I had a couple of jam-packed days. Wednesday, my morning started off with Dolphin's agility class. He was very obedient and accurate, but kind of slow. My biggest downfall is that it is winter and I have no place to train him at home where he can actually run and let his own speed motivate him. I am going to have to get serious about renting the training building more often and work with him there so he can learn to do things with speed.

Pizza was wild as usual in her class, paying ZERO attention to my body cues, or anything that asked her to slow down or be more accurate. To say I am frustrated is putting it mildly. I LOVE her enthusiasm and drive, and she is athletic as hell, but her focus on me is crap. Work in progress...remember!

My fake handler's gun came in the mail today! I ordered it in anticipation of having Noodle ready for Master Hunter this spring, if we manage to get her last two senior qualifications. I am feeling optimistic (a rarity for me!). That may bite me in the butt, but I will go with it for now.

The dogs had a great time running in the snow today. It was very sunny, but don't let that sunshine and blue skies fool you...it was barely 20 degrees. In the evening, Pretzel had his scentwork class. I hope he is "getting" it, but I am not convinced. I guess I expected to see faster progress...but since I am not really sure what I am doing, my slow progress is to be expected. Whatever, Pretzel is having so much fun working with me, so that is worth every minute spent

Now, on to Thursday. The morning started off with Noodle's class. She did OK, other than being VERY distracted when someone (pretending to be a bar setter), ran past her. She could NOT get her focus back after that, she kept looking over her shoulder for that person, and I had to get really tough with her to get her back on track. That does not bode well for our agility trial this weekend.

Next on today's agenda was riding Cadence. That was a bright spot in the day, because although my ride was far from perfect, I was able to handle the imperfections and ride and train through it. My main issue is our canter transitions, especially from a walk. I think a lot of it is that she is just not used to me, so she is opting to take the easy road when she isn't sure what i am asking. We will get there.

To end the day, I rented the training building with a friend and Pizza went to train. She was SO unfocused, did not read my cues well. Pretty much the same as yesterday, although I can't even blame the distraction of class since there was only one other person in the building. When I got home, it all made sense - she is in season. GAH! There goes our agility trials for the rest of the month, there goes field training, there goes our agility classes. I know, it's all part of having a bitch, but it sure can be frustrating. Although, in looking at how the past few weeks have gone, maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Pizza is going though a weird phase and is not really mentally ready for trials right now. We will see if her brains come back in March when she is out of season. Fingers crossed!.

On one good note - Dolphin is getting is 2 x 2 weaves pretty well. I have the two sets of poles now a little farther apart and he is doing well. That's a big positive!

“Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.”
– Charlie Jones

My agility weekend didn't go quite as planned, for two reasons. One - it was much shorter since Pizza is in season and cannot compete. Two - I fully expected Noodle to fail big after the rough couple weeks we've had in training. Well, it definitely was shorter than planned, but Noodle came through in a big way to surprise me...for the good this time!

We started off the morning with two Excellent Jumpers runs. The first one was super complicated, very twisty and lots of tricky elements. It started with a tunnel, and instead of making her sit and wait at the opening, I just released her and let her run in. I think this was a good plan, as usually the start line is where she starts looking around and thinking about ways to get into trouble. She ran this jumpers course super fast and super clean, we ended up with a 1st place, score of 100, and a Q!!! Our first Excellent Jumpers Q! Woot!

Oh don't worry, things didn't go perfectly from this point on. The little devil perched on Noodle's shoulder spoke louder than the angel in our second jumpers run. The course started with 4 jumps that were really twisty, and she missed the third jump. No biggie, I called her back to circle around, and when she came around to me she took off like a bat out of hell to the ring gate and did a drive-by past the leash runner. I yelled to her, made her lay down, and we exited the ring. In hindsight, I think I should have just ignored that skipped jump and just gone onward. Having her circle back not only made her realize she made a mistake (and apparently that bothers her!), but it also swung her around to face away from me without clear direction. Noodle, without a clear direction, tends to fall apart quickly.

We redeemed ourselves in our next two Excellent Standard runs. Our first one was textbook and another 1st place and Q, which finished out her Agility Excellent ("AX") title!!! That was a goal for 2021, BAM already done!

Our second standard run (which was our very first Master run as we got to move up!) was PERFECT except for a dropped bar on the first jump after the tunnel...dang. But still I was HAPPPPPPPPY because this road has seemed endless and futile at times, but I knew she had it in her if I could only find the key. Now I am not saying I found the actual key to her, but let's just say the door is partially unlocked and we are getting there.

OK, but let's put a damper on an otherwise great day. Later in the afternoon Noodle decided now would be a wonderful time to come into season, so she could join Pizza. Bye bye agility classes, bye bye agility trial in 2 weeks... so much for progress. Now both of my girls' training has come to a screeching halt for February. To top it all off, Noodle has a hunt test at the end of the month that I NEED to be training for. Looks like I will be attempting to train on my own...

