2011 in Review

We've been fairly limited on backyard practicing because
a) it gets dark early,
b) it's been rainy and wet
c) it's been too cold (for me!)

Sunday practices have been pretty good. I know some of the newer people think Zio really has his act together, but it's only been ten short months since our first tournament in February where his turns just imploded. You would never have guessed we had worked on anything over the winter. Fast forward to today and he is light years ahead of where we were then, mainly due to a tip from Trish Keck. She suggested that we use the gutter parallel with the lane to push him over in the lane away from the ball. We used that or a modified version of it for months and it has really made it click for him.

I predicted early in the year that Zio could hit a 3.9 with his new turn and he did it the first time in April (3.987) and with an official singles time of 3.953 in May. I also predicted that we would break into the 17's as a team and we did that in April (17.804) at the qualifiers. We ended the year with a club best time of 17.753 set during championship weekend with Zio, Cody, Wisp, and Jean-Luc.

My little man continues to be the poster child for tugging at practices. I sort of like it when people look at him and think he's a finished product, because I feel like I'll always be working on one thing or another... especially his turns.

It has definitely been an eventful year. Starting out as the new team captain, all of the veteran's efforts in getting newcomers involved, and even a new logo for our fresh start has made a big difference. Our practices are more organized, we did a ton of demos, and we have had a lot of great people join us with the promise of an even better 2012. I see a lot of dogs that might have the stuff to join the club team and push us even faster!

Championship Photos

A bunch of my favorite Zio photos from the championships...

Platelet Count Normal!

Good news that the prednisone has helped get his platelet count back into the normal range at 201K. He is to continue on the doxy until gone and continue the weaning from the prednisone until gone. Next blood test in about a month to see how things are progressing!

Prednisone

The follow-up visit this past Monday to Dr. Morey and lab work only showed marginal improvement in his platelet count. She put him on Prednisone in addition to the Doxycycline to get his platelet level up while the antibiotics do their thing.

His appetite is much better, but he seems to have some weight loss. He weighed 47 lbs on the Wednesday before the championships when he wasn't eating and then weighed in at 48 lbs Monday. I don't know that I totally trust her scale though since it's been inaccurate in the past. I may have to try and weigh him at home or brave Black Friday shoppers to use the scale at Petsmart. The next blood work will be Tuesday.

Erlichia

I know way too much information about this tick borne disease now. Zio's symptoms began the Tuesday before the championships when he didn't eat his breakfast. He coughed some clear phlegm looking stuff while I was getting ready for work too. I couldn't even coax him to take a snack. When I came home from work, he was somewhat lethargic, his eyes looked a little dull, and he was still refusing to eat anything.

We headed to the vet Wednesday morning and his red blood count was okay, fecal float was clear, temperature was normal, and he did take a snack (although it took him a few minutes to decide to eat it). Dr Morey sent the blood sample off for lab work and got the results back in the early afternoon... low platelets. She had the lab run a tick panel since the alternatives were an auto-immune problem or cancer. She called late Wednesday to confirm Erlichia. He did finally eat Wednesday evening, but it took him a while.

He started on Doxycycline that evening and she said he would probably start feel better in 48 hours. We traveled to the championships Thursday and he loved being in the lanes at Purina as they were setting up, but he skipped his meals. He would take snacks though, so I gave him enough to keep some calories in him.

We held him out of racing Friday. He finally ate his morning meal over a period of three hours, picking at it now and then. He acted like he was feeling better, but it may have been being at a tournament that had him excited. I decided to try racing him in the first race Saturday to see how he acted and he ran a 4.0 in his first match! He again picked at his morning meal, but eventually ate it. By Sunday, he was eating twice a day again. I think he ran on heart and adrenalene all weekend and I'm proud of my little man.

We went for a follow up yesterday and his platelet count had only made a slight gain, so now he's on prednisone to jump start his marrow production while the doxy continues to do it's thing.

Ticks suck.... just saying.

Ready or Not!

The last pre-championship practice is in the books. We did some full runs outdoors at CSA, but I'm not sure how useful they were since we were running downhill. We are only competing against five other teams in our division, so we need to concentrate on being consistent. We may not win with speed, but we can probably hold our own by running clean.

In three days, Zio and I will be NE of Tulsa, on our way to St. Louis!

Practices

Zio's turns at the demo without props seemed to hold up fairly well, but I think he always tends to do them better on grass (slower?). We have continued to use the 10" board laying flat against the box pedal as the only prop. He occasionally slips up and his bottom rear foot will land on the board, but I don't think he likes that because it causes that foot to slip when he pushes off. At this point, we've really done all we can do in preparation for the championship.

We have one more team practice Sunday and I hope we can find a spot to get some team runs in before we go. We were going to get together Wednesday, but it was very cold and rainy, so we cancelled it. I'd rather know ahead of time if Cody is going to be back up to speed and to get Michele, Daniel, and Susan Owen a little more practice on their starts passing into different dogs with the new lineup.

