We are driving to Florida today, of course I use the royal “we” as it is actually my darling John that does all of the driving. I am working/goofing off on the internet. So how weird is this. Check out these two photos of Susan Garrett.
The Susan Garrett on the left is a Senator in Illinios of course the one on the right is yours truly. I always knew Senator Susan (the SS) existed because about 10 years ago she scooped a website that I owned (and let the license lapse on). Now she is who you get when you go to www.susangarrett.com (however I still get 9 of the top 10 spots when you google our name . . . so nah nah nah).
I knew about the SS, but never checked her out. But check us out! How weird is it that! Even though she is obviously much, much older than I:), we both have blue eyes, neither one of us will ever be accused of having a “cute-pixie-nose” and we both have a similar hair style (well mine looks more like hers for the first 10 minutes after I leaving my hair stylist’s chair).
Weird eh? Here are a couple more weird facts. Did you know there is no mail delivery in Canada on Saturdays? Also how werid is this: even though there has been more than 10,000 visits to my blog this week I have only gotten 5 of you that have contributed to the challenges I urged you all to submit. Hmmm weird.
I hope that I set a good example by establishing an atmosphere of sharing on this blog. I do not want to depress anyone but I have to tell you I do find it a bit weird that only five of you have contributed (sorry Helen, I am not counting you because, although I have the highest regard for Bud, without permission from him, we can’t post samples of his challenges from a book that is available for sale)
I did considered punishing you all by giving you a cyber smack or a “time out” by not posting to the blog for awhile. However, without a full knowledge of what exactly you did wrong and how exactly you could be successful, a “time out” would of course be usesless. Sort of like punishing an agility dog for knocking a bar. Plus I would be punishing those five awesome people that took the time to research some challenges for us all.
What is more in my nature and what I will do here now, is to publicly thank the five of you that have contributed. You five, I am sending you massive amounts of outrageously positive energy so that your 2010 can be the most unbelievably happy and successful year of your lives! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
So back to the rest of you . . how about it? Couldn’t you all use massive amounts of outrageously positive energy? Post a challenge and it’s yours. We are out to help identify sources of stress in order to help our fellow competitors identify sources of weakness so we need contact, weave and handling challenges.
Every idea counts, so how about digging down and contributing to the benefit of everyone!
Today I am grateful that John and I are almost out of the snow driving. Way too many big truck in the ditch for anybody’s liking.
My cheek is raised for my cyber slap….whack! 😀
Are you there yet? Can you smell the sea?
Yes they do deliver mail in the USA on Saturday.
Okay, why is the fact that there is no mail delivery in Canada on a Saturday a weird fact? Do they deliver mail on Saturday in the USA? Can’t imagine government workers working on a weekend. 😉 (I can say that because hubby works for the gov’t.)
It’s too much work. I’d only ask Tracy S, and she is too busy planning seminars and UKAI match. Sorry Susan. Did like yesterday’s blog
Hi Helen,
I know. That’s why I had not post a challenge before. (My dogs don’t have contact or weaves challenges, they’ve been trained the Say Yes way :)) But if you read Susan’s post above it says: ”We are out to help identify sources of stress in order to help our fellow competitors identify sources of weakness so we need contact, weave and HANDLING challenges.” I can always use help to improve my handling.
Nath
Yes I did Nath, and if we are looking to possibly see what stresses a dog or what stresses a handler we should examine all possibilities!
Hmmmm….you said: “Ask 3 people…for 5 of their best weave challenges and 5 of their best contact challenges…” Nath’s challenge is a beauty, but it has neither weaves nor contacts. Confusion sets in.
[…] if you haven’t read yesterday’s blog post, please do or this one won’t make sense to you. Yesterday I had many of you stressing about […]
I didn’t know handling challenges were authorized. I thought it was only contacts and weaves. I have part of a course in CRCD that I’d like to submit but I don’t know how? Do I email it to you Susan?
