sometimes bring Poppy and Cedar into the pens with Rain and me—deaf dogs don’t mind a noisy dog, right? Rain couldn’t care less about the other dogs being there, but Jackie has still found a way into Rain’s heart—through her stomach.

It was Poppyanna’s day of honor at class this week, though—and it was well deserved.

Just the Two of Us: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on December 2, 2019 by bookishheather

Whew! Things got busy in October and early November so we’re a bit behind and hoping to catch up sooner than later.

Despite the fall season, we’ve done a pretty good job this fall of dodging the rain before agility class this year. This week at Beavercreek Park we had overcast skies and it started sprinkling just before it was time to head to class. The more serious rain only started once we were safe inside the barn for the next hour.

Rain Sniffs at Beavercreek Park Near Track

It was apparently Barky Dogs Only week, as Rain and Hunter were the only dogs at agility this week! Despite a shared barkiness, they each have a unique style—Hunter does his barking when he’s running the course and is mostly well-behaved when he’s waiting for his turn, whereas Rain is usually quiet while running a course (usually!) but she tends to get riled up by other dogs running.

This means that I don’t often have a chance to get photos of Hunter, because when he’s running he’s barking, and Rain is responding to both. Since it was just the two dogs this week though, Rain was a bit more mellow so it was an easier task.

We did a relatively short course this week that included a line of jumps, tunnel, and the dog walk.

One thing that has been slightly difficult to get used to is dealing with Rain’s touch pads. I’ve been mostly good at bringing them to class. Since we’re the only ones using them (Molly’s guinea pigs), remembering to get them out and place them before we begin has been a bit more challenging. Once we’re done and Molly spends some time perfecting some handling issue, I also have to remember to revisit them and either pick them up or tuck them away so they’re not in the way of the next dog doing the course. That said, Rain has really taken to the exercise, so this problem we’ve had with our two on, two off (“feet“) dynamic has shown some improvement.

Our hour seemed short considering we only had half the class. Rain and I enjoyed some ball in the pens out back after class, but it wasn’t long before the rain kicked up again and we decided to head home.

Sure, Let’s Do Agility: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on October 8, 2019 by bookishheather

Even though I was worried about the ORTs, I knew that agility class would be good for both Rain and me. We’d get to use our brains and bodies, get our minds off of nosework the evening before our big day. It was a cool but sunny afternoon and we had a great time.

Molly had us walk the first half of our course for the day. Since Linda and Jackie had already run the course in the prior class, Rain and I went first. We were missing Hunter again, and I was okay with that since he barks a lot while he runs which gets Rain riled up.

Rain had a bit of trouble on the start of her first run, a jump followed by a perpendicular jump to the left. It took us three or four tries but Molly helped us through it, ultimately successful when we incorporated our fake Lotus Ball and adjusted the line a little bit. After that, I realized a bit too late that I had failed to place one of her touch pads/targets for the A-frame, but Rain descended so fast that she wouldn’t have managed to get it the first time anyway.

After Poppy and Aria had their turns, we all went through the second part of the course which Rain and I sailed through. We had a round of weave pole practice (I had Rain do channel weaves, because reasons…) and then class was over!

Earlier I had told Jackie about how we were about to do our ORTs and at 4 AM I remembered her visual blind idea and said I needed to find a sheet to use over the weekend. Turned out Jackie had a sheet in her car for such things, and she lent it to us, along with window shades for the front window! Borrowing the large sheet to use as a visual blind was an immense relief.

On the way home from class we stopped at Trader Joe’s to refill our Charlee Bear coffers, and once we got home it felt like we were mostly ready for our big day.

(We’re running this a bit out of order. Read about our day at the ORTs here.)

Back with a Bang: Weekly Agility Report

Posted on September 24, 2019 by bookishheather

Ever work ahead of time to lay the groundwork for a successful day? That’s what happened this week leading up to agility. I knew Beavercreek Road had some road construction so I emailed Molly to ask in advance about whether it was impacting travel to our class space, along with some research online. At work, which tends to be extra busy in September, I worked extra hard the day before to get things semi-ready so I could be out the door as planned. Not only was there the return to agility to plan for, but another event I was doing in the evening.

Fortunately it all went to plan, and Rain started making happy whiny noises as soon as we turned off of Beavercreek Road toward the park. We did play fetch for a few minutes but she transitioned into sniffing. I put our ball away and we walked and sniffed our way back to the park entrance. Even though Oregon has seen its fall rain return pretty early this year, the ground was not yet saturated enough for the giant puddles to return. I’m sure as soon as they do, Rain will be happy splashing around in them once again.

Rain was happy to be at class again and while she was clearly energetic, she wasn’t quite as frenetic about it as she has been in the past. She was happy to return to her spot on the mat, looking at me happily until it was our turn to run the first half of the course. I decided to have Molly and company set her jump height to 20”, which we had lowered a bit over the summer so Rain wouldn’t overheat.

We had one false start—I say I placed Rain incorrectly behind the first obstacle, Molly says it was because I didn’t cue her for that obstacle so she ran around the tire setup instead of jumping through it. Either way, it was my fault. 🙂

After that false start though, Rain and I went all the way through the course without any errors! This included some jumps that were in strange angles in relation to each other, and one place where I apparently used fancier handling than was actually necessary. We ran that section again with the less fancy handling.

After everyone had done their bit we tackled the second half of the same course. Once again, Rain did super! Molly had us start incorporating our target, as she had me place it at the end of the A-frame. When we got to the dog walk I realized—we all realized—Rain’s going to need more than one target. (I’ve already made her a second one, but I’ll need to eat more cottage cheese before I can get a third.)

Rain even did great with the channel weaves that were part of the course. The only time she popped out was when the bumps of her harness were snagging against the poles so we took her harness off and she ran through them flawlessly the next go around.

It was a triumphant return to agility after such a long break! Rain obviously had a good time and I felt pretty good about it too. Molly and the two Lindas all said we both did great. It likely won’t last, but it’s nice to have good days to counterbalance the challenging ones.

After agility class, Rain is usually pretty quiet the rest of the evening. Given that we hadn’t gone to class in a while I knew she’d be a little extra quiet, tired from the extra mental and physical work. I was remorseful because going to the other event after dropping her off meant I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the quiet fruits of our labors that evening.