"If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success."

It's been a pretty good week so far in the dog training world. Last night Dolphin had scent work class and he did a great job. I love watching him work, he is so ultra-focused when he knows it is time to work. I am not sure when our next scent work trial will be, but we will just keep training until it's time to trial

Today we had agility class. Normally Noodle has class at 8:00 in the morning, but even though she looks 100%, I decided to let her take the day off. Dolphin got a bonus class this morning since I took him in her place. He was fantastic! Super motivated, accurate (only 2 knocked bars) and really really fast. It was a blast.

Pizza had class next, and she was great. She had a lot more focus than normal, was her usual zippy fast self, and was very accurate. I still say she is my fastest dog. If I can get her focus to equal her speed, she will be amazing. I have her entered in 2 weeks in her first agility trial at home since early September. I am not really sure what to expect, since the trial in Florida didn't go as hoped. It's time to get back to it and see what I've got.

I am switching gears this weekend, and Noodle and I are headed north to a rally trial. It will be our debut in Excellent.Again, I don't really know what to expect. She has been training great, but there are a few things we are struggling with. Stay tuned!

Noodle and I traveled to Medina last night for the rally trial. We came a night early because they had run-thrus yesterday evening. She was awesome in run-thrus, but then she is always awesome when there is food involved.

We stayed the night near Medina, it was a bitter cold night and Noodle did NOT enjoy the frozen ground! The trial was indoors, of course. Today was our Rally Excellent debut! I basically taught myself all of the signs, looking at videos and asking friends a few questions about signs I was confused about. Our first run was actually pretty decent, and we scored a 96 and 1st place in Excellent A.

This trial was jam-packed, in size and time. I literally had to walk the two courses back-to-back, and then go run the first course, and then within moments had to go in and run the second course. That was really hard for me - keeping the courses straight and not having any time to decompress in between. Our second course was not as good, Noodle was pretty distracted. We scored an 86, still qualifying and still enough to earn 1st place!

We were finished by 1:00, so I headed home. Tomorrow will be an early morning. We are on a roll, only one more Q needed for her Rally Excellent (RE) title!

Day #2 of the rally trial, and it was a bit warmer outside, and less crazy inside. The two trials were split a little better today so I had time in between, and the walk-throughs were split up. This did wonders for my state of mind!

Noodle's first run today had several elements that I have been struggling with, namely the moving down. We had that yesterday and it didn't go so well. Today, it went perfectly! Although Noodle was a little distracted, she stayed with me and stayed accurate, and our first run of the day scored us a 99 and another 1st place! This officially finished her RE title.

Our second run was a lot more distracted. At least, it sure felt that way. We did well enough to score a 97 and another 1st place for a bonus Excellent leg. I wish I had some video to watch of our goes, because they all felt so disjointed and distracted, but our scores were good enough that it makes me wonder if a lot of that was in my head? I hate not having "game film" to watch. Next time I will be sure to find someone to video, that's the only way I can learn.

I should be on a high after this successful trip, but as I was walking Noodle out to the van on the gravel, she started limping. I think she is still sore, even though she has gotten a lot of rest. I wonder why I only saw the limp today on the gravel, and not inside on the mats. This tells me that maybe it's in her foot? I don't know, but I am worried sick. She has an appointment with a sports medicine vet on Feb. 28th, and that is way too long to wait. I hate that my ride-or-die girl is hurting.

Today I took Dolphin field training. We trained with a Brittany, and Dolphin was very excited to have a training partner. I had to get him to focus right at the start when he wanted to play, but after that he was all business and never even looked at the other dog again.

The Brittany pointed two birds first, and I worked on trying to get Dolphin to honor...basically trying to whoa him before he went on point on the bird himself. This will take a lot of repetitions before he gets the idea, and it's been MONTHS since he trained with anyone else, so it was expected.

Dolphin went on a beautiful solid point on his first bird, but jumped in after a few seconds of standing there, so I had to correct him. We put a few pigeons out (the other birds had been quail), and tried to get him to have a bit of success. His first pigeon he held well, but when I flushed it, he leaped in the air to try and grab it (unsuccessfully). This was a bit unusual for him, but again he hasn't trained at all in over a month so I have to keep that in mind.