Demo Pictures

We did a demo Sunday for the Ghost Runner 5K event at Hefner Lake. Linda Earley was there as a photographer and she took some pretty amazing shots of most of the dogs. Here are the best of Zio doing some frisbee stuff.

Tweaking the Turn

I've added a twist to our backyard practices to give one last tweak to his turns before we head to the championships. Zio's turn has progressed a LOT from the first tournament of the year. The most improvement came from using a gutter to push him the right side of the box.

The downside of his turn is that we didn't use the jumpboard too, so he was tending to get lower and lower on his turns. For the last few months, we've done everything with the jumpboard in place. Zio did some of his best ever turns during the practice before the last tournament in Bonham. Unfortunately he didn't hold it as well as I had hoped. I think once the prop is removed, he tends to revert back.

I was trying to come up with a way to minimize the props and came up with a way to use old 10" jumpboard that's just about as wide as the box and painted white. The logic was that if I lay the board against the box, it appears like the taped portion of the pedal. I thought that after a few times of poor traction on "the white", he would learn to stay above the white. Unfortunately or fortunately, he's never touched the board. He's been high on the box every time I've used it. It could be that he can visually distinquish it from the white tape, so I won't know until I take it out again. In the mean time, I'll be hopeful that it's teaching him to stay up on the box.

Final Warmup Tournament in Bonham

Fresh back from our final warmup and we have four weeks to be ready for the championships. Although the weekend started out rough by revealing that we still had not resolved some old issues, we worked through it and have a workable plan for the championships. I really think the new running order will work out best for the championships.

The new lineup is Zio, Cody, Wisp, and Jean-Luc. Daniel did a great job moving Wisp to the third position as he quickly got in the groove of passing again. Jean-Luc seems to be doing much better by starting closer and using Susan's patented water-boarding training technique. Zio did pretty good on his starts as I learned where the magic start position is located. He was feeling very racy and I eventually ended up back around the 62 foot mark. Cody's speeds dropped after the first few races, so we are hoping he isn't injured. I know Michele felt bad and was pressing pretty hard, but I think he just needs to rest up.

I think the dogs need to do some recovery this week and we'll get back to practicing twice a week soon.

Speeding Sheepdog Practice

Three of the Speeding Sheepdogs got together mid-week for an extra practice session at the field. This gives us the opportunity to work on full runs with a standard run back area that we can't do at CSA. Here is a video from the past Friday.

Fall Fling Disc Competition 2011

This video is from the Fall Fling event in which Zio took second place in the expert division. He only dropped one throw all weekend, but spent plenty of time making some acrobatic catches to bail out his thrower! He still tends to jump too soon if it's going straight away from him. I tried to compensate by give him an extra step to get down range before I threw. There were still a few that he started to jump too soon, but was able to recover in time to catch. Next to flyball, this is his favorite sport to play.

Dog Talk Episode

The Dog Talk episode we taped in August aired this past Saturday! I thought it came out pretty good!

Busy Dog Sport Weekend!

We spent Saturday competing at the OKPaws Fall Fling Disc Dog tournament at the Norman VA Center and took second place in the Expert division! He was in the top five after the first round, but most of the other dogs didn't do as well in the second round. Zio had some amazingly acrobatic catches and did a great job controlling his urge to jump too soon. I entered Luna in the Amatuer division too and she had a lot of fun. She was a favorite with the Vets who came out to watch us.

Sunday started with flyball practice and Zio did really well maintaining his turn with just a jumpboard in place. After practice, we went to Spencer and did a demo for the Spencer Pet Cemetery folks there to commemorate National Pet Memorial Day. Luna and Zio both did some disc demos and Zio did some flyball racing. Luna was a crowd pleaser again and Zio amazed with his speed and athleticism.

Here is a picture of Zio with his second place ribbon.

New Practice Video

Now that we've been enjoying some relief from the brutal heat this summer, we've been able to get back to some backyard practice time! This is a video from yesterday with Zio working on his turn (specifically getting his rear higher on the box) and Luna beginning to learn wall turns. Luna has been really quick to pick up on what ever training we give her and the wall turns don't apprear to be any different! She is so focused it makes me look like an expert trainer!

Zio's 3.953 Second Race

I had included video of his run in a team video that Windows Live Movie Maker ate before I thought to save the project. For some reason, I didn't go back and try to rebuild it. This video is Zio's run that put him in the books under four seconds.

I think back over all the training we did, all the retraining we did after we knew a little bit more, and even more training to make it faster. Zio's drive and heart inspire me to strive to make him the best he can be. I still think he could be faster with a better turn, but I'm amazed at how far we've both come since we started training in flyball. We'll keep working on that turn!

Cooler Weather!!!

