End Of Summer Slam 2013 And The Amazing Squeewok!

Ermagherd! Flyball!

Two weekends ago was the End of Summer Slam tournament held in Monroe, Michigan. This marked 2 years in the sport for Pan as she debuted in singles and pairs at Monroe two years ago before her team debut at CanAm. This year we debuted Cocoa in singles, pairs, and we even gave her some points with 3 heats in our last race Sunday after she finally settled into her job and quit scaring us about crossing over!

Photo by Gerry Bradshaw

I suppose I should back up.

Saturday Cocoa ran singles against another dog on our team, Hershey. She did awesome! Posted mostly 6.5 seconds after she remembered that the jumps are important and should be all taken in order. Lol.

Photo by Gerry Bradshaw
WHERE IS YOUR BALL, COCOA??

Then she moved on to pairs. We ran Trophy and Cocoa together and called it SWAT Secret Weapon. We were running against two little terriers and for some reason Cocoa did NOT like the little JRT she was running against and she crossed twice to chase. She has never before shown interest at practice at chasing, so we decided to hold back and let her run after the Jack, named 'Shorty' was finished so to not encourage chasing in the lanes and to not scare the dickens out of Shorty. No more errors. She ran about 7 seconds passing.

Photo by Gerry Bradshaw

Fast forward to Sunday. Ran pairs against our team first, so again no errors in crossing over. Then we have singles against... Shorty. Of course. Since Cocoa was still really interested in Shorty we let shorty run then we ran Cocoa. A judge, who is notoriously mean to certain members of our team and can be a bit... overbearing... shall we say? Approached us outside later to lecture us on why we should have pulled her from singles and put cocoa back in preflight and didn't understand (since he hadn't been there on the pervious day to watch racing) that Cocoa does just fine with our team in the other lane And in preflight you can only have your team in the other lane! The crossing is new and to prevent ruining the confidence of another new dog we held her. I don't regret this decision.

Paris against Shorty and a whippet was next. Talked to the team about their order. Shorty was running first against Trophy and the whippet's owner said her dog is also having some crossing issues, so to just run Cocoa and it would be fine, her whippet was not aggressive to other dogs. Did I mention that the judge who talked to us outside put himself on our race? So it was a little bit of pressure. Whatever, we are SWAT. We've got SWAGR. lets do it. Shorty was having problems completing. Shorty stopped halfway down the lane. Trophy ran and we let Cocoa go..... and she didn't cross!!! 4 good heats!

Cocoa's last pairs race was also against Shorty and she didn't cross there either! Good girl Cocoa!

So we decided to let her have her team debut since she appeared to get her crossing under control and she was focused.

Photo by Gerry Bradshaw

First heat we had a bad pass by our second dog, she reran but i think our final time was over 35 seconds, so no points.

Second heat Cocoa dropped her ball just before the last jump, we didn't rerun her.

Third heat - CLEAN!  25 points for Cocoa!

The best thing about the weekend was watching everyone else's reactions to Cocoa running.  So many people stopped to watch her run. So many people asked to pet her and see her because she's so small and fluffy.

Cocoa then proceded to practically die on the way home.  She was so tired she sprawled out on Jbiz's lap and didn't move.  We even poked her and she didn't move.  She was beat after two days of a lot of racing for a 5 pound ragamuffin!

As for the other teams:
Variety was seeded in division 1. Demo and Jbiz laid down some good start times for her first time running him.  Pan and I running third on that team after Malley eventually dialed in our passes, Bandy running anchor.  We banged out a couple 18.9's with that line up, which is that fastest time we have posted while any of my dogs have been running with this team.  If we had had a knowledgeable pass caller all the time we may have managed a few low 18's but, really, we run to run clean and rack up the points.  We don't want to lose the points on bad passing.

Our Standard team came in first place, but they ran against mostly pick up teams which couldn't place. We don't run for the placements anyway!

Photo by Gerry Bradshaw

shoulder parrot/backseat driver

I was most proud of Demo this weekend as not only did he have different people handling him (Jbiz ran him most of the weekend, and then a teammate's husband ran him in the last race while Jbiz was running Cocoa) but he also stopped double hitting on the box.  his turn looks pretty darn good right now.

Pan and Demo earned their next titles, which i wasn't expecting, so that was an added bonus!!

On to CanAm!!!

We've Got S.W.A.G.R.

Gosh, I don't even know where to being on this weekend.

Tournament in Sandusky.  Camped with my besties: Jbiz, Matty, and my sister. First day was nice, started out super humid but cooled by the afternoon and light sprinkles at the end of the day really helped cool things down... only after racing was done and Jbiz and I went to shower it started to DOWNPOUR.  We had to walk through water above our ankles to get back to base camp.  Then the path we all walked in teh grass to our tent turned into a mud slide.  and water seeped between the tarp and the bottom of the tent.

We moved Tash and Pan into the back of the Vue for the night (it eventually stopped raining) and Matt took Demo into the bed of the truck.  Jbiz and I kept the rest of the crated dogs in the tent because we both have cots to sleep on.

It was just... hell.  My hell is not on fire, it's flooded and muddy.

We had to carry the dogs in and out of the tent to prevent them from getting mud every were.

And in the process I got a cut on my big toe by the nail that I believe is infected from walking thru the muck for two hours in bare feet.

Ok, now on to the dog's performances.

Had problems with the box on Friday and all the dogs bobbling.  Slowed down the mechanism, and they did slightly better.

Starts with Pan were pretty good.  Had some bad ones, but for the most part I kept it under .050 split.  We did get our second perfect start today... but since I saw it and I screamed in celebration Matt (who was box loading) looked at the clock and didn't load a ball for Trophy... lost it on a no finish. oh silly greenie boxloaders. :)

Tasha got some pretty good starts with Pan today too when the lights started making more sense to her.  As did Matt with Demo, although Demo started losing his concentration on the recalls and either couldn't find Matt or was blowing him off.  Not sure which, but it concerns me.

Trophy was his awesomely consistent self, even if Jbiz couldn't get her passes together.

Cocoa debuted in Preflight and totally ROCKED it.  It was pretty hilarious as we got her officially measured and the judge said he would give her 3 inch jumps if he could, lol!  We started working thru her not bringing the ball back over all 4 jumps and not dropping early.  Worked with another dog in the other lane (but not running at the same time, doing box turns while cocoa was running or alternating runs).  Cocoa was slightly distracted, but quickly refocused.  by the 4th preflight run today she was doing full runs and holding the ball all the way thru the end over 7inch jumps (we forgot to take them down to 6 and she'll have to jump 7 anyway for NAFA).