We tossed another bird down immediately, and he stood nicely through that flush. After that, we went on and found one more bird. He was a bit sticky about pointing, but I boosted his confidence and he ended nice and strong with a solid point through the flush and the blank shot. On that, we ended on a good note.

I think I need to do something a little different. I have been babying him for the past year+ and it's time to get down to work. I think tomorrow I will have someone shoot birds over him and let him retrieve (on a check cord). My idea is that maybe if he learns that if he stays put through the flush and shot, he will get to retrieve (as a reward), and be more likely to start staying better. My idea up until now was to not let him retrieve until he is steady, but that is not working as it did for the girls, so I am changing my line of thinking. We shall see tomorrow, I guess!

Today was a jam-packed day, just the way I like it! The morning started off with agility. Noodle had class first Today was courses day, yay! I ran Noodle in both courses, she was fantastic! The best part is that she ended class 100% sound, no signs of soreness. This sure is baffling me. She goes for weeks and is great, then suddenly she seems sore again, but then within ours or by the next day she is fine. For some reason I have a feeling it is in her foot. She has an appointment at the end of the month with the sports medicine vet at OSU. I hope they can find a definite answer.

Pizza was really distracted in her class today. Very unfocused for some reason. She did well, but most of her mistakes were strictly from not paying attention. We ended positive, and I made sure to keep the entire session positive.

This afternoon Dolphin and I went to field train with some friends locally. I had a definite training plan going in to the day. Here is how it went:

We had the birds in tip-up cages so he couldn't grab them if he decided to break. The first bird was out in the middle and he totally didn't scent it, almost ran right over top of it and when he finally stopped, he didn't even try to hold. He knocked the tip-up over and luckily the bird flushed safely. I got after him for this and made him stand there a bit.

My friend had watched where that bird landed, so we eventually worked our way back over to that area. I kept Dolphin on a check cord so I could make him come in to the bird slowly. He went on a beautiful dramatic point a good 5-6 feet away from the bird. My friend went to flush for me, the bird flew up, and he shot at it twice. It fell a good distance away, and it was obvious it had been wounded but not killed. I released Dolphin and told him to "get it!". The look on his face was priceless, he was like "Really? I'm allowed to go get the bird?" He blasted over to the area where the bird fell. The bird had walked itself into the high cover, and Dolphin did a beautiful job of searching. He finally found it, and brought it straight back to me! It was so awesome! My baby boy's first live shot retrieve.

He had a nice solid point on our second bird. This time, I made him stay put while I got in front of him and released the bird. My friend shot and missed, and the bird flew off. Dolphin stood perfectly for the entire thing! He turned to mark the bird when it flew off, but he had NO forward motion. Maybe, just maybe, we are making progress???

Here is a recap of the past 2 days at the agility trial in Zanesville:

Friday I only had Dolphin entered. My friend and training pal had to leave to go to a work meeting, so I also ran her dog Tigger (both Tigger and Dolphin started training together as baby puppies, and have trained regularly and progressed together ever since). Well, let's just say the day was a lot less successful than I had hoped. Dolphin missed the send in FAST - went in the wrong end of the tunnel. Then in Standard things went a bit haywire - missed a jump, missed his weave entrance, and went into the wrong end of the tunnel. Jumpers was better, but he knocked a jump in a big pinwheel, and then went into the wrong end of the tunnel. These tunnel mistakes are so unlike him! It was weird. We came back for our last class - Time 2 Beat - and nailed a nice run. It had a few bobbles, but we managed to save the run (and he had some awesome weaves!).

Tigger and I did not have any success...he took a few off course obstacles and wrong tunnel ends to NQ all of our runs, but he was fast and happy and a BLAST to run!

Saturday was a much better day. Today was the girls' day, so it was all about Noodle. She was on FIRE! She came out and zipped through FAST and nailed the send (jump, jump, wrap back to jump) and earned more than enough points. Next was standard, and she was fast and accurate, even when things outside the ring distracted her. It was a beautiful 3rd place run (out of about 20 dogs in the 24" class). Lastly was jumpers, and with a triple Q on the line I worked very hard to figure out the perfect handling plan for Noodle. She was fantastic, nailed that run for a Q and ending the day with a TRIPLE Q!!! And the best part? She was 100% sound and feeling good the entire day! Damn I love this girl. She has so much heart, so much try in her. I'll probably never own another dog quite like her.