Such a nice weekend after the cool front went through! Sunday practice was great with several new dogs and people attending. We let Jeep run last on with the Speeding Sheepdogs (with Cody still recovering from his broken nail) and did really well for the first time lining up with the team. It looks like Jeep will be our backup in St. Louis at the championships.

Zio has a disc competition Saturday, so we went to a field and practiced yesterday. It was pretty windy, so my throwing suffered. He did good on the ones that were thrown decent.

Tournament Hangover

There is always a hangover from a flyball tournament. My mind is still on racing and it's hard to get focused on the tasks at hand. Our tournament went so-so. With the Championships in two months, we have that much time to get Susan Owen's Jean-Luc consistently going over the jumps. We tried moving him closer, which seemed to work to some degree, but that was causing other issues. It's troublesome, mostly because there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for when he does it. Sometimes it's when the pass is close, but other times he's done it as start dog. Sometimes he does it with the jumps at 11 inches, but he also did it at 9 inches. The good news is that we have two months to concentrate on it. We're thinking we can get Jeep available as an emergency backup by then too.

To complicate the weekend a little more, Cody tore his pad during our second match Sunday and is out of commission for a while. Fortunately, Sure Shots had a dog they ran with us that allowed us to keep racing.

Below is a video shot by Susan Owen during a race Saturday.

Sunday Practice

The last practice before the next tournament! We started out running the Speeding Sheepdog team and it was a struggle. With only two more tournaments before the Championships (now that September's was cancelled), we have our work cut out. Wisp and Cody seemed to be doing okay, although both were doing low or three legged turns. It's also hard to judge whether dogs are dropping the ball early because of the short runback or whether there is something we need to work on. Zio was staying lower than I want on the box, so we put the jump board in for him. Unfortunately, the ball got loaded on the wrong side for him on the next run and his turns went to hell for a few runs after that... stabbing, hitting the jump board with his back leg, etc... Fortunately, we did a couple up close and he ended the session doing a perfect turn. We tried something new with JL to keep him in the lane, so we'll see if it works. Connie's job was to cover the ball if he tried to go around and Susan Owen stood off to the side ready to correct him if he went around. Sure enough, he tried to go around the jumps on the first run and I think it was a rude awakening for him. The next few times, he tried to go around the left side (away from Susan), but Connie blocked him from the ball. He started hesitating at the first jump after that because he thought he was going to get corrected, so we pulled everyone away and he did the rest of his runs great. We may have to remind him a few times and see if we can make it permanent.

I plan on work Zio on the box a few more times to get him up on the box and then see if we can get back to running consistently at the tournament.

Another Week

We're back to running a few practice turns in the backyard after work again. It's still stupid hot, so three or four turns is about the limit. I'm using a bar from an agility jump at an angle to guide him to the right side of the box (away from the ball), but I've put the jump board back in to push him higher on the box. We'll keep at this until we head to the next tournament in a week.

TV Star Zio!

Zio and I, along with Susan Owen, will be guests on a local television show called Dog Talk. We will be talking flyball and Zio will help demonstrat a box turn in the studio. I provided the host a bunch of videos from the last year or so, so there will be occasional cuts to "highlight" video while we drone on about flyball. I'll post a link to the show that can be viewed online once it airs!

Latest Update

Still much too hot for backyard practice. Zio and Luna get out for a walk every evening a round 9:00 pm as it becomes dark and it's still 95 degress out! I do play a few minutes of frisbee ocassionally, but I have to watch Zio's back legs now. When he goes to put the brakes on hard, he drags his legs. Not only has he been wearing the feathering off of his rear hocks, he has come away bleeding as the skin gets abrasions. I found a use for his Z-Skids though, because he now wears them on his rear legs to protect them from further injury.

Way Too Hot!!!

We are still on sabatical with backyard practice. Temperatures that remain in triple digits until after dark just aren't practical for practicing with a dog that would keep going until he collapsed with heat exhaustion. His turns were so-so at practice, with half of them looking good with the jumpboard and the knocking it over on the rest. We'll keep plugging away until he realizes that he needs to do it well in order to tug.

Margarita Mania

We've been pretty lax about evening practices, since it's been so hot, and it definitely showed at the tournament. His turns reverted back to punching the box on Saturday, so I spent most of Sunday's racing trying to get him back to his turn. Zio did manage a 4.043 in our first race of the tournament though!

Overall, the team has some work to do. Just about every dog had issues and it was magnified by having to shuffle our lineup. Making changes seems like it should be fairly plug and play, but relearning release points and passing is different from dog to dog. Better a bad outing now than at the championships in November!

And the Dew Claw

The stop pad is looking better, but his dew claw is looking tender too. He might have stretched it while playing. It's hard to determine which injury is the problem, so I'll assume it's both.