There were just enough wacky problems in the lanes, combined with severe pain today, a sun burn, crankiness from the flood, and sunburn today just sucked and for the first time ever I was really, really really glad to put this flyball weekend in the books.

A Noob's Guide to Flyball: Chapter 1: From Fly Fishing to Perfect Starts, A Guest Blog by Matty

Note: while I try to keep the language of this blog pretty PG, in real life my friends and I swear like sailors. As this is written from the perspective of my friend, I have not edited language.

Introduction:

At Saturday's flyball practice my friend Matty, who has been running Demo for me at recent tournaments, said he is going to write a book about flyball and he has already picked the title.  From Fly Fishing to Perfect Starts.  This made me laugh as it is Matt's first two flyball tournaments in a nut shell.

In March I put out a call on my facebook page that I needed someone to run one of my dogs in a tournament in April because two of my dogs would need to be on the same team and I can't run two dogs at the same time.  Matty, who had been to a tournament in Januray for a few hours said "That sounds like fun, I'll do it!"  He made it to one practice, the week before the tournament, where he learned the basic mechanics of how flyball runs: releasing Demo, when to call him, how to catch him and get the hell out of the way of the other dogs.

His first race was... interesting. We were almost late and almost missed warmups. It was less than ideal, but we survived. Matt survived, and is now excelling at starting Demo.  

As a semi-regular feature we will be sharing Matty's story.  Which is the story of flyball from the perspective of a total noob.  Flyball from the perspective of someone who was just about thrown into the ring blind.  Someone who went from fly fishing with a tug, to having a perfect start in just two tournaments.  Take it away Matty.

That's Matt in the Blue, and Jbiz running up the lane.

H'ok so, zees is muh story...

As Lex said, I knew the basics of how flyball runs, and let me stress this, I knew BASICS. I knew on which light I should let go of Demo, I knew roughly where I needed to run up to with the tug that Demo loves so much and I knew to run back and get the hell out of the way of everything else. So we go in and the warm up timer is counting down so we make a mad dash to the box to do run outs and and get that out of the way [Lexi's note: Just so you get the amount of pressure we were under, all three of my dogs ended up on the same team due to a last minute lineup change where one of our team members pulled her dog. I was coming off of an injury where a dog had bitten my hand and I had to fight off a huge infection, and I had JUST been cleared to full use of my hand the day before - it was still VERY sore. We had two green handlers, Matt running Demo and Jbiz running Trophy and I was running Pan.  Jbiz had some more practice time under her belt, but we don't practice with as much runback as in a tournament so this was her first time doing actual passes... and we didn't have a practice run. We had just enough time for a run out, but not enough time for a full warm up run. AGAIN: We had a run out... and then game time.  Talk about pressure, there was a lot of it riding on their shoulders. My account of this first tournament can be read here.]. An experienced flyballer would have known what was going on and that time is of the essence here. And there was moi, so being the noob that I was (am?), I just tried to keep up with everything. As anyone who isn't normally in these situations can attest to, having someone yell at you can be a bit startling so when they yelled "RUN!" at me it took me a second to process. but after a moment I kicked it into gear and away I went down the lane.

Now, there is something I was told after that first race. When I am being 'yelled' at, its not yelling per say. No one is necessarily mad at me and pissed off. They are yelling for a few reasons. Mainly its loud and people need to be heard so they have to yell. Also, they need to emphasize speed is of the essence and you need to move fast because I swear everything at a flyball tournament is on a timer.

So my very first race: there I am, lined up with Demo, kinda half squatted half crouched over, waiting for the the lights to start the count down. I believe I was somewhere around the 48' mark... or something close to that. The lights start and I see, one yellow.... "Demo readyyyyyy".... two yellow.... "Go!" and away he went, doing his thing. I take off after him doing as I was told. Running down towards the start line I pull the tug from around my neck, Demo gets the ball from the box and that's my cue. I swing the tug down on the ground and begin to run toward the back of the lane waiting for Demo to grab it. Now two things happened in the whopping 2 seconds from me swinging the tug to Demo grabbing it that I did wrong. First off, what I had thought was perfectly fine tug swinging mechanics, was actually a laughable imitation at fly fishing as the rest of the team described it. I got up to my position and (as I was told later)  "gently tossed the tug up and out in an arc, then gently swung it down with a flourish and ran back".

VIDEO PROOF of Matt's horrible Tug skillz at 0:06 seconds. ;-)  Compare to Deb's Tug skills at 0:16seconds.

It became quite the joke around our camp site for the weekend. Eventually I even got on board with it and said I just needed some glitter on the end of the tug to complete the look. That was the first thing I did wrong. The second was that as I ran back with the tug I  pulled up on it as I anticipated Demo grabbing onto it. This little tiny action causes Demo to jump up and grab the tug higher up. Higher up in this case was my hand. I got a good chomp from Demo and thank goodness I had a glove on because even though Lex told me that if he managed to bite flesh he releases immediately, it hurt like a bitch. Didn't break the skin though, so I just suited up and got back in line for the second heat. I wasn't mad at Demo because that whole bit was my own fault and I knew going in that it could happen.

Just before the fly fishing began...

So I was one heat of my debut flyball race in and already I had been made fun of, and injured. Both of which I fully deserved.

Pausing for a moment to clarify, MY TUG MECHANICS DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT ANYMORE! The advise given to me from the all mighty flyball teacher known as Lex were to "take all your demons out on that floor" so I tried that. My mission was to beat the floor into submission and my weapon of choice was a 4' long fleece tug.... Bring it on.

It was raining Sunday, so we carried Pan and Demo to the
building and back to try to save their boots.

So, that was the highlights. The rest of that weekend went pretty smoothly. I had clean starts save for one or two. My typical starting time for the first while was on average .100 ish. now once I started getting into the groove of things with starts and the timing of the lights, I asked Lex if I could start moving Demo up a bit to tweek our starts and she let me. Slowly working start times down and getting better starts.

I am going to say that first initial time I was allowed to move Demo forward and try some starts on my own with where I placed him is the moment I caught the flyball bug.

From there I became all about getting the best start for my team. It clicked with me that my starts are my contribution to the team and that is what makes me feel apart of the team. Cue the mushy gushy stuff.