So, if you go to a couple car dealerships "just to look" for a possible future purchase, don't fool yourself. You're buying! We went "just to look" at some used Jeeps to hopefully make a purchase this spring/summer, and ended up buying a sweet deal of a 2017 Jeep Wrangler with only 16,000 miles on it (who buys a Jeep and only puts 16k miles on it for 3+ years???). Introducing Clifford, the big red Jeep. I am in love. It is nice to have a daily driver that has all the modern technology in it, after driving 18+ year old vehicles for years. So that's my big news today, and of course of most importance - my two SUV crates fit in the back with the rear seats down...woot!

This morning I split a 90 minute private lesson with Dolphin and Pizza. Pizza did OK, but he was very distracted - did not want to hold her start line stay, kept popping out of the weaves, not reading my rear cross cues...I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt and call it hormone brain since she is deeply in season right now. Dolphin started off wonderfully - lots of speed and enthusiasm (which is a big change from our class on Wednesday). He fizzled out after about 15 minutes. Repetition does not work well for him. I vaguely remembering saying the exact same thing about Pizza when she was a pup. I think Noodle was my only pup who enjoyed repeating and working the same thing over and over again, but then she is a different sort with an unusual work ethic and drive.

We have been buried in snow, from multiple snowstorms. There is a lovely layer of ice in between the two snow accumulations, which means the dogs cannot go outside to run without breaking the ice and hurting their paws. With both Noodle and Pizza in season, this has been the longest week of my life. Oh, and it's only Thursday!

Today I did agility run-throughs with Pizza and Noodle. They were allowed to run with pants on since they are in season. I wasn't too optimistic since both girls have been doing nothing but wallowing in hormones for the past 2 weeks. Noodle was the biggest surprise - she went out there for her first two runs and ran fast, clean, and focused! Then during the third run, her hormones ran amok and she went into the tunnel and didn't want to come out (she was nesting!). After the second tunnel was the same, I decided to skip our fourth run and let Pizza have an extra run.

Pizza was pretty wild, as was expected...but much less out of control than I had feared. She did a lot of visiting of people, did her usual thing of not reading my signals and just forging on ahead as fast as possible. But with each run she made a little more progress. She was pretty high so she had trouble holding her contacts - she stopped great, but then gave in to impulse and didn't stay on them for very long. We worked on that, and our last run (which was Noodle's leftover run) she stuck and held her contacts great. I feel like we made some progress today.

On the Dolphin front, this week his brain finally started coming back. Last week he was so overcome by all the hormones in the house, I couldn't get him to do a darn thing training-wise. This week, we made significant progress on his 2 x 2 weaves, and finally was able to weave 4 straight poles! He still needs work on his tunnel because about 50% of the time he is very hesitant to go in the tunnel. Such is the problem with big dogs...especially ones that grew big really fast.

My ride today on Cadence was, as usual, very educational. The one thing I have learned in the past year of Cadence being trained under saddle is how little I actually know. I sit here often and wonder what I would have accomplished with my horses (thinking specifically Taylor and Corky) if I knew then what I am starting to know now. I can't dwell on that, I am just glad I am learning now, and improving (I think!).

I felt really comfortable on Cadence today. We struggled a LOT with our canter transitions. I mean a LOT. I think she was really testing me today, trying to evade the canter by going sideways, and I was having a bit of trouble coordinating all of my parts - my right and left rein, my right spur, left spur, my seat, oh yeah, and my brain. It is so easy to fall back into those old riding habits. Thankfully Darla knows my old habits and understands how to train them out of me. I am probably a bigger training project than Cadence is at this point! Slowly but surely I am figuring things out. I am pretty relaxed about it. I have no timeline right now. I will show again when I am really ready. Meanwhile, Cadence is getting better and better and better every time I see her.

Kind of interesting - when I got off her today and went to pick her feet out, I found her right front show bent and half off. I know that happened a while ago in our ride, I felt her stumble and catch herself hard. What was interesting is that I had no idea her shoe was bent, and we went on and rode another 30 minutes and she never took a bad step. She is a tough girl! Believe me, a tough horse is a great horse. Nothing worse than a horse that dies a little every time he or she gets a scratch, you know?

This weather has been the pits. We've basically had major snow/ice cover and 20 degree temperatures every day for the past few weeks. All of the dogs are stir crazy. This morning, my friend and I got together to train our pups at a nearby training facility. I think Dolphin is making some progress, but it just seems so darn slow! With the weather so bad, he isn't able to run outside at all. You'd think that would make him wild, but instead it seems to make him slower and less inclined to run inside. Today we worked on a bunch of foundation stuff, and I was getting some decent speed out of him. Like usual, my amount of "good" training time was limited with him as his energy and attention span waned. I think we got a good solid 45 minutes of training, but really the best training happened in the first 15 minutes or so. I have to keep reminding myself that he is only 10 months old, so his attention span is normal for a boy that age. Patience! I do love this boy to pieces, I think he is not only kind-hearted, but he is drop-dead handsome (just like his daddy).