Stop Pad

Zio hurt his right stop pad at some point Sunday or Monday. I noticed it Monday evening after I caught him licking his paw a couple of times. He hadn't been limping or anything, but it does look sore. I've continued to walk him in the mornings and evenings, but no activities that require running or jumping for a while. It was starting to look better last night, so I'm skipping the morning walk and letting him rest it more. Connie and Susan Owen had a spray they swear by to help speed up the healing, so we'll give that a try too. He's not going to like having to skip practice on Sunday!

Team Practice

A good practice for the little man yesterday, but we did get some ideas. Susan Owen has taken my 10 inch jumpboard home and had Richard rip it down to 8 inches. The higher board was causing him to hop over the prop and curl his front feet. He was racing Jeep yesterday and I think Jeep will be fast if we can get him over the herding issue.

We took a couple of discs with us on our evening walk and threw some longer distances. I might have to start doing that on a regular basis to get him sharper for the fall toss and catch. Michele is working on a viable demo also, so we may work on some things after practices.

More Backyard Practice

We did another short session yesterday evening, after the shadows had crept across the backyard. I didn't use the jump board, but I did use the gutter to prompt him to the right of the box as he approaches. When he gets really excited to run, he tends to drop the ball between the two jumps coming back. I don't think it's anything to be concerned with at this point since I only have ten yards between the last jump and the fence as a "runback".

First Practice

At least since the Grove tournament. It's been a week since I've mowed and the grass is getting a little long. We slashed our way through it anyway. I put the jump board in as the only prop, but he went a little wide on the exit. After adding the gutter back in, he did nice turns again. He didn't hit the jump board once, but I think I need to mix it up by only using the board occasionally. I still remember last year when he wasn't sure what to do if I took the board out.

Way too hot to spend much time in the evenings, but we've at least got a little shade to do a quick session. He acted happy to be running some flyball again. My Zio racing man...

Interesting

An interesting weekend of stuff. Zio and I took a trip to the annual rescue pet bath fundraising event and walked through all the vendor aisles. Of course he got a bath while we were there too. Don't tell me dogs are color blind either, because Zio wanted to go greet every person with a red shirt while we were there.

Susan Owen was at the Twister Agility booth and met a guy with a border collie that she said looked like Zio's twin. She invited he and Barney to flyball practice and he does have a striking resemblance to Zio. I'd have to say the body type was just about all Zio... same coat, legs, back, tail, etc.. although the facial structure tended more to Zio's littermate, Ecko. We had him do recalls with Barney (who already has a head start on tugging), but he left before we had a chance to do anything else with him. I sure hope he comes again, since I really don't have a way to contact him. I wish I had gotten a picture too. I would not be surprised if Barney was one of Zio's littermates or at least the same line.

During practice, Zio seemed to be doing something odd with his front feet on the box (folding them under?), while using the ten inch jump board. This was during full runs, so I couldn't see it from the runback area. He was also hitting the jump board with his lower back leg occasionally. Susan, Connie, and Michele tried to catch it on video, but the angle was wrong to see his front feet. We switched to a lower jump board and he stopped doing it, so I think we'll stick to the eight inch board and see how he does.

Week of Rest

At least it has been so far. I'm very proud of Zio and his new singles time set last weekend. On the other hand, his turns really weren't as good as he does in practice. His two best runs had wire to wire times of 3.910 and 3.916, which I'm not sure he has much room to improve. That doesn't mean I won't try, so I'll start with trying to get him a little higher on the box.

I ordered some pictures of Zio at the Spring Fling disc competition and will post those when I get the CD. Here is one of them...

Grove Highlights

Zio successfully recorded a singles time under four seconds with a new best time of 3.953! This makes him only the third Oklahoma dog to reach that mark in singles. The first two were Ace (Kelsey Kirkpatrick@ 3.853) and Phoenix (Marsha Ensminger@ 3.962). I think Miley (Paula Stay) has also run less than four seconds on the clock during a team race. Now I need to help Daniel and Wisp hit that mark too.

Jean-Luc also ran a personal best of 4.169 along with Luigi who had a 5.409(?). Katie also achieved her first perfect start in a match between the Speeding Sheepdogs and the Step on It team.

I'll post some video later after I've had time to edit it. Also, 61 feet was Zio's sweet spot for starts.

Last Practice

With thunderstorms coming in this afternoon, last night's backyard practice will be the final one before the tournament. The Zio man is doing really well in all facets (turns, drive, and tug), so I'm hoping I don't let him down with my timing on the starts.

Luna continues to do awesome with her practices too. She is currently going over the baby jumps to the tug. I have the jumps set nine feet apart right now and she's easily single stepping through them. I should measure and weigh her since she turned six months old four days ago.

Spring Fling 2011

As expected, we had fun, but didn't finish in the top 3 in the three events we entered. Other than being very hot, it was pretty good disc throwing conditions. I threw fairly well, but not particularly to Zio's strong suit. My best throws have some loft and settle slowly, but Zio gets too excited and jumps way too early. He tends to do better with low line drives that he has to use his speed to catch up to instead of jumping for them. I think we'll try to actually do some practice before the fall tournament and see if he can stay on the ground long enough to catch the floaters as they come down!

