Back from our Arizona Adventure

Dottie in Arizona.

I went to AZ to visit ffluffy over the long Veterans Day weekend. It was a great visit! Friends should never move away, I think. In addition to visiting, we went to an agility trial. Dottie was entered for the first time!

I left Wednesday after work, and also after a quick practice for Dottie's BH. She is entered for that next weekend but I just got a call saying she is wait listed. Very disappointing!

I ended up leaving my house right after 6pm. I hit traffic on the 101, rush hour, I suppose. Drove through the dessert and did not get abducted by aliens. Seems like that is a thing that could happen driving the lonely desert roads late at night. I had audio books to keep me from being drowsy but much to my disappointment, my library did not have a good selection. Most of their books were on tape! Who has a cassette player in their car? My 2000 Miata had one (and a CD player) but my 2006 Buick does not. Bummer. I settled on Emma but ended up turning it off as I approached Phoenix and found a good radio station. Did not really enjoy it at all.

I pulled off at a rest stop around midnight to get the blood flowing. I decided to use the restroom but felt it is not 100% safe to use a restroom at a rest stop so late at night. Who knows who could be waiting in there for me? I decided to bring Pie with me. Some people tell me even the friendliest Malinois will protect you if the need ever arises, but I'm not sure that applies to friendliest combined with a slight lack of self confidence. Besides, Pie is so friendly, how would she recognize someone is a threat? No- I did not take her for protection, but deterrence. I have had a few people tell me she looks intimidating enough that they would not "mess" with her, and by extension, me. If a bad person was lurking in the rest room and they saw Pie, I'm sure they would continue to lurk until an easier target happened along. And with that thought, I felt confident enough to use the restroom without apprehension.

It helps that Pie does not walk nicely on the leash. I kept her in heel position with her straining forward and looking semi out of control and therefore unpredictable. A dog walking obediently in heel position isn't as intimidating as a dog I can barely control. I also told Pie, "Watch him." even though there was no "him." However, this made Pie look around like there might be someone to bark at. Now she looked very aware and somewhat uncontrollable, and therefore, a force to be reckoned with. Dottie is more likely to actually bite someone if the need arose, but her slender build makes her look like a puppy, and also a dog that would easily be tossed aside. In the audio book I am listening to now there is a dog named "The Safeguard." The person given the dog complains he didn't protect her when the need arose and his owner says his job isn't protection, he is a safeguard. That describes Pie pretty well. Dottie does not look like a Safeguard. It is nice to have an intimidating looking dog when driving alone late at night.

I made it to ffluffy's house around 1 am, which turned out to be actually 2 am since AZ does not do daylight savings. My stop at midnight had reset my sleep cycle and I was not tired. I went to bed around 4 and got up at 9 the next morning. ffluffy and I spent the day going to different dog training locations while she either gave lessons or took them. I got to work Dottie in obedience in a building while ffluffy took an agility lesson, then again that night I worked her a bit in an agility lesson. We had dinner at a good pizza place.

On Friday ffluffy had to work, but I drove to Queen Creek for the agility trial. Pie was uncharacteristically naughty in standard, then Qed in jumpers. Dottie Qed in her first ever standard run, then knocked a bar in jumpers. Dottie also broke her start tine in jumpers, but not very decisively. I let her go since I want speed and don't want to squish her desire for agility. (More on that later.) Fancy was not entered. We had dinner at a good bar and grill. And went to BR for icecream.

Saturday Pie QQed (2 firsts) and Fancy QQed (third and fourth) and Dottie did not have any Qs. We had steak for dinner. Yum. And ice cream cake we bought the day before. I eat too well when with ffluffy.


Sunday Pie QQed (2 firsts) Fancy was not entered and Dottie got a jumper's Q. Then we went back to ffluffy's and packed up. I left around 5 and ran into traffic in Phoenix. Then again on the 10 in CA when the freeway was shut down for about 30 minutes due to a multi-vehicle accident. I don't think anyone was killed, happily, just a narrow stretch of road with no where to move the disabled vehicles to until they could be towed off. For the drive home I borrowed audio books from ffluffy as to not be subjected to Emma again. The Mistress of the Art of Death is about a women forensic doctor in England during the second Crusade. Very good!