Moving on to the second tournament that I had ever participated in. With one practice and one tournament under my belt I naturally felt like a pro. This tournament brought out more members of the team than the previous tournament, so I got to meet more people; and let me tell you something, the peeps on this team are hil-freaking-larious. Better still, Lex decided to take a backseat at this tournament and let other people run all 3 of her dogs. Most importantly, this meant I got to run Demo a lot. Like, A LOT A LOT. Lex ran Demo for two of the eleven-ish races he ended up running in that weekend, one because he did something we can't remember but she wanted to run him to try and fix it and the second was because he was going to get his FDCH-G. She's sentimental like that.  But all the other races, that shit was all me. [Lexi's note: Demo got so many races because we ended up pulling Pan from a few as she was having major problems on the box - her back feet slipping off and such so to save her body we gave her a rest and put Demo in.]

We did pretty darn well all day Saturday, the average starting time was .0 something something and I was quite pleased with myself. We ran fast and we ran clean. You couldn't ask for a better tournament!

Snuggling before Sunday Race Day!

Then shit got real on Sunday. We're in the middle of the day (it's about here that my tug mechanics make the transition from fly fishing to demon killing). We had been talking about perfect starts earlier that day and Lex made a comment, "There is nothing worse than a -.001 start." and what do I do? I nail a frustratingly imperfect -.001 start. So I make an annoyed grumble and get Demo back in line to try that again. He was doing spectacular, bobbled a few times but made a good recovery. Now a couple races down the line, we get to the second or third heat and by now I've got my routine down. Demo and myself had moved up to roughly the 43' marker and we had fantastic starts from there, false starts if we moved up any more and slow starts if we moved back. So 43' it was. Now in the middle of this race, we do our thing. I had stopped even looking at the time clock at the end of the lane because we had plenty of people to take times and box load and call passes. So I get Demo on the tug and Kandice comes back with Malley who ran second and passed into Demo and she's yelling "Dude, you got a perfect start!!"

Me: what?!

Kandice: You got a perfect start!

Me: Seriously?! Awesome!! I didn't even look at the clock!!

Dude from other team: It doesn't count if you don't see it, haha!

Me: I'll take what I can get...LEX!!!! I GOT A PERFECT START!!!! (She was calling passes that race so she wasn't tooooo far away and ran back and gave me a high five)

While all this is happening on the outside, on the inside I am all "BOOM BITCHES!!! I GOT A PERFECT START MOTHERFUCKERS!!! POINT ZERO ZERO ZERO! FUCK YEAH!"

After the race the guy from the other team bro fisted me and we got Tasha's reaction to it (she was taking down times so she was too far away for the initial celebratoriness between heats). She said "I was taking times and then I saw 000 and I thought it was broken. I looked at it, then I looked at the other side, and I just decided oh well and just wrote it down."

That pretty much sums up my second tournament, we got some schwanky glasses for being there, I got two because I ran Demo and box loaded. But we'll save box loading for chapter 2...

Matt out!

Matt will be back (hopefully) soon with Chatper 2 and how we literally threw him into boxloading, in the mean time show him some love by commenting on the blog and sharing it with your friends!  Maybe we really will publish it some day! ;)

Demo and the Grown Up Agility Course

So... crazy things have happened.

The biggest thing, with the biggest impact to this blog is that Pan has been pulled from agility.  I'm sad about this for a number of reasons, first and foremost being that I got into agility because it was what my sister always wanted to do.  So to get her doing something with Pan I tracked down the agility instructor she started with with Koda way back when and signed up with Trophy in the same class.  Secondly, Pan has been doing better in agility than Trophy lately.

However, my sister still has some pretty major health concerns, the least of which being she may have to have a 5th surgery and her health insurance runs out in January if she doesn't find a "big girl" job before then...  SO.  We decided to pull Pan.  The look on Pan's face when my sister drove away with her in the car while I walked Trophy and Demo into the practice building was excruciating.  But, there's always Flyball for her.

So, now that a spot opened up and Demo is doing so well in his beginners class, we moved Demo up to fill Pan's spot.

He started running Grown Up agility courses Thursday night.  Now, if my head had been more in the game and less on my sister's health and pulling Pan, etc, we probably would have had an awesome run of it... instead I was foggy and slow to get my signals out.

But, Demo did very, very, very well for being a very green dog running basically a Master/Excellent level course.

Trophy did well, but not as well as I would have liked.  I hope it's because he was picking up on my mood.

We will see next week.

Agility Wrapup

The kids have been doing really well in agility lately, even Pan!  She's still a bit of a spaz, but slowly -ever so slowly - she is getting her head screwed on correctly.  A few weeks ago she refused to focus on me at the start line and totally pushed my buttons in all the wrong ways, something that she had never managed to do before. I walked her off the course to prevent running the progress we are fighting for. My instructor took her at the end of class to prevent leaving on a bad note and she did well. Every week she has fewer and fewer shut down moments. This past Thursday she only sniffed the ground once and only for a few seconds and then she immediately refocused on me.

Trophy is suddenly having problems stopping in his 2o2o lately, but only on one obstacle at a time. Last week it was the dog wall, this week it was the a-frame.I don't know what his deal is. In general he is doing well. I'm pretty impressed by his weave entrances lately. Not perfect, but I'm baby sitting him less.  My biggest problem with him is thathe is in love with a classmate because she brings things like meatballs and ham. If she says his name he takes off to her and couldn't care less that we were in the middle of a course. At least I know if I ever can't run him he will do backflips for the chance to run for her.

Demo is doing really well.  My instructor says he has "contacts to die for". Unfortunately, despite me finally trusting in my dog to not kill himself and relaxing when I run him, I have inadvertently slowed down his performance. Not that he is slow by any means. Now we are working on getting him weaned off his target discs and to hold his contacts no matter what I do until he is released.  He is so much fun to work with. He's on the fast track to move out of his beginners class. He basically ran a full course last week, with a little help on the teeter. Have I mentioned how much fun he is? I'm hoping to get our a-frame out of long term storage and work on contacts at home.

Eevee (bet you weren't expecting to see agility updates about her) is learning to go through tunnels already. And I borrowed my instructor's babydog teeter board. She has once again proved her fearlessness as she ran across it several times without blinking. Then we started started working on hitting her contacts. She is one smart cookie.