Disc Practice

Zio and I went to a nearby field and practiced some long distance disc throws yesterday evening. I was throwing almost directly downwind with a 10 mph breeze, so it was fairly easy to throw for distance. Zio did great on the shorter 20-25 yd throws, but I don't think he caught a single one that was 40+ yards. He's back to jumping way too soon. I guess I'll take him out again after work today and give it another go, but it's supposed to be hot and windy.

Flyball and Disc Dog

We did some practice in the backyard with turns last night and Zio is continuing to do well. We even did a few off the wall for good measure. I'm proud of the little man for how far he's progressed in the last year.

May of 2010 was his first time as a full team member on the Off and Running team in Grove when we set a best team time and won our division both days. His turns had gone to hell, but he was loving the sport.

Fast forward to today and it really takes some nit-picking to find something to improve on with him. His turns have been tight and fast, so it's just been getting repetitions during practice to re-enforce. Zio's been holding up pretty good in tournaments with the turn too. His recalls and tug drive are really good now too. It's really hard to measure accurately, but he's maybe a tenth slower coming back then going to the box, so that's what I've tried to work on during team practices. Depending on the matchups, it will be interesting to see the little man's recall times against some faster dogs at the next tournament running singles.

He's a pretty solid example for the other dogs and gets used a lot to help the others in practice. I may have to continually emphasize good turns with him, but I beginning to believe he's understanding the principle. I haven't even seen him go wide on a turn in weeks.

Tonight will probably find us using the field behind the elementary school to practice some distance throws for the disc dog competition this Saturday. One practice is better than none. :)

Saturday Disc Dog Tournament

As the weeks go flying by, this Saturday is the Oklahoma Disc Dog Championships. Of course, Zio and I haven't done much in the way of long distance practice.

We'll probably just go have fun and see how things turn out. Last fall, my back was acting up and I had to withdraw after the first round. Hopefully it will be better this year.

Thoughts and Rambles

I thought we might be a little zealous holding a practice on Easter morning, but then I read on Facebook that Sure Shots held one too! Only flyball people!

I'm really starting to look forward to running singles with Zio at the May tournament. He is usually super amped up the very first time he gets to run and I would love to capture that in his singles run that Saturday. Unfortunately, I'll be taking an educated guess on where to start. Hopefully, I'll be in the ballpark and he nails a good time with a good turn.

Practice was good yesteday and Zio was hitting the tug hard on his box work/recalls opposite Wisp. Other than that, he was the "veteran" dog for side-by-side recalls against Maverick and then passing drills with Jean-Luc and Wisp.

What I really was impressed with was after practice. Katie tossed a tennis ball over Zio's head while trying to throw it to Wisp. Zio leaped and caught it while doing a flip. The expression on Katie's face was priceless... Air Zio strikes again.

Working and Improving

We continue to work on fast, tight turns most evenings after I get home from work. Usually, just four or five to keep him sharp and keep re-enforcing the correct turns. I'd really like him to get an official singles time in the 3.9's now that he's done one on the clock. My thought is that he did the 3.987 over 11" jumps... who knows what he'll do over 6" jumps.

I also have no idea where to start him from. When he was the start dog while pairs racing with Jean-Luc in Las Vegas, I had a hard time figuring out where to line up. I think we only got two offical times in eight races because I was early on almost every race no matter how far back I moved. I think I ended up at 61 feet, so I'll probably start there and adjust as needed.

Windy Practice

It was a gorgeous day, but a very strong wind blowing dirt in my eyes made it a challenge to hold our practice outdoors. I had to come home and remove my contacts, flush my eyes, and spend the rest of the day letting my eyes rest.

The practice itself went well. Most of the dogs made progress, but I was especially encouraged by Jean-Luc holding the ball three times while running into a waiting Zio. It was good to see Ace at a practice having fun running for Stephanie. It's odd how the newer dogs handle the DGW passing drill so much better than our more experienced dogs in training. I guess we need to get them doing that early on so it's not such a shock to suddenly have to worry about other dogs while running over jumps.

I tried to get some flyball pictures of the newer dogs and managed to get a few decent ones. I still need to get Logan, Ace, and a few others probably.

Jasmine

Maverick

Samson

Practice

For Zio, I'd call it a so-so practice. He was still doing his turns, but not like I want him to. I used a piece of PVC from an agility jump as the divider to guide him to the right side of the box initially, but he was straddling it going to the box. Later, I used a bigger gutter to push him right, but he looked a little wide coming back. I'll have to work on it at home and get him doing it tight again.

Luna did awesome with her recalls to the tug going over four puppy height jumps without baby gates. She was pulling at the start anticipating the "GO!", tugged very well, and was very proud of herself. Now to work on that ball drive.