Tomorrow is one more day at the trial, and it's back to Dolphin. Hopefully we can get our act together.

Today it was Dolphin's turn back at the agility trial. Unfortunately we don't have any great results to report. In FAST, it was tunnel, jump, wrap back to tunnel and he missed the jump after the tunnel. He was running so hard he literally slipped back and forth through the weaves, but got them. Standard was SO nice, but the off-course tunnel that bit about 90% of the class bit us also. Jumpers was extra disappointing, because we NQ-ed on a very marginal call where Dolphin went wide and doubled back to get the tunnel, and was called on a refusal. I watched the video multiple times and slowed it way down, and the call could have gone either way. The judge had been generous to the other exhibitors up to this point, but we got the call, so the otherwise beautiful run was an NQ.

On the plus side, he was pretty darn solid on his contacts (other than a few A-Frames that I allowed his momentum to carry him to the ground, for safety's sake). He was nice and fast and enthusiastic all weekend. On the minus side, his start line stay was horrible and we really need to fix that, somehow, without killing his motivation.

This evening I rented the training building and took Pizza to go train with a friend of mine. I worked her a bit (she was great!) and then I let my friend run her in several courses. She actually ran pretty good with her. I think we are going to try and have her run Pizza at the trial in one class on Sunday. This coming weekend I have all three dogs entered on Friday and Sunday...it's going to crazy!

All 3 dog got to go field training today! I had specific training plans for each dog.

Today we worked a lot on Dolphin's honoring. His problem is that he tends to stop when told but then turns to face me. I need to work on that at home. He had a couple really nice solid points - only one he crept forward about 2 inches but caught himself. Progress!

Pizza's lesson was reviewing honoring (in which she is awesome at, no problemo!) and working on her stop to flush since that is what fell apart at the field trial 2 weeks ago. At random times my trainer would throw some pigeons at her while she was running, and we worked on getting her to stop and stay steady. She used to be extremely steady at this, but we haven't worked this in many many months, and she needed reminding.

Noodle's task was honoring, as usual. Here's the weird thing - she did THREE perfect honors from a good distance away from me, all on her own. Who is this dog??? She was rock solid on her birds, although when I was kicking leaves up in her face when she was on point, she kept trying to grab at them. She fell for it multiple times, so it made a good training opportunity. It was a wonderful day, sunny and mid 50's...glorious for February!

After a week in the 50's and 60's (and even one day we hit 70!), today was back to Febreality ...30 degrees, blowing and spitting snow. It was a good day to spend indoors at an agility trial just 3 miles from my house. Enter and run 3 dogs? Sure, why not?

Noodle was the rockstar of the day - earning ANOTHER TRIPLE QQQ! She ran great and picked up some nice MACH points. Noodlehead was on her best behavior all day, what made it even better.

Dolphin was also a rockstar, earning a DOUBLE QQ - his second one of his career! He ran really well all day. He NQ'ed in FAST. The send bonus was tunnel - jump - back to tunnel. He got it, but it took forever to convince him to go into the tunnel twice so we ran out of time. He knocked a bar in Time 2 Beat (I think due to my badly timed rear cross at the jump...not sure). However, he got it together in the two classes that counted!

Pizza, oh Pizza, what can I say? Jumpers was a wreck, she took off from the start line and ran to the bar setters, I got her back and we managed to get jumps 1-3 before she left me and sprinted off to the far corner. I walked her off. Time 2 Beat was actually pretty fantastic - she ran the entire thing clean and SUPER fast until the second to last obstacle - the weaves - she left me to visit and I couldn't get her back. It was the same old same old in FAST and in Standard - she left me to go from bar setter to bar setter, I walked her off of both of those classes when I couldn't get her back and engaged. Saying I am at a loss is putting it mildly. I haven't trialed her in 5 months (other than Florida last month)...she has been training fantastic and is often perfect in classes. I swear, this girl is faster and more athletic than any of my other dogs, but I can't seem to figure this issue out. I am plumb out of ideas. We will try again on Sunday.

