Distance

Today I worked Venus with some distance work. She did pretty well. I had a hard time releasing her from the dog walk but had I used "ok" which is her release work it might have gone better. I loved her doing the nice 2o2o at the bottom even though I was far away.

Weaves were pretty fast tonight most of the time. She was happy to do them which is always a plus. Clover hates the weaves and likes to avoid them I have have put in a lot of time with Venus and getting her to love the weaves.

After I got her to quit turning into me on the line of jumps before she did them all then we worked on when I did want her to turn away. It was a very tight turn to get her away from the tunnel at the end but she did it fine.

Venus has her very first NADAC trial this weekend. This will be her 2nd time ever competing in agility and she's only run one run before. This will be her first time at a trial doing contacts so we will see how it goes. She's entered in 4 novice runs: regular, jumpers, weavers, and tunnelers. I also have Clover entered in novice tunnelers.

And just for fun some Halloween pics of Bacchus! He is feeling left out.

Venus training Oct 29

I wanted to work Venus on some 270 degree turns today over jumps. That lead to working several things today. First with the 270s we worked her staying out to come around the jump and back to me. Then I switched it up for her sometimes calling her to me instead of sending her out. I have to really switch what I'm doing to get her to come back to me before taking the jump. When she was on my left I she naturally would tend to go out around the jump but on my right she would pull in more.

With the jumps set up like they were I decided to see where her "left" command was today and I was pleasantly surprised. I got her to turn left over the jump and take it with a hand cue also. After that I tried without the hand signal so I could be sure she was listening rather than just taking the cue. No problems there. I then switched it up some and would turn right or go straight so that I knew she was paying attention to where I wanted her instead of just assuming we were taking the left jump. Again, no problems. When Venus is thinking and doing well she will pick things up well and I use those times to really test what she's doing. As the final test I layered the jump on the right and told her to go left. Whoo she went and did it!

Then we worked serpentines and threadles. She's done serpentines before and she seems to really like them for whatever reason. We've never done the threadles before and my handling isn't very smooth on them. We eventually got through it though.

I noticed in the video from today that my hand is high in the air again. I still need to work a bit on that. She was a little slow today but that's not really a surprise at home. She's usually faster when we are new places; they are new and exciting.

Venus' Story

Venus is a Clover daughter and is probably going to be my true agility dog. She's smart, fast, and fun! Most of my posts will be about our daily training, what goals and accomplishments we are working on, and what silly things she's decided to come up with.
Venus, who I also call Veni or Bean, is currently 19 months old and is showing some potential for doing some great things for me. She really seems to love agility and loves learning whatever new thing I might add to it.
She is also built to run agility and even when we aren't working she is doing crazy things like jumping the other dogs and various things that might get in her way of running full speed. She had a problem on the dog walk for a while, she would spread her rear wide when she ran full speed to pass the front legs through. That usually resulted in her falling off the dog walk. We have done a lot of work on that so that she doesn't fall anymore.
Things we are currently working on:
Weave pole speed- it is getting much much better
Hitting the up contact on the dog walk and teeter- she launches up onto these missing the contact
Distance- Venus has had a problem wanting to run right beside me so I am encouraging her to move away more and more

Venus has competed in one trial so far. It was at the Samoyed national when she was 17 months old. It was raining and she was so excited she was leaping on me outside the ring. I couldn't get her to focus enough to go over the warm up jump. I feared the worst for that run. She was only entered in jumpers because I didn't feel she was ready for standard yet.
She actually went in and did way better than I ever expected. I had entered her to support Sammy agility and for experience. She ended up with a 2nd place and time of 36 seconds.

Clover's story

In Dec of 2003 I got a new puppy, Clover, and she became my very first agility dog. After doing some training in the backyard with lots of help from a friend online I finally found a local class that fit well with us. I had just started the class but our National was coming up and I wanted to run her there. We did one day in Charlotte, NC in the fall of 05 and didn't Q either run. Her standard run was close but she didn't jump the entire broad jump. Not long after that was a one day trial at the national. Again we didn't Q either run but again one was very close with a knocked bar causing the NQ.