FSA Time History

Being an analytical type of person, I've charted Full Speed Ahead's tournament times beginning with their first tournament in April 2008. The team consisted of Burst, Meekah, Scout, and Roxy. Deuce joined the team at the next tournament that year. I've added labels for when new dogs have joined the team.

Awesome Flyball Weekend!

That's about as good as it gets! Everyone worked on tightening things up and we finally broke into the 17's during Saturday's first race with a 17.899 second run! Wisp was solid on start, giving us the lead on almost every match. He even showed off his ambidextrous turns by turning left on the right lane and then right on the left lane! Michele and Cody had several 4.5 second runs with some close passing and some box turns too! Zio even joined the 3.9 second club by posting a 3.987 while we lowered our team best time to 17.804 on Sunday. We started Jean-Luc out with wide passes Saturday to let him get comfortable passing again, but he was starting to lean into the lane to make room for himself by the end of Sunday's racing. I even won the chili cook-off some how!

Someone asked how low we can we go, since we keep posting best times every tournament. In watching the videos, we still have room to improve on our consistency. We still haven't really pushed the passing with Jean-Luc either. I think we could realistically run mid-17's with just improved consistency. We are getting better at it all the time. We ran two 17.8 races Saturday and four sub-18 second races Sunday. A few tweaks here and there and we'll be in good shape.

Training projects until the next tournament are
1) See what we can try to get Wisp in the 3.9 club (tougher for him at 11 inches)
2) Keep working on Cody's box work and try for some 4.4's
3) Consistency on the box for Zio...still
4) Jean-Luc passing

Pre-Tournament Backyard Practices

I think if I went back and read all my blog entries preceding tournaments, they would all have the same theme relating to how improved Zio's turns are and hoping they hold up over the weekend. We've had some tournaments that he's done some decent turns, but they usually go bad before the end of racing on Sunday.

So this time isn't any different. I have high hopes that Zio might hit that elusive 3.9 second mark on the clock this weekend. He was just awesome running practice turns last night. There wasn't even a hint of a wide turn as he was turning tight and pushing straight back every single time. I really think it's clicked in his head how I want it. Now, if I can get tight passes... who knows?

Video Stuff

I've been trying to work on a compilation of video's taken from the last tournament to make one FSA video, but it's been slow going and tedious. I've got it rough editted to about 28 minutes, so I'll need to cut more than half of that to make it somewhat watchable to people outside our team. I've been using the new Live Movie Maker that comes with Windows 7, but still like some of the features of Movie Maker for XP better.

One of the things that sidetracked me is I started looking at wire to wire times. Because I record from behind and to the side of the racing lane, it's not easy to judge when a dog hits the start/finish accurately. When I was looking at some passes frame by frame, I noticed that the dog's shadow on the mats from the overhead lights gives a fairly accurate way to measure wire-to-wire times. Basically, I can view frame by frame on the video and log the time when the shadow hits the line to when it hits the line coming back. Sometimes, the shadow hits between frames, so it's not 100%... but it's darn close.

I was sending Zio on a full run during warm-ups before each match (with the gutter in place) at the last tournament. He typically does good turns like that, so I started out wanting to know what his wire times were on the practice runs. They ended up averaging just barely over the 4.0 second mark. I know he runs harder against a fast dog, so I picked out a few races that looked good and he was running wire times from 3.95 to 3.97! With a great pass, he could hit that elusive 3.9 second mark yet!

Practice

A good practice yesterday, despite many teammates helping out or competing in the agility trial. We did the DGW passing drill with three dogs (Cody, Jean-Luc, and Zio) and I thought it went well. There didn't seem to be any issues at all with dogs passing close by. We also worked on Jean-Luc's passing with Zio, trying out our new triangle method (patent pending). Once we got the correct release point, everything went smoothly. It's still very hard to judge early ball drops with such a short run back area.

Maverick tried out a new tug with a ball on it and I think he likes it. Michele also worked with a tug on Cody's new and improved box turn while she's running away. I'd like to see his times doing that turn in a tournament. Jeep was improved on working with his tug as reward on chase recalls and box work. I also ran Jet on some drills with Luigi.

Jazz and Maverick also tried out the DGW passing drill and did good for the most part. The only issue was probably handler induced. Tug is coming along with his training too, but I didn't get a chance to watch him work. It was good to have Susan back at practice and she worked with Quigli on reshaping his box turn. Tisha brought another aussie, Maggie, and I think she settled in well. A first time visitor, Greg, brought his aussie, Basher, to see what flyball is all about.

I was hoping to practice at the field next weekend to have more passing room, but I thought we had one more practice before the tournament. We'll be back at CSA next weekend for the final prep before our qualifier in Grove.

Video Reviews are in...