Today was a jam-packed day. Noodle and I started off the morning with agility class (and she was pretty darn awesome, I must say). After class we headed a little bit south to our friend and co-owner's house to do some totally last-minute field training. Last minute as in I am ON my way south to a ratings and hunt test, and we haven't trained in over a month due to Noodle being in season and the large amount of snow. Well, it was a good thing we were able to do a little bit of training, because she was pretty wild and hot off the trigger. The first thing Noodle did was go on point and then grab a bird - something she never ever does anymore! That was pretty surprising. I had my friend shoot her shotgun after I flushed the next quail, and Noodle broke immediately on the shot. We worked a bit more on staying steady with the shot, and by the end we had a successful bit of bird work, but it was touch and go. I expect she will be high as a kite when we get ready to test this weekend, but it is what it is. Off to North Carolina we went!

I will say that Noodle has become a wonderful traveling companion. She settles in and rode for 8 hours in the crate with quiet patience (which is unusual for her). She learned early on that hotel living is a luxury, and she enjoyed having her own bed to sprawl out on (until about 6am each morning when she woke up cold and decided to join me). Tomorrow is he WCA shooting ratings test, which Noodle is entered in SDX (Shooting Dog Excellent). It's kind of like Master Hunter, which she is NOT ready for, but I figured it was good practice and experience to try for it.

It was a chilly afternoon in North Carolina, and rain threatened when it was our turn for our SDX test. Noodle was pretty wild. She found two birds in the back field, pointed and held through the blank gun, so things were going well. We made it about 20 feet in to the bird field when she went on a super dramatic point (one of those where she was running, whipped around in a u-turn and froze on point...so cool!). I waited for the gunner, flushed the bird, and Noodle broke on the shot, which is a big no-no in SDX. She retrieved to me, but since she broke early it was a fail. I wasn't too disappointed because I knew she would be pretty wild. Overall I was pretty impressed with how well she did up to that point.

I got to run as a bye dog in the SD ratings test. This was a wonderful moment for me that showed how much progress I have made with her. Her bracemate was getting up in her grill and not leaving her alone. The old Noodle would have retaliated, but this Noodle came back to me when I called her, went into heel position and allowed me to get the dog away from her. HUGE progress! With every training mishap and step backwards, I have to take immense joy in the small steps forward that I see.

Today was a very pretty day. The sun came out, and I remembered why I chose to head south for a hunt test this weekend. Noodle and I were in Brace #7 of Senior Hunter. There had already been 12 braces before us, so the fields were lousy with birds. I saw several dogs fail because of the crazy amount of birds along the treeline, so I made a mental note to try to keep Noodle in the fields and away from the trees on the left.

We entered the backfield and she was hunting FAST. Several times I lost sight of her in the heavy cover. We worked a bird in the backfield and she did awesome. By the time we got into the bird field, she was racing somewhat out of control. I was down in a valley kind of far from my judge when I saw Noodle run and reach down, barely breaking stride. I saw something in her mouth, called her to me, and sure enough it was a bird. I kind of think that it was already dead, or at least fatally injured. Regardless, the judge had me pick her up because this meant she was done.

I had to stick around to put her on point again so my bracemate could honor. She did a beautiful point and held it for a long time while we waited for the judges and the other dog. The test was a little disappointing, but these weird things happen. It's kind of interesting that in the three times I have failed Senior Hunter, they were all 3 different mistakes - a blind retrieve that failed, a break on the flush, and a random semi-dead bird pickup. I can't wait to see what new mistake we can come up with tomorrow!

Back at the hotel, Noodle was wiped out. Maybe she has the edge taken off for tomorrow? I guess we shall see...

Today was a gorgeous day, sunny and temps were near 80 degrees when it was out turn to run. I loved it, but Noodle got very hot very quickly.

Right at the start we encountered trouble. Noodle veered right at the start line and disappeared in the heavy field near the road. She came back to me (after what felt like hours, but was only a minute or two) and we headed to the back field. She was only about 10 feet in to the back field when a quail wild-flushed. She leapt into the air and got a mouthful of feathers, I whoa-ed her and she put on the brakes. I thought we might be done already, but the judge told me that this would hurt my trainability score but we could keep on hunting. At this point I felt like it was a fail, but I was determined to manage her in a way to show that she does have trainability. Today she was much more manageable than yesterday. She went on point in the backfield and we worked that bird successfully (though she broke on my blank gun, which was a first). Into the bird field we stayed to the left again. It didn't take long for her to go on a solid point. I flushed the bird (of course it flew in the opposite direction as what I told the gunners), they shot it, Noodle broke on the shot (not wonderful, but acceptable in senior hunter), and retrieved nicely to me.

The judge called for the other dog to go on point so we could honor, and at this point I realized that we were still in contention. The best moment of this whole test was that Noodle caught sight of the other dog on point and stopped on her own, without a whoa from me. FINALLY she did something that I had been working on all winter! After this, they put a bird down for her to go on point so the other dog could honor, that went successful (though she broke again on my blank gun shot, bad girl!), and we were done. We actually passed!!! Our scores were:

• HUNTING - 7
• BIRD FINDING ABILITY - 7
• POINTING - 8
• TRAINABILITY - 6
• RETRIEVING - 8
• HONORING - 7
• TOTAL AVERAGE - 7

Ok scores, I'll take them! 3 down, only one more pass to go and I will have a Senior Hunter - my first! We have a lot of training to do before out next test in 3 weeks. I am ready!