I got to run my instructor's sheltie in a practice run too. That was fun. She ran him first so I got to see where his problem spots are. Then I ran him twice, the final run being pretty good, the only error being where he turned right and took an off course jump instead of heading left into the tunnel I was cuing. His mom was sitting to the right so I didn't take it personally.  It's neat running a dog who totally understands his job on course (not having to baby sit weaves at all, for example) and gives you time to set up the next obstacle, but will show you where all your handling errors are.

Always so much to learn.

Lots O' Flyball Lately!

(I'm not complaining, that's the way I like it)

This past weekend we flyballed in Greenville, Ohio.  Three hours in the car with 5 dogs, and the wonderful Jbiz.  My dogs were less than happy.  Since I had to bring a box with us along with all our camping gear, flyball gear, dogs, crates, etc, we had to take the truck.  I figured it was more cost effective on gas than taking 2 SUVs, and this way Jbiz and I had company on the drive, even if my dogs were a bit squished (It's a good thing they love each other).

We had some pretty ugly team drama rear it's ugly head this weekend, so I'm not going into details as it doesn't need to be aired here on my blog.

Trophy ran on the host team's Variety Pick Up Team,  and backed up our start dog on our Standard team.  I was given his TFE Level II pin, but according to the official U-FLI website he missed the title by 20 points (so, I'm not sure what's going on there...).

Demo ran singles all weekend.  He puts his all in every.single.run, so running a warm up run trying to help him get his striding right wears him out and slows him down since in singles it's pretty much 4 races (plus your warm up exercises) and any false start reruns  you want to take in less than 5 minutes.  However, he still managed to log a personal best time of 4.239 on Saturday.  He ran one race on Sunday and earned the 55 points he needed to earn his TF-III Title.  Good Boy, Demio.

However, the true superstar this weekend was my Pandabear.  She not only earned her TFE-I Title, but she also thoroughly laid claim to the honor of being the #1 Pointed English Setter in U-FLI.  She gave herself a 700 point lead (exactly) over the now #2 E.S.

Not a bad weekend, not a bad weekend at all.

Pandabear The Great

Pan became the #1 English Setter in UFLI yesterday! She was tired after the day of racing. :)

Let's Get Ready To Flyball!

I've been so rushed with everything this week that I almost didn't get to update on last week's tournament before heading off to another one tomorrow!

Jbiz and Trophy.

This past weekend was a NAFA tournament in Michigan.  3 of my dogs were signed up to share 4 spots across two teams.   Thankfully a long time ago I had requested help from my friends as I can't run two dogs on the same team, and two of my friends agreed to come to the tournament with me.  This worked out really well as back on the 16th I was bitten by a dog at work when she got her muzzle off during a nail trim and the bite got infected.  I was cleared for full use of my hand the day before the tournament.  I was so thankful that I only had to worry about running one dog all weekend.

We had SO MUCH FUN.

Matty working on Demo's starts. We were being conservative on purpose, but they did really well together!

Jbiz (Cocoa's mom) was running Trophy all weekend, and my friend Matty was running Demo as Dem really likes him, and he could better take the beating that is running Demo in flyball all weekend.

There was only one major bobble with Demo all weekend, and we realized it was because we were switching boxes with him (we changed up our line ups at one point to help with making time) and he is too green to handle a change of box during a tournament.  The one race with a different box he bobbled the ball all 5 heats.  Luckily it was in the left lane and he didn't cross.  As soon as we stuck with the same box he ran beautifully.  There was also one heat where he dropped his ball early (VERY VERY unusual for him) but i think he had bit his tongue the previous heat and that may have contributed.

RUNNNNNN!

Trophy was my freaking rockstar all weekend.  I accidental ran him in 9 races on Saturday, I meant to switch Pan in for a few races, but in the crazy that was our schedule it somehow got overlooked.  Yay for racking up the points!

Speaking of racking up points, Demo got enough points to earn his FDCH-S (1,000 points) and Pan and Trophy took a huge chunk out of the race for their FMXes.  I also got their pins for earning 5,000 points back in February!

This upcoming weekend Demo will earn his next title (only needs 55 points), Pan and Trophy should be very close to their next titles at the end of the tournament (they both need just over 700 points to get there and I just don't think they're going to make it).

BUT  Pan will become the #1 ranked English Setter in UFLI in less than two full races!  And that is worth CELEBRATING!  WOOHOO!!

Spring Photo Drop

Already growing up too fast.

Everyone's playing Chase Demo (a favorite game) around here.

High flyin' Panda Bears

Tug wiff me!

She has her own little water bowl, but she wants to be a big dog.

Wordless Wednesday: The Mudish Setter

Remember To Breathe

In agility last night i learned an important lesson: keep breathing. But we'll get to that in a second.

First in Trophy and Pan's class, we worked on a really interesting course made up of lots of perpendicular jumps. The first half of the class was pretty straightforward but with a tricky lead out over a jump and into the weaves. Pan is still improving on her weaves, despite not having practiced them at home in a few weeks. She didn't need a food lure last night, although she's not yet fluid or controlled, and in fact sometimes i think she still has no idea what she's doing.

Green Star indicates where the turn on the flat was.  And as usual, not to any scale what-so-ever.

However, instead of shutting down today, despite me losing my own focus and showing more disappointment in her than i should, she got the zoomies on the course. She ran through the tunnel under the dogwalk twice and then took off, ignoring my direction, and bypassed the course to zoom through the tunnel in the corner a few times. My instructor and I both agreed, i would rather have the silly setter zoomies than a meltdown. At least she was having FUN.

The second half of the course involved a much trickier maneuver followed by a wild ride around the ring. First (obstacles 8 through 14) involved a 3 jump pinwheel back into a tunnel in the corner, over the last jump in the pinwheel again and to the a-frame. We spent several minutes talking about our options for running this sequence and how to take jump 11 and be in position for a good A-frame entry after 13), and i ultimately decided to (listen to my instructor) and stay on the inside of the pinwheel, do a turn on the flat after the third jump (green star) to send Trophy to the tunnel and stay on the a-frame side of the jump to call him back to me and then wrap him around my body to give him a straighter entry to the a-frame. It worked really well for Trophy, i had to try twice with Pan since she's so much faster and less methodical than Trophy.

After the a-frame was our wild ride around all of the jumps in a big 'U' shape around the ring (15-20). It was insane, but other than losing Trophy up the dogwalk instead of having him follow me to the last jump, i actually managed to keep up with him. Pan was similar, but the tunnel under the dog walk sucked her in.