In reviewing the video from last weekends tournament, I would have to say that we've made significant progress on Zio's turns. He certainly wasn't 100% perfect, but I would say he did a half decent turn on about half of his runs! No wonder he ran in the 4.0's a number of times and set a personal best on the clock!

I think having him do a full run during every warmup with the gutter in place has helped reinforce the training we do at home. For the first time in a long time, he didn't get crossed up and start turning the wrong way. It really helped that Connie did a great job boxloading perfectly for him every time. His turns seem to be really fragile, so consistency will be the key to getting better. I'm proud of my little man! Good boy Zio!

Spring Fever 2011

Wow... an exciting tournament! Zio ran in the 4.0's three times while setting a personal best of 4.050 seconds. The team improved on last tournament's 18.193 with a 18.029 run! We had several runs that could have put us into the 17 second club, but a miscue here or there kept us from it... this time.

It was nice to see the club tighten up the passes over all and take up the challenge to get those "perfect" passes. Wisp had his first perfect start Saturday and Luigi set a personal best of 5.584 running as start dog on the pickup team with 4 Dog Flight.

Our biggest challenge ahead will be to work more on passing so that everyone can run in any spot. We're the only team entered in our division in our regional qualifier, so all we have to do is finish a race to get the invitation to the Championships in St. Louis again. The 17 second club is a given as long as we get one passing glitch corrected, so we'll be racing faster teams by then.

Here are some pictures from the past year of racing action...

Canton, TX - February 2010

Grove, OK - May, 2010

Bonham, TX - August, 2010

Bonham, TX - February, 2011

Really Nice Backyard Turns

Now if he will only do these in a tournament. Some of the best I've seen him do... ever. Slowing them down and checking the video clock in stop action, he's turning in less than half second from the time he touches the box until he's off it. Consistently between .43 to .46 seconds. At times I think he's too ingrained to relearn, but then I remember that he does 100 in practice correctly for every 5 he does wrong at a tournament and I have hope again.

The Continuing Saga of Zio's Turns

I am continuing to try and reshape Zio's approach to the box so that he is in a better position to do his turn. At a tournament, he is so focused on getting the ball that he makes a beeline for it. By putting a pole parallel to the lane in front of the box, Zio has been moved slightly to the right to give himself a slight angle to the box. We manage to do five or six turns each evening before he eats. So far, so good!

I've also been using a gutter to keep him from going too wide on his turn. He ignored the gutter initially, but has been doing nice, tight turns lately. Of course, only a tournament will tell if we're making any progress. I think he may have slowed a bit on his recall too, but I need more hands on deck to work on that and I'll settle for working on his turns in the meantime. Team practice time has been used to work on team passing drills and full run races against Wisp to try and simulate tournament racing.

Bark'n Bonham

Well, the first tournament of the year is in the books! We set a new club best of 18.193 with Wisp, Cody, Zio, and Jean-Luc. Wisp set a best time on the clock of 4.017 seconds and Quigli did 6.9 seconds. Jet made a very successful debut and did a great job on remembering everything Katie has drilled into him. I think he ran a 4.9 on his best run of the weekend.

Zio did not have a great tournament. He completely lost his turns during the tournament until the very last match on Sunday. Trish Keck gave us a suggestion to try and we used it during warmup and he actually did five consecutive good turns during that match! We'll keep trying that in practice and hope for the best! Cody came up sore and limping Sunday, so we swapped teams with he and Scout. Scout managed to even run a couple of 4.8 second runs during the last match of the day Sunday. I'm not sure if it was just a long layoff or the 11" jumps that were the problem with Cody. Michele is going to get his hips x-rayed Friday and we'll have to decide whether he can continue racing on the Speeding Sheepdogs safely.

Readeeeeee!

I think we're all ready for Bonham. We did a handful of turns last night and he was getting some really nice, tight turns. I keep hoping that after a 1000+ practice turns, it must get ingrained what he's supposed to do on the box. I sincerely think that he could post a 3.9 second run if he had a perfect pass and nailed a turn like he does in practice. I'm predicting that he'll do that sometime this year.

The pot luck preparations were completed last night for the enchilada casserole, my bag is packed, the batteries are charged on the cameras, Zio's bag is packed... all I need to do is take care of a half dozen conference calls this morning for work. We should start heading south around noon.

I'm so ready.... let's get racing!!!

Let the 2011 Flyball Season Begin!

Yesterday was our last practice before the first tournament this coming weekend. We started a little early to make sure we had time to get some practice in with the Dogs Gone Wild team from Tulsa. The off season went by pretty fast! A year ago, Zio and I were craming little training sessions in every chance we could so that he could race singles in his debut tournament. Little did I know that he would actually get his first taste of team racing on Sunday afternoon. I've been trying to correct his turn ever since, but I think it will always be a constant training issue.