ON the plus side, she LOVES people and loves being social. I do like that about her!

Back to the agility trial today, and today's theme is "Weaves? What weaves?" Here is the recap of all three dogs:

Noodle - Noodle was my shining star with another Triple QQQ! She had a really good run in Jumpers, and a slower but accurate run in Standard, and a lackadaisical run in FAST to squeak out a nice Triple Q. Something was definitely in the tunnel in FAST (send bonus was tunnel - jump-to the other tunnel...yuck) as she stopped inside and obsessed over smelling it. Pizza found the smell also, so something definitely was there.

Dolphin - Dolphin pulled off a decent Q in Time 2 Beat, but missed his weave entrance. Luckily there are no refusals in T2B so I was able to get him back in and finish clean. He then missed his weaves again in Jumpers, but we fixed and he ran the rest clean. He slipped a LOT on the turf, so that made his slow down a bit. This was a problem for him all day. It took FOUR tries to get his weaves in Standard...ugh. The weaves were right at the beginning, and I found that all my dogs hated having the weaves right when they got started. However, we had some nice stopped contacts in Standard, so that's good. Something to work on! Dolphin did better in FAST (no weaves...yay!) but he skirted the opening in the second tunnel so negated his send bonus. He doesn't like tunnels, and especially did not like them today.

Pizza: We tried an experiment - I tried having my friend run Pizza in Time 2 Beat. Pizza has run great for her when we train...but today she just ran the fence looking for me. Ugh. Today's runs were a HUGE improvement over Friday. In Jumpers, I walked her in and let her greet the bar setter right by the first jump, then I set her up and off we went! She blew right past the weaves, did a massive loop around the ring, but came back and actually finished the rest of the course perfectly...and blazing fast! No visiting...yay! Standard was much the same - she blew past the weaves and I just went with it, we ended up with a pretty nice course (with a few sniffy distractions but nothing major). FAST was going SO well...she only needs one more Q for her Excellent FAST title...but not today. She started off super strong, went in the first tunnel of the send and stayed in there. I could see her about 2 feet from the exit licking the floor of the tunnel. I think another dog peed in there, because it seems odd that both her and Noodle stopped at the same spot and obsessed. Unfortunately although she got the send bonus, we ran out of time, so no Q.

Entries for the AKC Rally National Championships opened today at 10:00am. By 10:08am, my entry for Noodle was IN...hopefully we get in to the show. It happens in June, and is only an hour or so from me in Wilmington.

Today was a nice day, but crazy windy (like 25 mph winds). Perfect day to field train and work on crazy scenting conditions! I am thrilled with how Dolphin did. On his first bird, he went on point a decent distance away. I slipped the check cord on him so I could control him if he breaks. The bird was far enough ahead of us that I couldn't reach it and still control the check cord, so I had my friend flush it. The bird flushed, he shot, and Dolphin watched it go down without moving a muscle, and zero pressure on the check cord. I tapped him on the head to release him to retrieve and he did a CRAZY fast big retrieve right to me, and gave up the bird nicely! Woot!

His second bird was tougher - we tried to flush the bird and it walked...and walked, and walked. Dolphin held still for that, we got the bird up (my friend flushed), and shot, and he did try to break when he saw the bird fall. I held the check cord and made him stand steady, then I released him. This was a REALLY far retrieve, and he did an awesome job of searching, and then coming back at breakneck speed with the bird in his mouth, and again was nice about letting me have the bird (better than the last time we shot over him a few weeks ago!). He is really coming along, can you tell that I am getting excited??? His honoring needs a LOT of work. He looks at the dog on point, I whoa him, and he turns toward me. He is figuring out slowly that the thing he is supposed to be looking at is really exciting...the second honor we did he about pulled my arm out of my socked as I was holding his collar and he saw the other dog go for the retrieve. This is something I can work on at home - make him stand while I let Noodle or Pizza do a retrieve.