All in all it was a interesting challenge tonight, and i survived day 2 of running both dogs.

Now on to Demo's class and breathing lessons.

Last week it was suggested i try teaching him a nose target behavior to teach him a more independent stop into his 2o2o. So all week we worked on that, first teaching him to touch a lid, then longer touches, then off the couch into 2o2o with nose touches, then down the stairs into 2o2o with nose touches. (It worked REALLY well for him and he picked up it right away on both the dogwalk and the a-frame!)

We once again split up the class. We were on the dog walk first, twice on leash then once off leash to practice contacts. Then we worked on a mini sequence. Double jump to the table, then to the dog walk.

This is where i need to breathe.

Demo is so fullspeedahead!! it scares me and I'm super tense and i stop breathing when i get to the line with him. I really need to take a video of him next week so i can try to convey some of my terror. Trophy trots calmly down the dog walk, Pan sometimes trots, sometimes has a slow controlled lope down the dog walk.... Demo? Demo RUNS (flyball style) down the damn thing and it freaking scares me to death. He does slow down on the descent, and he is hitting and holding his contacts, but it makes me crazy nervous. One wrong footfall and he's flying off into the wall.

When we switched, we worked on the a-frame. 2 reps on leash, one off leash, then mini sequences. This time it was jump, a-frame, tunnel and then the reverse. He doesn't scare me nearly as much on the a-frame as he does on the dog walk.

Lastly we finished up with some handling over jumps, pinwheels and pinwheel into a front cross.

Phew.

I Survived!

Yesterday was my first night running all 3 of my dogs without my sister in class (she is doing well after her surgery and is settling in for a looong recovery). I have been petsitting since Saturday so i was expecting the dogs to be crazy, having not really spent time with me since Saturday (i did pick Trophy and Pan up in the morning and took them to work so they wouldnt be totally wired), but they all did very well.

The course setup for Trophy and Pan was delightful. It was just challenging enough that i could really settle in and run the dogs without having to worry about any tricky handling spots. I could have done without both Trophy and Pan trying to run the teeter like it was the dogwalk with no reasonable explaination (i even told Pan to ease up, but she still ploughed right on through and went flying). Luckily neither was really phased by it, and while i didnt keep my head enough to cheer, i didnt gasp or do anything to make the event tragic in their little brains.

When we put the course together Trophy ran clean in a really nice run. I love love love running my boy. Pan's run was also nice, except she backed out of the tunnel...twice...in a row. She's so weird. Otherwise her run was really nice. Still working on her weaves, but they are coming along nicely and i'm happy with her progress, when her head is screwed on right she's so much fun to run.

Demo's class was also really good! I finally felt like we clicked. We worked on the dog walk some more, changing our training plan with him on the contact obsticles, going to add a target for him to nosetouch at the end to teach him to stop since i can not get ahead of him on the dog walk.

Then worked some sequencing, jump to a curved tunnel then another jump. Easy. Worked on startline stays, front crosses and blind crosses. Finally felt like he looked to me for a little bit of direction, success in that if nothing else. Then we worked on the a-frame, which i can get ahead of him on, that was much better. He was getting tired (resting his head on my lap while waiting for our turn) and i could definitely see him looking to me instead of just charging ahead.

As my instructor said, "he's having fun!" Lol.

Totally love my kids, so very lucky to have them.

Tomorrow starts our Intro to Flyball Class, really excited for it! Putting the finishing touches on my class plan tonight, then heading to bed early.

Nothing Middle Of The Road About Pan

Agility on Thursday was the same set up as last week with one change, the teeter was in the opposite direction. The first half of our course was jump, dogwalk, down to the evil jump that made Pan fall apart last week. if she was going to repeat last weeks performance it was going to happen early, but she was a total rockstar! From there we did the teeter to the near side of the tunnel under the dog walk, jump to the tunnel, jump, weaves, a-frame.

I wanted to do a front cross on the landing side of the jump after the second tunnel. i was able to get some distance on Pan and really send her from the first tunnel over the jump and to the second tunnel, but when she stuttered before taking the second tunnel i pulled up in anticipation of having to get closer and redirect her and then she took the tunnel anyway and while she still took the jump after the tunnel i was not in the right position to complete the cross and we almost collided.

It was so beautiful and fun! Oh i wish we had been able to pull it off! I tried again, but once she got the pattern she was waay faster than me even as i was cutting through the course and pushing her around the outside!

Trophy did well, although he was slower than usual. i couldnt watch most of his run because if we accidently make eyecontact he loses his connection with Tasha (but that wont be a problem next week as i'm running all the dogs by myself). Trophy had, in a very unusual act, counter surfed the night before, and truly horriffic diarrhea before class. I took him out after his slow run and three poo bags worth of diarrhea later, he was a bit faster. (He also threw up a thick rubberband, the kind that comes on raw broccoli, early Friday morning and was truly miserable all day. He layed around and moped all day long. He was perkier this morning).

In Demo's class things got hairy. We split the class up and half of us worked on sequences with the dog walk, and the other half sequences with the a-frame.

We worked the a-frame first. It was a disaster. Mainly, i think, because Demo (really most of the dogs) couldn't see our helper who was in position to reward our dogs when they hit their contacts in time to really stop and understand the exercise. We did a sequence of tunnel - jump - a-frame. The first time i just did it, Demo totally blew off his contact as he was moving so damn fast over the a-frame. Didnt even blink at her. So the second time i did a Reverse flow pivioty move to collect him before the A-frame, and i tried to lure him over more and stop him in the 2o2o... but apparently that wasnt the point of the exercise (? That's how i taught Trophy and he's doing awesome?). We didnt get to try again and i didnt get to clarify why we are doing it differently.

When we switched to the dog walk, we did one rep of just the dog walk in either direction with the dogs still on leash (to keep them slower and controlled) then we did dogwalk to a jump and lastly jump dogwalk. I was terrified of Demo killing himself. Our instructor was again in position to "catch" him in the 2o2o at the end of the dogwalk, it worked much better (IMHO) because the dogs could see her before stopping. I almost fainted, especially on the second rep of jump to the dogwalk as Demo totally RAN the dog walk, but he got the contact thanks to our instructor being there.

There's so much that is different between Trophy/Pan's beginner class and this class, it's hard for me to figure some things out. I feel like i'm not in control of Demo at all... i feel like even though we've done sequencing and some handling, i'm not really feeling like I'm HANDLING him. The team work isnt there yet.