We picked up a nice passing drill from DGW that should help us desensitize some of the dogs to the dogs coming at them. We worked with one of their dogs that liked to chase and made some good progress with him. Zio (aka Tank) almost had a scarey moment with Cody on a pass that was too close. They bumped into each other, but it must have been a glancing blow, since they both continued with no harm done. I really need to not worry about simulating real passing with such a short runback area. I little slip could cause an injury.

We're holding a little team contest to try and predict the fastest time for the Speeding Sheepdogs team. I haven't revealed my guess yet, but I think we have the potential to race under 18 seconds. Below is our new team logo.

Another Good Practice!

Another good practice yesterday, not only for Zio, but the whole team. We ran the Speeding Sheepdog team, but Jean-Luc was having trouble holding the ball past the start/finish line with the short runback area at CSA. We decided that we'll just move him to fourth dog and Zio to third until we can get some warmer weather to have a full runback area at the outdoor practice field to work on it. That gives us two months of practicing and two tournaments to get it right for the Grove qualifier in April. Division 4 is a whole new adventure for us, so I'm eager to see what we're capable of as we gain experience.

The new dogs and our dogs in training are progressing in leaps and bounds! Getting new people and their dogs involved brings a new level of excitement to everything.

New People!

Katie and Susan have been actively recruiting people and we had some awesome new dogs & people come to our practice yesterday. Some of the dogs seem like real naturals and act like they love it already!

We were in a time constraint yesterday, due to the meeting before practice, so we did a condensed version of practice. It is starting to become an issue with not having an adequate runback area to practice on. We tried to just use two gates for a longer runback area, but to get a tight enough pass, you really needed to anticipate the other dog will not bobble the ball or have any other miscue. Bottom line is that shortening the course really didn't help us fix anything.

I need to get back to practicing after work in the evenings too. The cold snap appears to have relaxed it's grip slightly, so Zio and I are going back to our box work. The good news is that our entry for Bonham has been sent in and we're a month away from racing again!

Name that Breed Challenge

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Dream Team 2010 Video

This is racing from the our Dream Team entry Nov 12th on Championship weekend.

Practice with Sure Shots

We had an awesome time practicing with Sure Shots in the Dallas area Sunday. There were a lot of dogs to work through, but the energy level and organization made it a ton-o-fun. Thanks to all of our friends at Sure Shots for all of your great tips and ideas for our dogs.

Many of our dogs really surprised us with their progress by using some of your pointers. Now I'm even more excited about the next tournament! Speaking of tournaments, Susan and Connie may have found a place in OKC to host a tournament. We'll hopefully know something soon.

More to come...

First 2011 Practice

Practice went well yesterday as Zio continued his box work to improve his drive off the box. Later in the session, we ran the Speeding Sheepdogs over 11 inch jumps for the first time. Zio knocked a jump over going to the box one time and Jean-Luc broke the top 1" slat on another jump later in the session. Passing with Cody was uneventful, but we kept the passes a little wide. I think Susan Owen timed one run at 19 seconds, so we should be good once the passes get tightened up. Jean-Luc was better about holding his ball, but only if Zio gave him an extra wide pass. He's still getting used to passing as the number 3 dog, so we'll keep working at it to get him comfortable. Worst case is we'll move him to number 4 for the February tournament, but I think he'll be fine by then.

We are discussing the feasibility of heading down to Dallas one weekend this month to practice with our friends at Sure Shots. I think it would be fun to work with some new dogs and also look at their training methods.

Outdoors

We had a good outdoor practice yesterday at the OKPaws field. It was mid-40's with an Oklahoma breeze of 20-25 mph, but wasn't too bad if you kept active. Too much standing around would let the cold settle into the bones.

I wanted to get some opinions on the work Zio and I have been doing at home, using just the stride regulator before the box. It's good to have extra sets of eyes sometimes. They noticed that Zio hits the box differently when there is a ball in versus without the ball. Without the ball, he tends to run out of room coming off the box when he hits it too far left. With the ball, his rear hits further to the right and he seems to come back straight. After thinking it over, it may only seem straighter because he's hitting far enough to the right to avoid the jump bars on the ground discouraging wide turns.

Technically, it really shouldn't matter where he hits the box. Center of the box is actually supposed to be better. Coming back straight is coming back straight. Muscle memory wise, it's better for him to keep repeating the same motions (getting the ball) on his turn that he would use during a tournament. He has such a long body that it may be more difficult for him to hit the center and get the ball smoothly.

We also discussed using a larger stride regulator, but I really want to keep the visual cues to a minimum. From trying to reconstruct his turn all year long, Zio seems to really depend on the "junk" being in place to guide him. He seems to do worse at tournaments if all if ever sees at practice is the jump board before the box. That being said, we'll continue with the minimalist cue of one PVC jump bar on the ground to keep him from crashing the box and force him to drive back on his return. My logic is that you can't punch the box and also drive back over the strider.

Susan Owens mentioned using a clicker, which is something I've been considering anyway. It may be time to invest $1.98 in one!