Link

There's a link the the right under Agility Blogs section to the blog with Venus puppy updates. Please continue to look there until January most likely.

The USDAA trial

We got no Qs all weekend, but that is because we didn't go. Venus came in season so no agility trials for her. What this really means though is no more trials until next year. She was bred this time so puppies are due late Oct and will go home the very end of the year. I'm going to keep in her as good of shape as possible so she's ready to go ASAP after the puppies leave, plus it will be easier on her for the whelping.
This blog probably won't have much else on it until next year. I may decide to do some Bacchus updates but right now he's just getting things figured out.
For puppy and Venus pregnancy updates go to http://doubletakesamoyeds.blogspot.com/

We will have a puppy cam!

We're going to go for it

Looking around online and on the USDAA website I can't find any Samoyed that has an ADCH. So I think Venus and I are going to push for it. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that she will measure under 21".
With that in mind we have a USDAA trial coming up August 29 & 30th. We have 10 runs between 2 days so we'll see what happens.

Weaves are still up and down and if she is going to do them and do them correctly or not. :(

Today's weaves

So I've come up with a plan on weave negatives and positives. We are working on both ends of the weaves here, entries and popping out.

1) No collection into the poles= lie down
2) Misses first pole and starts at 2nd= finish weaves with no encouragement & no reward
3) Entry good= "Yes! Go, go, go" to the end
4) Popping out of poles= lie down
5) No collection into pole 2 but continues at 3= no encourageent/reward
6) Perfect poles= "Yes, go, go, go" and big rewards at the end

I had a friend mention this and she may be onto something here, it makes sense that if Venus misses the entry etc, that if I pull her out of the poles it can increase our popping out issue. I also thing it makes her weave less independent and sh checks with me too often to make sure she is right. We will see if this seems to make a difference.

I finally got enough speed today to see the not collecting issue. It took until the 4th try for her to finally collect. We cross a big flat open field to get to the agility course. I left her in that field about 20 feet out from a jump. I called her over the jump and to the weaves and she had lots of speed. We'll try that again tomorrow.

The good and the bad

We've been working weave poles. Not a whole lot to update on that. Some days feel better and others feel the same. I'm nt getting much drive at all when practicing at home so I know there is no improvement when she needs to collect into the poles.

Videos from Concord like I promised.
I do love the twitchy excited move at the startline, she is ready!

Concord- Good and Bad

So we ended up with 1 Q out of 8 runs. Not a very good average but we had some very good runs.

We did get our last Open Standard Q! Venus now has her OA, yay. It took until Saturday to get it though. So here's a run down of our runs.

Thursday Open Standard- It looked like a tough course. Venus promptly NQd on the weave poles. We got to the A-frame which I knew was going to be a problem. It was A-frame and then the tunnel off to the right. Straight ahead of the a-frame was the off course table. Venus loves to suck to the table anyways. She decided she only needed to stride down the a-frame once and then leap off missing the yellow. She hit the ground and then leaped onto the table. We left the ring after that.

Thursday Ex JWW- Weave poles got us again. Other than that it was a nice clean run. I was very excited that Venus was running fast and listening. I planned a front cross but she ended up ahead of me so I had to rear cross the jump. I was afraid that would cause her to turn early and miss the jump further out. I had seen many dogs do that. After I crossed her head turned towards me and I said "out jump" and she headed for the far jump and took it! Yay Veni.

Friday Open Standard- Weave poles weave poles weave poles. Again. She did think about doing them though. She got in them and then stopped.

Friday Ex JWW- She was heading for the poles then stopped to wait on me. We also had a bar down but another nice fast run.

Sat Open Std- We Q'd by the skin of our teeth. She got her weave poles this time! he got a refusal at a tunnel, there was the table off to her left that she went towards and when I got her back she kinda spun at the tunnel. Then she got a table fault because she forgot to slow down while jumping on the table and slid off the other side. Her a-frame and teeter were close calls. She did end up with 1st place!

Sat Ex JWW- Weaves got us again. Otherwise it was a nice fast run. I sent her out away from me and she'd come close when I asked her to. I got lots of compliments on this run.

Sun Ex Std- By far one of our worst runs ever. We stayed at a hotel since Wednesday night. She didn't get much run or play time since I didn't have any other dogs with me. By day 4 of the trial she exploded mentally. At the warm up jump she was barking her head off and paying no attention to my movements. In the ring she ended up flying off the teeter, almost sliding off the table, not holding her dog walk contact, ignoring the weaves to take the more fun tunnel, skipping a few jumps, and knocking a bar. I almost took her out of the ring after the teeter fly off. I had her down and decided to keep going because she needed to run this out of her system. Best of all I have this run on tape!

Sun Ex JWW- Weaves and a bar again. Otherwise a nice run with her. I have this on tape.

Overall I am thrilled with our JWW runs. We have a weave pole problem to work on but other than that we're doing well. We've been nailing the complicated parts of the courses no problem. We've not have any refusals or wrong courses (except weaves) on any of the ex jumpers courses.

Confidence or Hormones?

I am hoping Venus' new found speed is confidence and not caused by hormones. I think Clover is coming in season and Venus might be reacting to that.