We have much to learn.

Flyball: Of Demo Drama and Lexi Meltdowns

I was lucky enough to have two flyball practices this weekend.  First up was our normal team practice Saturday.  I was not really looking forward to this practice as it felt like I was pulling teeth trying to get people there.  We had 4 people there, and a boxloader, which was really nice.  Got some good boxwork done with Trophy.  But then Demo's turn was all double hits on the box.  This is bad because it really slows him down.  If I'm going to speed him up his turn MUST get better.

So I was really happy when I got invited to a practice with some people from a fast team from Michigan who would be able to help me out with this.  It also helps to give me more stuff to work on in this upcoming class so I can help students if they stick through enough to actually run with us (and I'm pretty much like MUST.LEARN.ALL.THE.THINGS!).

Broken Collie.

But before we get there... Saturday night Demo slid after a tennis ball on the carpet in the living room and skinned both his back feet.  I was like, you've just got to be kidding me.  I have never wrapped his back feet at practice, and he didn't do this until HOURS after we got home.... and on CARPET?!  I bandaged his feet with some antiseptic so they wouldn't get muddy outside, then I unwrapped them overnight, and rewrapped them Sunday morning so we could make it to the practice.  Luckily his feet didn't bother him... although since I had to run to work right after I haven't unwrapped them yet, so who knows what they look like.

At practice we started with Demo and trying to find the right combination of props to help him.  They tried several different things, but nothing really seemed to help.  They said it was a striding issue, but also that he "is weird" and they hadn't quite nailed down the issue yet.

Fast forward to his second time in the ring, he was taking off too soon for the jumps and that was where the issue was coming from.  We put a 3 inch wide slat from the jumps across the lane at the 4 foot mark (and they said you can even put one at 14 feet out)  to essentially gear him up into a 10 foot stride before he even hits the jumps (6 feet from first jump to the start line, plus 4 feet to make another 10 feet).

Once we did that his box issues basically disappeared.

And then he pooped in the lane. >_<

Trophy was another story...  We worked more on getting him to pop off the box faster (I need to start calling him WAAAAAAAAY earlier than I do - when he lands after the 4th jump before the box, not when he takes off for the box).

I also learned that while he has a pretty turn with no ball, he also takes off for the box from too far back, and while his two footed turn isn't perfect, he's pivoting enough that it shouldn't be dangerous.

So I'm really not doing much harm by continuing to run him... although I think I'm going to try to get him to turn nicely without props while still taking the ball with up close work and slowly moving him back to speed (versus their method of alwaysalwaysalwaysalways use props unless it's an official heat) and see what we get.

All in all it was an awesome weekend.  I'm so thankful for all my dogs give me.

Now we just have to heal the Broken Collie before Agility on Thursday....

Woe is the Broken Collie.

(BTW, despite all her issues in agility, Pan rocks at flyball, and I have nothing to report on her because she's practically perfect.)

Agility: Of Demo Drama And Panda's Meltdown

I think it is an understatement to tell you that my last two weeks have been bad. With two of our owners on vacation at work, right after they hired 3 new people (who weren't anywhere near fully trained), not to mention firing someone right before they left, the schedule had us *barely* staffed correctly. Then add onto that a coworker with the flu, and another who is pregnant, and no one on call to help out if anything happened. Oh, and what felt like a billion dogs in the building two different days last week, and i worked 6 days in a row instead of 5.

To say that i was stressed was an understatement. Thursday was a culmination of all things bad. I was looking forward to agility and my weekend (I'm usually off Fridays and Saturdays).

My sister has been off on Thursdays for the past several months, so i take Trophy and Pan to work with me, and then she brings Demo up with her since he's not comfortable with strange dogs enough to go to work with me any more.

So we meet in the small lobby of the building about 10 minutes before the previous class gets out. Demo is always super excited to see me, and he lets out his high pitched excited yip. Next thing we know a black dog from the class before ours comes tearing out of the agility room, teeth bared, snarling, and makes a beeline right for Demo. Tasha still has Demo's leash, she's spinning trying to not get bit while trying to get Demo out of the way and somehow grab the other dog, I'm screaming and trying to keep Trophy and Pan out of it, so I literally can't do anything to help, then the dog's owner flies in and full body tackles his dog. Luckily Dem didn't have a scratch on him, just some slobber.

My sister said that this same dog lunged at Demo before in passing one day when I was running late. My instructor said the dog is in play groups all the time and has never shown any aggression before, there is just clearly something about Demo he/she/it doesn't like.

So after my horribly stressful week, I now have two hours of agility where I'm afraid my already not dog-friendly Demodog might go off the deep end if anything gets in his space. I kenneled him for the first hour to relax.

Then I had to suffer through the biggest Panda Meltdown to date. The first half of the course was deceptively easy*- all the obstacles around the outside of the room (1-9) with one front cross after the A-frame. Pan ran this part really well, except she blew off her 2o2o.  I knew the first half was too good to be true and the second half was going to be torture - it was.

once again, NOT DRAWN TO ANY SCALE WHATSOEVER. :)

From the weaves we went into this extremely demotivating loop: (10-15) jump, tire, teeter - circle, back to the first jump and the tire again then straight to the next jump. After the teeter we had to send the dogs to that first jump again and cross to be on the outside of the tire. While trying to get my cross in the right place with help from my instructor (i always cross to close to the obstacle the dog is taking instead of giving myself room by making the cross closer to the next obstacle in the sequence) Pan's brain fell off the deep end. Something about that first jump (3/10/13) just melted her fragile mind. My instructor couldn't get her to run, Tasha couldn't get her to run, she just shut down and went into avoidance behavior overdrive.

Probably a lot of it was having to do it over and over so I could try to get my cross right, but even after we got her doing some jumps at the other side of the room if she went back down in that corner as soon as I cued that jump she wouldn't take it and she would go back into shut down mode.  UGH!  I was so discouraged by the end of it that we just stopped running her for the day as I wasn't able to give her the positive feedback she needed.

Next week is another day to try again, and that's all I can say at this point as I don't know what else to do... and work on my handling skills with Trophy while working on just Pan's skills with Pan.

