2007 entries to October 13th

Here are Lucy's 2007 flyball journal entries to October 13th.

Saturday October 6th 2007 - team practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Today Lucy helped the green dogs learn about being passed. They would do a recall from the box, and then Lucy would pass into them on her way to do a full run. Some of the dogs looked a little surprised to see her, but she was a pro and just went and did her thing.

Saturday and Sunday September 8th and 9th 2007 - Burnin Rubber NAFA Tournament (Carp curling rink)

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Now that the 90 days are over, Lucy got to race with another team (still waiting for our home team to be ready to race next year). She was originally supposed to have one full spot, but due to a sick dog teams were reshuffled and she ended up double running. She ran starts on Regular 3 and sometimes third, sometimes anchor on Multi 2. I was extremely pleased with how she ran as she had several successes:

Success #1: No deeked jumps while passing into or being passed into!!! Including when she was hot passed into 3 or 4 times on Saturday!!! All that remedial passing practice and running with seasoned dogs has been a tremendous help and I'm tempted to believe that she's completely overcome the passing incident of last November. :-))))
Success #2: Much improved non-bobble to bobble ratio!
Success #3: She set her new personal best time! Her best start dog time (ie not including the start) was 5.241 over 11" in her sixth race on Saturday and she was pretty consistently in the 5.2s and 5.3s with some slower times on Sunday. My best start was .062 but there was quite a range in there! Her best time on her half-spot team was 5.5 including the pass.


Here's one of her runs from Sunday where she gets her butt whooped by a border collie:

There was one "oh crap" moment on Saturday, which was when she was on her start-dog team in the lane adjacent to the head table, and someone had a grilled cheese sandwich at the head table (which is apparently a no-no), and when I released Lucy, well, she decided that that smell was too interesting to pass by uninvestigated. Fortunately she let me pull her off and send her down the lane but her start time for that heat was over 3 seconds!! Thankfully she didn't repeat that performance! Another minor "oh crap" moment was when the ball was loaded into the wrong hole once on Saturday. She wasn't able to do her turn, but she did pick up the ball and bring it back. Early oOn Sunday, she had a few NFs due to ball dropping; these were due to not picking up the ball on a couple of bobbles as well as not having a good grip once or twice (video playback is very helpful in that area!)

I've learned that for warmups even for her very first race, she doesn't need upclose pops off the box in order to situate herself as to where the box is. A recall before the first races of the day is sufficient, and the same goes for Sammy. This will be great when our team is up and running next year so that we can give the green dogs most of the warmup time.

She got a new title: FDCH-S (1000 points), and was awarded one of the couple of dozen individual dog awards: The Twist "New Blood" Award "given to a dog who has recently joined a new team and is doing great this past year". :-)

Notes to self regarding release points:
- STARTS (regular 3): I release her when the third yellow appears. 27' 9" did well at the start of Saturday including a 0.06 but also a false start. Towards the end of Saturday, 26.0' did well including a 0.1. On Sunday, 27' got some .1 starts in the morning, but by the end of Sunday I had to move her up to 25' for .1 starts.
- PASSING INTO K. (multi: on Saturday and one race on Sunday): 27' worked well at the start of Saturday. 26' 6-8" good towards the end of Saturday.
- PASSING INTO J. (multi: mostly on Sunday): mostly I just released her when told to depending on how the previous dogs had run. (due to the post-seeding lineup change, breakout was a risk.)

Thursday September 6th 2007 - guests at other team's outside practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Lucy did some nice tight passes into K., and she didn't deek around any jumps when being passed by R. including one which was relatively tight.

Saturday August 25th 2007 - team practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Did a bunch of no-jump up-close boxturns with the box unsprung to get her to place her mouth better. Also, did the lanes-close-together thing doing recalls with Sammy. No question, Sammy's got the racing thing down, but Lucy, well, not quite! :-)

Sunday August 19th 2007 - guests at another team's practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Did a new exercise which is full runs with the lanes right up next to each other, only a few inches apart, with very low gates the whole length separating the lanes. The idea is to increase the competitiveness, getting the dogs to really notice the other dog and to want to race them. It was a very neat exercise and with a few more repetitions it may just get Lucy to clue in to the race aspect! Of note, Lucy did a lot of tugging today.

Saturday August 18th 2007 - Demo at The Ex!

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

We were guests on another team doing three demos over the course of the day at The Ex'es Pet Pavillion. I learned that Lucy can play flyball even on an overly full stomach. :-) She got a hold of one of the treat pouches while in the car waiting for me to finish setting up her crate and did a terrific job of cleaning it right out! About a cup and a half of treats downed in one fell swoop! Somehow she found room in her stomach for more treats and so happily played along in the flyball fun, which consisted of racing not only dogs but also children who volunteered to give it a go against the dogs! It was a fun experience and Lucy's brain stayed in gear despite the interesting smells of a pot-bellied pig and pony who were hanging out in stalls adjacent to the ring.

Thursday August 16th 2007 - guests at another team's outdoor practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

She passed tightly into K. with no jump-deeking, and didn't do any of the weird interested-in-K. stuff she did last week.

Thursday August 9th 2007 - guests at another team's outdoor practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Lucy hasn't done flyball outdoors in a long, long time, but she did well and didn't go off following her nose. Practiced passing into K. -- at first, she was interested in K., but after a few runs with someone holding her and me up at the box, she was doing much better.

Wednesday August 8th 2007 - home practice

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Having run someone else's seasoned tug-crazy flyball dog at a tournament last weekend, I'd love to get Lucy to the point of enthusiastically grabbing onto her tug as her reward before she gets treats. So, I've been having her do recalls at home for the treat tug, and also sending to the ball on the floor over/back one jump coming back for the tug. The former is going well, but for the latter she's still reluctant to let go of the ball to take the tug.