Here's some changes Venus and I are working on. I am talking less while running her. In a straight line I am expecting her to take the obstacles in front of her unless I say otherwise.
Only doing crosses when there is a turn. Before I have put crosses where they were convinent for me. Now I am trying to plan them when a turn is the next 1-2 obstacles away. We'll see if we can get adjusted to this and work as a good fast team.

A Whole New Venus!

Ok so I have been taking some lessons with Lynne Stephens and Karen Mielke at Dog Logic. Some of the things we have been doing there have helped Venus with her confidence I think. She is now very hyped up and running fast courses. The downside is that I have to relearn how to handle this dog but it will only be a temporary thing.

I have decided that she might not get her last open leg at the Concord trial because of this. My goal is to have a happy fast but controlled dog. I will require her to keep bars up, hit her contacts, and complete all weave poles. Other than that she might run by a jump or take an off course and we will just keep going. I am going to try to plan to handle her like a fast dog that needs a bit more direction than I usually do with her.
Normally a slight turn of my body will pull Venus with me in a split second but now it is taking more than that.


Concord will be 4 days, July 2-5. Venus is in Ex A JWW and Open Std. We'll see wat happens.

First USDAA trial

So we finally went for it, entered our first USDAA trial. It is 2 months since Venus was last in season which usually means she is hormonal and super velcro dog right now. Because of that I didn't enter pairs (didn't want to cost someone else a Q) and gamblers (no going to upset the velcro dog).

My plan was blown away when I didn't have velco dog and instead I had a kinda distance dog, distance for Venus anyways.

Anyways the outcome for this weekend:
(Saturday)
PI Standard- Q 3rd place
PI Jumpers- Q 2nd place
PI Snooker- NQ (down bar)
Performance Speed Jumping- Qualified for round 2 with a 3rd place

(Sunday)
PI Standard- Q 1st place
PI Jumpers- Q 1st place
PI Snooker- Q 1st place
Performance Spped Jumping round 2- 2nd place!

I'm thrilled with our runs and she had some nice times. Sunday she was less than 5 seconds off the fastest 2 dogs and in standard less than 1 second between her and the fastest dog. Both days she was around 20 seconds under SCT in standard and 9 in Jumpers. Go Bean Go!

Left & Right

We made huge progress on left and right last night.Venus has known left and right spins for a while but I haven't added them onto a course. I have tried in the past working left and right over a jump with maybe 50% sucess. I think she is mostly guessing. I would sit in a chair to give no body cues and send her right or left over the jump.

Last night I tried something different. I sent her jump right. Once she did that correctly she easily repeated. I then stood beside the jump with it to my right. She had to come towards me and the jump but I wanted her to turn right over the jump so she had to turn away from me. That took a while but she eventually would come, jump, spin right.

Next I went pastthe jump about to the middle and called her to come jump and turn right. She picked that up fairly quickly. Again it was a right spin rather than turn but that is fine.

Finally in that same position I gave come jump..... right jump. Tada! You could see the lightbulb come on when she saw the 2nd jump to her right. She finally understood the point of the whole thing. We repeated that several times. Then I gave the command come jump and waited to see if she would take the jump off to the right without the command because of habit. Nope, jumped and straight to me. Yippee!

We repeated all those steps with left and it went much faster. There was a serpentine type set up with a 4th jump out there. I used this to practice left and right. I'd send her over a jump give a left or right so she'd turn that way and take the next jump and I'd give another left or right. She nailed it probably 80% jumping away and towards me.

Off topic but a fun note I showed Flirt this past weekend. She's not finished yet and was in the 12-18 month class. Took Best of Breed both days and picked up a Group 3 & 4! Yay for the puppy!

A Very Long Time

I haven't posted in a long time but haven't really done much either. I will try and go through everything that has gone on.
First up is Bacchus' agility video from Concord, please laugh and enjoy.


In December we had a conformation show. Bacchus picked up the last single point he needed so we are just hunting majors now. Flirt was winners 2 of the 3 days so that was nice. Clover took Best of Breed and got a group 4 on Friday. She was also Best of Opposite on Saturday. Venus was compared against Clover both of those days so that was fun.

We also did a show and go mostly to work on Bacchus' jumping, barking, biting clothing issue. Well of course he did none of that at the show and go. Venus ran well though. People were impressed by the amount of drive my Sams have. Lol!

Venus had a strange lump on her head and we had a big scare that it was a mast cell tumor. She's been seeing a range of vets and as of right now it is nothing, just a hyper reaction to a bite or injury. She's been seen by my regular vet, an internal medicine specialist, a specialized surgeon, and an opthalmologist. We do a punch biopsy this week to be sure it really is nothing.

Jenn came down this weekend and we went to watch all 3 days at the AKC National Agility Championship. Wow what a blast that was. It was great to see Ronda and Pyro do some of their runs. They won the 16" Std class with a beautiful run. They were so close in the challengers round coming in 2nd. It really made me miss competing with Venus. She is going out of season so I can do some trials without worrying about that. There is a trial coming up soon but it is full except for Friday which is Exc only. I might just enter JWW and go play for a few hours that day.
I have some videos to put up late of Venus running with Jenn. Finally got a vid of her dog walk that is so pretty right now!
Brandy