I guess in that aspect I'm looking forward to my sister being off for a few months so I can work both dogs.  I can get my handling down with Trophy and then help Pan's motivation separately.  It's going to kick my ass, but if running 3 dogs in agility and 3 dogs in flyball doesn't help me get skinny by fall I don't know what will. ;)

Now, as for Demo, he actually did really well in class.  I put a gate up between us and the dog next to us as she is very sweet but almost too friendly and she always wants to come see what everyone else is doing.  Demo had no problems focusing on me.  Thank goodness for THAT single trait in him, or whatever training I did to get him there!!

In class we worked a bit on weaves, and contacts on a low a-frame and low dog walk.  Then the second half of class we worked some sequencing and crosses.  Demo refused the tunnel at first, so I had to warm him up to that.  And of course the little stinker is so darn FAST that it is very hard to get a front cross when I have to guide him into the tunnel and then try to beat him to the other side for the cross.   Hopefully next week will be better as i did a few reps of sending to a tunnel at flyball practice.  Even set a box up next to the tunnel for some discrimination and he got it.  Went to the tunnel every time and I was able to send him from about 15 feet.  WOO!  Hope we do crosses with the tunnel again next week, I bet it will be a lot better!

Wordless Wednesday: Pandaball

Weekend Update- All About Foot Work

Yesterday we worked on boxwork and getting snappier turns off the box.

I'm really, really happy with Demo's turn.  It's coming together really nicely.  He needs a faster box, but that's beyond my control at the moment.


Sunday after work I worked on hind end awareness skills with the Agility dogs.  Trophy is working on advanced skills of trying to place each foot individually on a fitpaws paw pod, but I didn't take video or get photos.

Also, I have to apologize for the quality of these photos.  I had to take cellphone photos as my short focal length lens is broken, and my zoom lens on my good camera has an extremely long focal length (the dogs have to be about 10 feet away to get them to focus).

Hind end awareness is beneficial in so many ways, especially for dog sports.  Many dogs don't think about where they put their back feet.  In flyball this can be the difference between a good push off the box and a dangerous turn.  In agility it can help primarily with contacts, and footing on the dog-walk and teeter.  Finally, it can turn into many funny tricks.

So how do I start?  With Shaping.  I want the dog to offer shifting weight back to one hind foot.  I want to click for the same rear foot all the time at first.  I have found that my dogs are very front foot oriented so they try to spin around and walk down whatever prop I'm using, so I rig up an xpen into a chute so the dog can't turn, and can only move forward and backup.  I place a book on the floor at the back of the xpen and start upping my criteria to the dog placing the back foot on the book.

When the dog is offering that consistently I place a few more books or a shoe box to raise the height and wait for the dog to offer it again.  If I wanted to teach an independent rear leg lift I would continue on in this fashion, continuing to raise and raise and raise the height of the props to get the proper height of the leg lift, and then slowly remove props while keeping my high leg lift criteria for the reward.

However,  my goal for this training session is more about a contact behavior, so after Demo was very readily offering back feet on the boxes I switched out the boxes for my flyball jump board.

Then I continued rewarding for standing and backing up the board.  I also slowly opened up xpen so he had more options of directions and I could proof the backing up.

We had to trouble shoot with Pan, who wanted to only offer laying down and crawling forward.  Since I was using the xpen and my weave poles are sitting in the living room, I used them to block her from laying down. After she was reliably understanding that I wanted her to back up, not lay down, I set one pole on the ground under her.  Next session I will try to remove that.

Pan also did this hilarious crazy foot dance when working on the board.  I took a video (and you can see the new position of the "don't lay down" tube).  It's crazy wobbly as I was trying to hold my phone steady and click and reward all at the same time.  My criteria at this point is to wait for her to take another step backward on the board, but for the most part she's just picking up her feet and setting them back down in the same spot in this crazy-flaily dance.   have I mentioned I love her?




Well, next time I work on this I hope to get a video of the whole progress... and one that's not so shaky...

Pan's Agility Drama OR Silly Setter Syndrome

Tonight's agility class was much better.

My sister's medical problems aren't cleared up yet and she will be undergoing another surgery. Since Pan lost so much time and is having trouble picking up where she left off (and my sister gets super frustraited with her when things get hairy) we decided to keep her going while my sister recovers (which will take somewhere around 6 months...minimum). This means my Thursday nights are going to be EXHAUSTING as i run 3 dogs in 2 hours, but i'm oddly looking forward to it.

In prep for this, and because Pan's agility class was worse than Trophy's last week, my sister and I are trading dogs until she has to drop out.

If Pan thinks she has done something wrong she shuts down. Mainly she does this by no longer paying attenting and instead going off and sniffing the floor. So my plan for her is as follows:

1. Try to make sure that if I screw up a sequence or handling move i do not let Pan know (cheering off course jumps instead of stomping my foot because my position was the problem, for example).
2. If she sniffs, get her to sit and watch me to soothe and recollect her
3. If she continues to sniff around or if she shows more signs of shutting down, take her off course with lots of praise.

When her brain is screwed on right and she's connected she is so beautiful to watch and she is so fun to run. She works great from a distance especially over jump patterns, and her silly setter mannerisms just make me love her even more.

Tonight our course was a more novice course, so lots of space between some obstacles. I find this much more difficult than the higher level courses we usually work on in class. Anyway. My first run through with Pan on the first half of the course was brilliant, even her startline stay! Then each subsequent run got a little fuzzier. The second half of the course we needed to do a front cross after a jump with a long stretch into another jump that was perpendicular to the previous jump and then into a tunnel. The front cross was difficult as i really had to run to get into position and i am really bad at giving myself enough room to front cross (i want to be close to the landing of the jump when i need to angle myself out more and make the cross more evenly between the two jumps).

That cross and the jump were the first cause of Pan's stress tonight. I didnt like the position i was in, it felt messy. Even though she made the jump, because i verbalized my dislike of *my* performance and pulled up to retry it again, Pan felt she had done it wrong and started the sniffing. When i got her into the tunnel where we then did a post turn to dog walk, i got her eyes out of the tunnel and i took my eyes off her to turn to the dogwalk yet we lost connection and she jumped up behind me onto the middle of the dog walk ramp. Managed to finish the run, but when our "put it all together" run also wasnt pretty the whole thing nearly fell apart. I had her sit and i petted her and i gave her a cookie, and we continued on, we pulled it together, but there's a lot to work on still.

The good news is that I adore her quirks, and she doesn't frustraite me like she does Tasha. (Her abismal startline stays annoy me more than anything else).