I pulled Noodle out to work one quick bird, to make sure she will be steady. I will never take her for granted, after her disastrous last hunt test in December where she broke both days. Today she was steady as a rock, with just a small turn/pivot to mark the bird. I guess we will see this weekend - I am doing my first judging assignment in North Carolina, and running the girls on Sunday. Yay!

It's a beautiful weekend to be in North Carolina! Today was sunny and high 70's...a welcome change from Ohio's February weather. Today I was tasked with judging the Weimaraner Shooting Rating test. I got to the grounds early to let Pizza and Noodle out for a little run. They had been cooped up in the van for the 8 hour drive all day yesterday, and Noodle was a bit of a PITA at the air BnB last night - woke me up FIVE times to go out and potty, and pooped ALL 5 times (where did all of that even come from???).

I had a blast judging the Weims in shooting ratings. We had a full day and there were some amazing dogs to watch. When we were done, I had an opportunity to get my dogs out and run them, and do a little training on the birds that were left in the field. Both dogs were great. Hopefully they can hold on to this "greatness" for another couple days, as they aren't entered until Sunday morning. I left the field with a little bit of a sunburn on my arms. What a welcome sight in February. I am still wondering why I am living in Ohio...

Saturday's weather did a 180. It was cold (mid-40's and low 50's) and rained pretty much the whole day. We had a few moments were the rain would stop, but it drizzled almost all day. I had a full day of judging - 11 Master Hunter braces and 4 Senior Hunter braces. We stepped off at 7:30am and finished around 4:30pm. That's a long day! It was a total BLAST! I ended up with over 25,000 steps on my Garmin watch - quite possibly a new record for me. After the hunt test was done, I had a brief moment to get both girls out for a quick run. It was another rough night with Noodle, as she does not do well with being cooped up all day and then having to be cooped up all night at the air BnB.

Sunday morning was cloudy, a little misty, but mostly dry. Pizza was in the first brace. She had a beautiful run to her, covered a lot of ground, and had a gorgeous long-distance honor in the backfield. She handled a backfield bird perfectly. In the bird field, her bracemate went on point, and as I was bringing her over to honor, she went on point. She had to stay on point the entire time they worked the other dog, and she was solid as a rock. She held perfectly through the flush and the shot, but the retrieve...ugh. She brought it partway and dropped it, and was done with it. I worked a little bit to try to get her to pick it up, but when I saw she was absolutely not going to do it, I said thank you to the judges and leashed her up. We had to plant another bird for her to point so my bracemate could honor. She was solid on that one, the bird fell really far towards the woods and when I sent her for the retrieve she went way too deep into the woods and down the hill. I had to walk to the woods to look for her, and she was gone for a little bit before coming back out of the woods from a different spot. She did find the bird behind me and of course this time she picked it up and brought it back...a little too late LOL!

Noodle was next, and she shot off the line like she was at a field trial. In the backfield she had a nice intense point that she held perfectly for the flush and blank. Very quickly she went on point again in the backfield, and when I flushed the bird away from her, the stupid bird did a u-turn in the air and actually flew right to Noodle and hit her in the face. She, of course, opened her mouth and caught it. Unfortunately that meant that we were done. Very disappointing as I had really high hopes for her after how great she has been training, but them's the breaks!

I judged Junior Hunter in the afternoon, and it was a lot of fun watching these dogs in their "raw material" form. I loved watching them figure out the wind and find the birds. I could have done that all day, but too soon I was done and heading back home on that 8 hour drive. Overall it was a fantastic experience and I can't wait to do it again!

Today I had two really great pieces of mail in my inbox (and that's unusual!). First was a notification from AKC that Noodle's entry in to the Rally National Championships was accepted and we got in! This means we compete in Wilmington in June and get our butt kicked by "real" rally teams...can't wait! I have never done this before, so I am always up for new, challenging experiences.

The second bit of good news was the Weimaraner Magazine - February issue. The Top 10 rankings were up for 2023, of course they on;y had a month's worth of events to tabulate, but Dolphin squeaked in at #10! That's pretty cool! I love seeing his name in the rankings, and especially fun was noticing he was the only grand champion in the rankings. #morethanjustaprettyface He will probably drop off the top 10 by the March issue, but I will enjoy seeing this for now.