Automotive chocks, skateboard decking, and barrels

These are some of the items that I got for Christmas: automotive chocks, skateboard decking, and barrel  Think about it, what odd gifts!  Oddly enough, it was what I put on my Christmas list and I am happy that I got them.  It was funny opening my gifts however.  My dad was over for the festivities.  Dad knows that I do agility, but it doesn't occur to him that all of these odd gifts might actually be useful.  So, his question of "why did you get automotive chocks" is very normal!

Now to be fair, I want to give credit to AgilityNerd for giving me the ideas for my xmas list.  I have been working on the project of making a chute for about a year now.  Obviously, not working really hard at it!

Supplies and equipment:
Two heavy rubber automotive chocks, http://www.discountramps.com/
1 heavy blue barrel
4 stainless steal bolts/nuts used to secure the chocks to the barrel
1 Chute (NTI Global)
4 stripes of skateboard decking
Copper pipe insulation
Jig saw
drill
exacto knife

Heavy rubber chock

Skateboard decking (basically huge sticky back sandpaper)

The barrel

We cut the lid off of the barrel being careful to leave the lip on the barrel.  The lip will come in handy to help keep the chute on the barrel.  Then we cut the bottom off of the barrel.

Next we secured the chocks to the barrel towards the front.  We used a drill to pre-drill holes in the chocks and to drill holes in the barrel.   The head of the bolt should be inside the barrel.  We decided to put the chocks toward the front in case we need to put another set on once I let Tangle do the test run.  He is the the largest and heaviest of all of my dogs.  If the chute is going to move, Tangle will do it!

Once the chocks are secured to the barrel we applied silicon caulking to the bolt head to lessen the angle from the bolt head to the barrel.  Mostly trying to diminish the wear that the bolts will have on the skateboard deck paper.  Once the caulking is dry (we gave it 24 hours) you can sand it a little to achieve a smooth surface if you want.

Clean the inside of the barrel with acetone or denatured alcohol

Get the skateboard decking and cut it to size.  We ran the decking the length of the barrel rather than the width.  The barrel does have a narrowing shape and lengthwise made it much easier to get a better fit.

Apply the pipe insulation around the edge of the barrel that the dog will enter to protect them from the blunt edge.

Once that was done, put on the chute and away you go!

In total it took about an 1.5 hours to make the barrel.

You must be "present" to win!

Sorry, couldn't resist the play on words!

Standard run

First the good news.  Tangle got his beginning standard, gamblers, and trigility titles this weekend.  All first places.  He showed more confidence going into the ring and more confidence running the course.  Several times I was left in the dust when he spotted his path and took initiative!  I am convinced that trialing was the best step progression in his training.  He knew his job in the back yard, but there is nothing like a trial to teach the dog to LOVE agility.  I have no idea why it does, but it does.

Tangle competed in his third agility trial this weekend.  And, once again, I learned very valuable things about him, and reinforced what I already knew or suspected.

1. I, as the handler, am the weak link in the team.  Tangle knows his job and can only be as good as the information given to him.  I owe it to my dog to be "in the game" every moment like he is.
2. Tangle is the kind of dog that can be pushed.  By that I mean, he likes and does well when I drive him hard (the run linked above).  This is exciting news for me since this makes the game all the more fun!  I tried driving him a little harder this weekend and he rose to the challenge.

You must be "present" to win!  On several of Tangle's runs this weekend my foot was hurting more than usual.  The surface was very irregular, which is the worse possible thing for my foot right now.  I was worried when I was leading out, fearing that I might really tweak my foot and have to abandon the run in the middle.  This worry caused me to not be aggressive about getting a front cross in a couple of places.  One caused an off course, which is not a big deal at this stage to me or the dog.  BUT, the other was timed poorly and caused Tangle to not time his take off correctly and he hit the bar.  This was unfair of me!

So, if I am going to run the course I must be in the moment (present) and focusing on the job at hand.  I need to make the decision before I get a dog out of his kennel that I am going to run that run, give him/her my full attention, and not worry about anything.  I owe it to my dogs who give it their all, ARE present in the moment, and love to run with me.

Natural Take-Off Point

I find that when I attend seminars there is almost always one big point that you take away from your experience. Might not be the point of the seminar, but it is something you were ready to hear. I took one day of a Tracy Sklenar seminar last weekend. I have taken a seminar before from Tracy and I always find her funny, engaging, accurate with her comments/suggestions. She is one of the people that I always try to take a class from when she comes to town.

The big point that I took away from her seminar this weekend was Natural Take-off Point and how critical this piece of knowledge is in how you run and cue your dog. The NTP is determined by the following: Run your dog in full extension on a straight line of jumps (18 feet apart to mimic what you would normally see in a trial). The point at which they choose to take off is there Natural Take-off Point or NTP. The NTP really depends of many factors like structure of the dog, or if they are facing a tunnel (will be a little sooner). Tangle's NTP was about 5 feet before a jump, and 7 feet before a tunnel. So now that you know this magic number, you need to cue your dog right before their NTP. That magic distance is determined by NTP + time for the human to process the cue and get it out of their mouth + time for the dog to process. So, in Tangle's and my case it is about 7 feet or so.

What I really loved about this concept is some of the discussion that came along with this information. The biggest point is you don't want to cue your dog too early. Why? If you cue the dog too early, they throw in a bunch of collection strides, more than is needed. Yes, you will have a beautiful turn, but you will also have a slower course time.

NTP goes along with the premise that you want your dog to run the whole course in as much extension as possible. You only want the dog to put in as many collection strides as they need to execute the required turn (gentle turn, tight turn) and no more. Keep them powering through the course.

Dawn Weaver Seminar

Tangle and I did a half day seminar with Dawn Weaver. For those of you who aren't familiar, she is one of the top handlers over in the UK.