The one truly bright light is that i actually saw improvement in Pan's weaves tonight! Up to this point we have had to lure her entirely though the weaves (treat in front of the nose all the time) today she was able to let me stay on one side of the weaves and point her through to lure her back. She didnt have to have the cookie the whole time, i didnt have to akwardly weave my armpit out of the weaves, it was awesome! Babysteps!

Since Demo has started agility training my instructor and i were talking breifly about the dogs switching from flyball (an *extremely* independent sport where the dog works at great distance from the handler over a course that changes minimally between runs) to agility (a sport baised in communication between handler and dog where the courses change drastically between runs). Even though Trophy also started in flyball, he and I have a great working relationship from so many tricks and random training with him that he looks to me anyway for direction despite flyball. Pan and Demo on the other hand haven't had as much work on handler focus at home, so they try to think independently on the agility course to undesireable results.

Demo's class is going well, he's calming down around the other dogs. We were learning front crosses and post turns today. He is living up to expectations and wants to be way out in front of me over jumps, he is trying to stay with me, but he understands jumping ahead of me, not next to me.

All in all a really good two hours of class. I quite enjoyed it. :)

Flyball Hangover 2.0

I love the term flyball hangover. It's so perfect to describe the aftermath of the crazy exertion of this sport all weekend.

For the dogs it means:
-being too tired to lay down before falling asleep. (Pan slept sitting up the entire drive home, she had plenty of room to lay down, she just... didn't)
-sleeping in an akward position that can't possibly be comfy, only you're fast asleep, so apparently it's comfy... enough. (Demo, who slept with his head cranked at a 90 degree angle to his body the entire way home using the door as a pillow)
-being so tired you don't bark when the front door opens. (Thankfully it wasn't a burgler!)
-long blinks that turn into longer blinks
-grumbling/growling when you are unexpectidely woken up.

For me it means:
-waking up Monday with tiny bruises on my lap from Pan using me as a launching board
-pain in my right thumb from being chomped on too many times while giving out cheese
-discovering an asortement of scratches/bruises i didnt know about when the shower water causes them to burn
-constant ringing in my ears for two days
-a very sore right leg (since i always get up from the floor starting with the same leg, it's like i did a million lunges but only with my right leg...ow)

After this weekend it also means i have to find a safe spot to store/display these babies:


Trophy and Pan both earned their FM titles this weekend! I snagged the balls from their winning runs, complete with victory slobber.

Trophy's team had a much harder time acomplishing this that i would have thought, we had more hot passes than i've ever seen from one of our teams (i was guilty for 2 of them, and one with Pan). When our second race resulted in only 28 points i was worried that Pan might get her FM and Trophy wouldn't! We eventually pulled it together with two races to spare.

Pan's team did phenominally all weekend. They were our Multi team, and were seeded last in the only multi division. I was expecting them to go 3-and-out all weekend. Thankfully, due to racing those "division 1" teams that push their passes, despite the fact we ran 3 full seconds slower, we ended up going to 5 heats most of the time. Whereas Trophy's team in Division 3 Regular, seeded last against other teams there also racing for the points, did go 3-and-out all pretty much all weekend.

Once they earned their titles Demo finally got to race. I put him in for 3 races. He was running faster, 4.5's passing until i decided to widen our passing a bit (compared to his 4.6s starts in Euclid). His turn looked really nice too. And then we had a race where both of the left-turn dogs took bad bobbles. Bandy in the second heat, and then Demo in the third had another bobble that he chased into the left lane and we got called for the interferance. I'm so very grateful that his wild bobbles havent caused a collision with the other team, although he did try to take out the judge (twice) during that race.

Well, i'm off to get ready for work. Let's hope my hungover body can manage it!

Welcome To Agility, Demo!

Thursday night was our first night in our new flyball class. One of our former classmates moved into this class with us which was a nice surprise... and we managed to more than double the previous size of the class.

Demo gets to hang out while Pan and Trophy run, and overall he was really good. He did scream a little when i was running Trophy, but otherwise he was quiet and it helped him chill out before his beginner class, which has 6 other dogs in it, but more on that in a moment.

The course laid out for the first class had a really neat jump pattern, i'll try to diagram that when i get home (currently updating from my phone at a flyball tournament in beautiful and cold Davisburg, Michigan). After the weaves we had to front cross into a jump, send to a jump then pull the dog over another jump, front cross into a pinwheel and front cross again after the 3rd jump back into the weaves (it will make more sense when you see it), it was a lot of front crosses very quickly, but it flowed very nicely.

Dog on right out of weaves.  Front cross before 2, Push dog over 3, Pull dog over 4 with a front cross on the landing side.  Dog on right for 5 and 6, Push out back over 7 front cross on the landing side of 7 dog on left back into weaves.

The best part of the night for me was actually in warmup when Trophy let me front and rear cross while he was weaving 12 poles!! I'm so proud of the work we have put into our weaves.

Then Demo had his beginner class right after. It is a big class, and Demo did so well. Luckily he's not the only dog with space issues, but it's a totally different class experience than i had with Trophy, the canine pacifist. I freaked myself out more than anything about the space issue, as was evident when i tried to fall asleep that night and woke up 3 times clutching my cat (who sleeps in my arms when it's cold) and freaking out that i was grabbing Demo seconds before he attacked a dog that ventured too close to his space.

In reality Demo only snarked at one dog. He was brilliant for everything else, but i'd already worked on turns on the flat and touch. He knows how to go thru jump uprights, he was a little freaked out by the noise of the hulahoop (mine has water not beads in it), and once he understood he'd get his tug for running thru the tunnel he flew through it.

Need to somehow find a 12inch wide board to work on walking down a plank into 2o2o. He couldnt keep his butt on the plank, so i also need to do some more hind end awareness tricks with him.

I'm really happy with him though, he's very focused.

Now we are at a flyball tournament. Pan needs 800 points to get her FM and we have racked up 450 so far (one more race today, 5 tomorrow). Trophy needs 500 more points to get his FM and he has 108 points so far (2 more races today, 4 tomorrow). Trophy's team had a really uncoordinated race for 28 total points, so i'm hoping we can pull it together. I'm going to be slightly mad if they dont both get their titles this weekend. :)

Edit: went back and added the paragraph breaks. Sorry! I forgot when i update from the blogger app-thingy on my phone enter does not equal a line break. Whoops! Havent had a chance to illustrate this post yet, sorry!

Edit2: finally added a crappy diagram of the agility course.