Below is from an email I sent a friend with my thoughts on speed in agility and a report of Dottie's first show. Speed in agility is important for Dottie at this time:

(Talking about a dog we know...) She has sped up since last time I saw her. ( I think she
trotted her entire first course.) It is somewhat typical for a
person's first dog to be slow because the handler is more concerned
with being correct than fast. Quickly they come to realize that
control comes at the cost of speed and control is easier to get over
time but once speed goes away (or was never there) it is very, very
hard to get it back. Agility needs control, but speed is really what
the game is about. Fancy Pants was fairly slow at one time because
when she was wrong I'd make her go back and do it again and she didn't
want to be wrong so she'd slow down in order to give herself more time
to figure out what I wanted. I like the analogy of a new (nervous)
driver going somewhere they haven't been before, with their passenger
shouting "turn LEFT!" at the last second while they are trying to go
the speed limit. Of course that driver is going to slow down. I
realized with Fancy if she did something wrong, just pretend it is
right, because I needed her to run faster. Over time, it worked and
she sped up nicely. She'll never be as fast as the "real" agility
dogs like Border Collies, but that is because of her breed and because
she wasn't bred for any particular working purpose. In (name removed) case
who knows if she will ever speed up more because maybe she doesn't
have any drive, or maybe (the owner) will never focus on speed. She has
the dog in the preferred class which gives her more time. If she moves
her up to regular when she gets into excellent she won't make time,
then will be concerned about speed but it maybe too late. Plus, for
some people when they want more speed they just encourage the dog
more, but still make them go back and fix stuff or show disappointment
if the dog is wrong. You can cheerlead all you want and it won't
help. You have to fix your own attitude towards running the course.

Yep, I know something about getting the most speed out of a dog who
doesn't have an ingrained desire to go insanely fast. :) Which is why
when Dottie ran around jumps this weekend I didn't go back to fix
them. She doesn't run around jumps in practice. I think it was the
distracting new environment combined with my forgetting she is a new
dog and needs me to "work each jump." Running a new dog you forget
they haven't been doing it for years and forget they need more help
than you are used to giving. She had some really nice pieces of runs.
I think with more time and training she will turn out fine. I need
to get her to drive to jumps, rather than just be kind of blah about
jumping them. She did drive nicely a few times, so that gives me
hope. I also need to fix my a-frame. She missed the contact there
all but once. Knocked some bars. No off courses though. We had 2
runs a day over three days and she qualified twice. One in jumpers
and once in standard. She broke her start line once and I let her go
because again if you want speed and a dog offers to go it means they
want to and to stop them is to squish that desire. I was happy with
our performance. As I said, I saw some things that makes me think she
will turn out a little better than I had originally thought. I'll be
posting the videos in a bit. My very last run with her was our second
Q and the guy that filmed me used his camera and then couldn't give me
the video because it is on TAPE. ! Not sure I'll ever get a copy of
that one. :(

Pie was also good, having 5/6 clean runs and getting first in each
class. The competition in AZ is not as stiff because Fancy had 2 for
2 clean runs (only entered one day- running 3 dogs is expensive!) and
she got a third and a fourth and in CA she hardly ever places.) Pie was nice and fast
and her consistency gives me hope for the Invitational which is bad
because if we mess up I'll be disappointed. And if I know she can do
well and I do something stupid to ruin our chances that is even worse!

... end of email

As I said, I'll get the videos up before too long.

It was great to visit with ffluffy, nice to see her house and town, fun to play with her dogs again, and a good agility trial.

Fancy sleeping on a dog bed thoughtfully provided by ffluffy.



Which left this dog bed for Pie...



Actually I think Pie picked this bed on her own. She likes to sleep in beds like this that are too small for her.


Dottie slept here to keep her out of trouble.

This is from a picture in the guest room I was staying in. It looks exactly like Fancy! It was titled Sailor Boy. I wonder if I can get a copy somewhere?