The seminar we took was Intermediate/Advanced Handling. Dawn has developed her handling methods based on what her dogs have responded to over the years. It does include motion, and verbals. Since European agility is a win based system. That is, you must win to progress, their focus for training and running is much different from ours. They train the dogs to drive and be obstacle focused. In the absence of a cue, Dawn wants her dog to continue to drive through the course and their line. She focuses on cuing in a fashion that never leaves the dog second guessing (therefor slowing down). Not a bad goal really. They never reward their dogs "on them", that is they always reward in a way that promotes drive like throwing the toy.

Dawn is very firm about positive training. She believes that dogs are basically honest and don't try to do the wrong thing. If they took a wrong course in a trial, it is because you cued it. You better figure out what you did to cue it.

Rather than focusing on exclusively jumping, we spent quite a bit of time working on handling and trying in a short session to understand how she handles her dogs. When Dawn handles she has the concept of the accelerator arm and the break hand. The accelerator arm is the arm closest to the dog and must support the dogs path and obstacles. The break hand (arm extended out with a flat hand) tells the dog that they must collect (probably a turn is coming up). She also uses the outside arm much like Greg Derrett would do as a cue for the dog to come into you. The middle jump on a serp (or snake as she calls it) is a great example of this.

Anyway, we enjoyed our time, I took away a few ideas, but I wouldn't say that the seminar was stellar. I was wanting more feedback on jumping and speed specifically.

A couple of tid bits that we took away. Hopefully they make sense out of context:

• Every front cross should be proceeded with the break hand


• You must run (draw with your path) the line that you want the dog to take


• Always be even (parallel) with the dog when layering, otherwise they will come into you


• Reward away from you--throw the toy


• Inside arm should never drop until the dog clears the bar (otherwise the bar will come down)


• Always reward after a rear cross with a baby dog

The season slows down

Three or four years ago I use to take off from about October through December from agility. Then gradually trials were scheduled and it become too tempting to resist and I would schedule a trial or two (probably more).

This year I have decided for the pups sake that I needed to get back to the "time of rest". Let their bodies recover from agility, and restore my mind. So from now until the end of the year we will slow down our practice, trials and agility what not. We are not taking a break completely from the exercise, brain work and fun, after all I do own Border Collies. We will just change what we are doing. We will take time to enjoy each others company in different ways.

So, we are taking walks, stretching, jogging, swimming (at an indoor pool), and learning new tricks. Tip and Split will have the time almost completely off from agility. Tangle will get to do a couple of one day seminars, a class or two and perhaps a trial. He doesn't take to the slower schedule like the older dogs do yet.

Patience = Faith

Sometimes you just know that something is right or will just come to be. And, sometimes you need to remind yourself that you know this.

I keep relearning that I must have faith in my son. He has developed into an awesome person-a leader that is smart, wise, gentle, fair, and just all around compasionate person. I know this about him. But, he is just a teenager and when I fall back to my parent roll I have to remind myself that he does conduct his life in a manner that is more exemplory than many adults I know. I keep coming back to having faith in him.

Tangle is another "old soul" that I have faith in. From the day I got Tangle I knew him and knew he was an old soul. He is a wise and thinking dog! He is already leading my pack, but from the sidelines.




When Tangle was really young it was amazing to me how he just "got" foundation and agility. Geez, maybe it is because my teaching methods and knowledge are so much better this time around? Yes, there is some of that, but the other significant part of the equation is Tangle and his innate abilities.

Tangle had his AKC debut this past weekend. He went 4 for 4. Q'ed in everything. That was not our goal at all. These Q's weren't the novice Q's that I have had with my other novice dogs. With my other dogs the runs were ugly, but somehow we stayed on course, the judge looked the other way on a contact, and somehow we crossed the finish line in time, spins and all. Tangle's Q's were well earned. My old soul went to the startline, did his job, was my perfect team mate! I am very proud of my 16 month old boy!

Now, should his run be faster? That is where "Patience = Faith". I know that he will gain the speed. I know that he will develop explosive starts. But I also know that patience will pay off on this one. He is learning to do his job in the ring well. It is only then that you can do something fast AND accurate.

Course this week!

I set up a course today that was based on a USDAA Grand Prix course. I had to tweak it a little due to course size and I still don't have my chute completed sadly.

I choose this course for two reasons, 1) it allowed good speed from the dogs 2) there was a spot with speed and then a tight turn.

I am trying to run Tangle on courses that allow for nice speed. He is a large strided dog and I am trying to build his experience base to open up and run. He has to either bouce jump if there is a short distance or take a shorten stride. A shorter strided dog can just take a full stride.

With Split, now that he has hit a new level of confidence he needs work on watching me for turns.

In general the course ran really nicely. Fast with a few handling challenges. The same challenge was present with both Split and Tangle. The most challenging sequence was 7-8-9-10. The speed starts at #5. You and the dog are racing through the course, the last thing the dog sees before going into the #7 tunnel is full extension cues (ie, you running your ars off), and then you need to ask for collection at #8.

I tried three different handling strategies with this sequence. When the dog came out of the tunnel, I called the dog's name and used my outside hand to cue the turn, decelerated to get the collection and a turn. Then I set the line to #9 and the teeter. This worked fairly well. The next strategy I tried was getting ahead of the dog but cutting the line almost hugging the weaves, FC on the landing side of #8 and then set the line to the teeter. The bar came down with Tangle. Finally I cut the line on the inside of the weaves, decelerated, got the dog turned on #8 and was ahead to show the line to the teeter. This was the most successful, but I have to say I am not sure that I would be brave enough to try this in a trial.

I am actually very pleased that neither dog took the dog walk. Right now that is heavily rewarded for Split since he has such a spetacular running DW last weekend (he should have a 2o2o).