was one of a litter of nine puppies picked up by animal control in a small Texas town in early July, 2008. We drove to Dallas and picked him up from a rescue when he was about 12 weeks old.
Border Collies are my favorite breed for all of the reasons that get too many of them into trouble with owners that aren't prepared for living life with this breed. Not everyone is cut out to provide the activities, exercise, and mental stimulation needed for the majority of BC's.
I try to help with rescuing abandoned border collies from kill shelters when I can, but it's a heartbreaking issue at times. At any one time, there are at least a dozen that I'm following across the country that I'd adopt myself if I could. Instead, I do what I can to help and try and get them out of a bad situation. If you're ready for a border collie, please be open to the idea of rescuing one from a shelter.
A few teammates have suggested we head to Las Vegas for Rude Dog West's tournament the last weekend of September. It does sound like fun, but it's a pretty long drive. Of course my daughter that lives there is going to be out of town for her friends wedding... go figure.
On the practice side of things, I continue to send Zio to the box (without the ball) and have slowly increased the distance to about fifteen feet. He started turning very wide, so I had to put a barrier to the side so he punches back in a straight line. It's fairly hot in the evenings still, so we don't do a lot of repetitions. There are times when I think he's really getting the idea, followed by going halfway to the box and looking at me for direction on what I want him to do. We'll get it.
A great practice today! I think we'll get in the 18 second range at the next tournament and will be in the 17's before the end of the year. Susan Owen's Welsh Sheepdog, Jean-Luc, is advancing by leaps and bounds (literally). Susan is planning on running him in singles at the August tournament and I think he's going to be really fast and ready for team soon after. Very, very fast return and a good turn to boot!
We ran Zio head to head against Wisp to work on Wisp's habit of turning the wrong way to watch the other lane. These two are the most competitive dogs on the team. They aren't just out there to complete a run, they're out there to race! On the practice field, the lanes are only about five feet apart, so it's side by side racing the whole time. Zio did his turns perfect, but Wisp was watching Zio and turned wrong the times I saw. Both dogs had incredible drive back to the tug and put on quite a show for everyone. Awesome fun to watch Zio running that fast AND doing his turns right!
Okay, time to go back to basics on the turns. I've decided to try and work with sending him to the box without the ball. I started out at about five feet and it's basically just touch training to the box. He's been doing this for months, so it isn't anything new to him.
Now that we've been doing good repetitions of this, I've moved back a few feet from the box. Initially, he would move toward the box and stop to look at me for direction. It seemed to click a little last night that even though I may be further away, I still wanted him to do a touch turn. This may be a "doh" moment for some, but I've never sent him to the box from a distance greater than six feet without the ball. I think my goal is to be able to send him to a "dry" box (without the ball) from 50-60 feet.
A very fun weekend at Sure Shots' tournament in Bonham, TX. For the club, it was a weekend of learning. Multiple combinations of dogs on the Step On It team required adjustments to the lineup and changes in pass timing. It started to come together Sunday afternoon as we broke the club's best ever time (twice) with a combination of Wisp, Scout, Zio, and Meekah. Unfortunately, both times will remain unofficial because they were breakout times (more than a second faster than our submitted seed time). One more breakout would have disqualified us from the tournament! I do have our 19.155 time on video though and will post it to the YouTube account today or tomorrow. We can easily get to the 18 second range with better passing. Zio ran a 4.3 and change on one of his runs, which is the fastest I've seen him run. If he would only do his turns right, he could be another tenth or two faster.
Our next tournament won't be until the end of August, when Hyper Flight hosts another tournament in Bonham. That gives me two months to practice with Zio. His turns absolutely fell apart at the tournament. He has so much speed by the time he gets to the box that I think he has a hard time getting stopped in time. He started the weekend with some hard, three legged, wide turns... regressed to crashing and turning to the right for a while, and finally was just crashing the box hard head on.
With raffles, gifts, and prizes... we ended up hauling back two tugs, one leash, one flyball pin, a really cool print of original artwork, and a handcrafted crate pad!
Oh... Full Speed Ahead went head to head against Sure Shots in the human flyball finals and lost the deciding race by a six tenths of a second. We won the prize though since the hosts weren't keeping their own prizes!
Practice was great last night! He is doing everything perfect. Good turns with the jump board in place or without, driving back to the tug, and excellent tug play. He has come a long way since my Dallas visit to attend a practice session with Hyper Flight. He proved his tug drive again last evening when he missed catching the ball at the box, but drove back to get the tug. I took me a second to realize he was running back without the ball. No hesitation looking for the ball, just running back for the tug. Missed catches are easy to fix, tug drive not so much.
If it doesn't rain again, the practice facility (my backyard) may be dry enough to do a few more turn sessions. We haven't practiced since Sunday's team practice, so it will be nice to get a refresher in before the tournament.
Sunday's practice went very well, but Burst still seems hesitant to come back into Zio. I was making sure the passes were super wide so Burst didn't feel pressured by the intense, big dog rushing past her. Hopefully, the excitement of the tournament will allow for some tight passing and good times.
Zio has been doing good on his turns since we've returned to having evening practice sessions, so we've just been reinforcing the turn over the ten inch jump board. I'll mix in a wall turn, a turn without a ball, and turns without props once in a while to keep him sharp.
Last night, Susan helped me try something new. She held Zio while I stood by the box. When she released him, I started running the other way. I had hoped that he would get a sense of urgency to get the ball and race back to the tug, but it didn't work out as planned. Once he would see me running the other way, he would turn around and follow me.
I'll have to change it up to try and get him to go to the box first. Not positive how to do that right now, but I'll have to work on that. I may try having Susan line him up from further back, setting up midway to the box, and waiting until he passes me to start going the other way.
Zio had an excellent practice with the team today. Super box work and tug play. Toward the end we practice passing with the new teammates. Zio and Scout passed without any problems what so ever, but we need to work with Burst a little more and a little slower so that she is more comfortable with the Zio man running her way.
Deuce worked on getting comfortable on the new box and did great passing with Luigi and Violet. Also good to see the puppies doing well. Jeep, Rouge, Jean-Luc, and Fly all had good practices. I think Jean-Luc could be ready soon.
We still haven't practiced so that his pads can heal up some more. He doesn't act like they bother him, but some time off is our best action. Of course, he still thinks it's time to play tug, catch frisbees, practice turns, and go on long walks.
We had a wonderful weekend racing in Memphis! We won first place in division 3 on Saturday and second place on Sunday. Our best time was 20.4, but we had a ton of room to improve on our passing. Zio's turns get a mixed review. In some races, he did his turns correctly, but in others he had almost reverted back to stabbing the box. Overall, it's improvement, so we'll build on that.
He has some irritation between some of his pads on all four paws, so I'm limiting his activity until it can heal a little. Not sure what happened... hot pavement, stickers in the grass, rocky terrain, swimming... just not sure. Susan took him to the vet and had her check him, but she thinks were doing all that needs to be done. She did say that his body type (narrow, deep chest and a small waist) are prone to stomach-flip. I had never heard of the terminology before, but it sure is scary to read about it. I will be ever vigilante to the symptoms now.
Of course she said he is gorgeous and has the heart of an athlete! :D