In January 2006 Clover went to WV to be bred. Between the pregnancy, motherhood, and raising puppies Clover and I took a long break from agility. We didn't do another trial until November of 2006 in Concord, NC. It went much better.
November 18, 2006
Novice Standard Preferred- 1st place 63.97 seconds
Novice Jumpers Preferred- 2nd place 42.18 seconds
November 19, 2006
Novice Standard Preferred- 1st place 68.72 seconds
Novice Jumpers Preferred- 1st place 41.51 seconds
Wow what a weekend that was! It was our very first Q ever and she did it all four runs. To make it even better she was competing in conformation that weekend and took a nice Best of Breed win one day and made a cut in the group. I was exhausted but she held together fairly well. Plus her kids picked up a few conformation points.

Our next trial wasn't until March of 2007 in Charlotte, NC.
March 10
Novice Standard Preferred- NQ- In a very rare performance she leaped off the dog walk missing her contact
Novice Jumpers Preferred- 1st place 45.18 seconds for her NJP!
March 11
Novice Standard Preferred- NQ- She slipped on the up side of the a-frame and came back down that side
Open Jumpers Preferred- NQ- I pushed her for speed while still having control. I got the speed and she tried to listen... We'll leave it at that :)
Somewhere during the summer we went and did a NADAC trial. We had a blast there and Clover Q'd 3 out of 4 runs. She was 1st in her tunnelers class and she loved running full speed there.

In September of 2007 it was time for the National again. All I asked Clover to do was to Q in her standard run to earn the title.
Spetember 11
Novice Standard Preferred- 2nd place 71.4 seconds for her NAP title!
Open Jumpers Preferred- NQ- She knocked the second bar because she was too busy looking at puppies outside the ring.
Novice FAST Preferred- NQ- We had the exact amount of points needed but she went around the last jump instead of over, causing us to go over time.

Because of the way Clover is built I haven't felt comfortable jumping her at 20 inches. When talking to people it seems to be split 50/50 on whether or not running agility would do her any damage so I'd rather be on the safe side. Clover is basically retired from agility at this point. She may come out for special shows and I'll let her play in tunnelers at NADAC trials. I might also use her at seminars until my next dog is ready enough for those. She likes agility ok and does it for me but she doesn't seem to love it most of the time. I don't think she'll mind the retirement as she has plenty of other things to do.
She has been a great dog to learn with and wonderful about letting me figure out what I need to do. She just goes with the flow and allows me to fumble through as I learn with her.

Brandy
Doubletake Samoyeds

The First Post

I decided to call this blog agility laughs for several reason.
1) Agility should always be fun and if it isn't it's time for a break
2) I run a breed that is known for their smile, they also enjoy laughing at things
3) Those same dogs generally enjoy being laughed at so if they find something entertaining to do they will do it

So on to info about me and the dogs. My name is Brandy and I live in North Carolina. I have been involved in dogs my entire life (23 years) and have grown up training them. I started competing in conformation shows when I was 4 years old and it is still the dog event I'm most active in. I have found agility interesting for years but never really had the right dog to do it with. By the time I saw agility I had several old dogs and a young, stubborn, lazy one.
In 2005 I competed at my first agility trial. I have been getting more and more involved since then but I am still very novice.
I run Samoyeds and they keep it very interesting. I never really know what to expect from them at each trial but they are fun. I mostly do AKC but I have really enjoyed NADAC and won't hesitate to enter their trials.
The Dogs:
Clover- Am. Can. Ch. Wintersong's Lucky Charm NAP, NJP, HCT, CGC
Venus- Ch Doubletake's She's Got It
Bacchus- Doubletake's Mighty Fine Wine

Brandy
Doubletake Samoyeds