If you can avoid creating more work for me and not email me that would be awesome:). The way to paste a CRCD is to go to your design layout, hit select all then copy. Then paste it as a binary file in the comments section like this;
Begin Course Designer
Version 3
For a free viewer, go to http://www.coursedesigner.com/viewer
AAFceJw1z79LAmEYB/Dvc6+XdUW8SxKh3FtEbVFg9mOycrBdMGjRuNc74eUuzJKW
KGqJmhoiHAP/jZbGkJyb2oN0iCjBs/NHz/Z5+H4feFgocrggosD8CILRiAhETIcR
AGAMlnn2kktf1PZTNJV+1lnkbkIzExSEb6ZvOXjSIb7VEHybuEgSn8WOk1dKurbc
FBmnJPOWkqLgKeVVpCX4MvgKYBycirIjRaXkubaQriW8Qn9RPnZdqYRRdPu0PHvx
SKiiK5e4aMGINQRghghZ7PrnX+/UgpkhhNA2Lju5Mb/Lqm/ZzgObQc1/ZL3gR/dq
9FWPaoMa0AxX/b7ue//O/Trje1pw5KmnazS/CauxgU70VJeQGCoeRpuwNpRt1Blh
/T/5U/cJG0MVP51JQjxm/gGKhFd9
End Course Designer
Above is Nath’s challenge btw.
For those of you who want to see it, first you need CRCD then you copy the binary file, open a blank page in your CRCD and hit paste, voila!
I was actually starting to cry until you posted, Kristine, thanks!
I bet SS also sold her last bottle of Magic De-stressing Pixie Dust… !
We are working on this, we have some requests into some dog agility luminaries, but they are all busy people, and are spending lots of time thinking of REALLY GOOD challenges.
If I was a dog… I’d be stressing high right now about my near cyber-smack!
It’s not that I want to make you unhappy with me. I want massive amounts of outrageously positive energy too! I’m really trying to learn what you want me to do. Really, I am!!! But I’m so new to my agility career and not ready for challenges put forth by elite instructors. Those would stress ME out, forget about my novice dog. Ahhh…. someday….
Until someday arrives, we’ll continue focusing on what we learned from Crate Games, Ruff Love, Crate Games, Shaping Success, Crate Games, 2×2 Weave Training, Foundation Handling seminars, Crate Games… and did I mention Crate Games???
Please be happy with me, Susan… I really, really, want to be good! I’m working my “Foundation, foundation, foundation” and laying off of the “sexy stuff” for a while. 🙂
May your travels be safe and may you never run out of massive amounts of outrageously positive energy!
OK, well, in my defense, I was going to post agilitycoursemaps.com, but someone beat me to it, which meant I had to scramble. Then I remembered Bud’s nifty course map book, and I posted that (not knowing it was an illegal $5 challenge move) and got a penalty slap all while I was busily writing to Bud, who graciously emailed me a fantastic weave pole challenge AND he wished me luck and hoped I won. Phew and Yay! I just posted his weave challenge over yonder. http://dogagilityblog.wpengine.com/2010/01/collecting-challenges.html/comment-page-1#comment-4503 I hope everyone can work the viewer. There is a great HELP section in the viewer and it is all free, interesting, and another agility-tools learning experience.
Helen you’re a rock star! Thanks so much for putting all of this effort into helping other people!!! Oh and thanks to Bud as well!
Susan….are your approving the posts on the “collecting challenges” thread? I just posted some things and they did not come up…..wondering if it is not working and maybe that is why the small number of posts, or if you are monitoring to be sure fair things are posted?
Mary
No Mary there is a delay for people who haven’t posted before or in a while as the first post through needs to be approved. Right now I am near the computer all day as we drive so that is not the case, but good thought! But as it turns out I just checked my spam filter and that was where your post was (but no others . . . well none other the normal erectile dysfunction ones:))
Hey Susan, I don’t even do agility, but I enjoy reading your blog for all the training tips and relationship-building tips you give that I find useful in obedience training. Sorry I can’t contribute to your agility challenge, but I am trying to think of some ways I can do an obedience challenge.
Thanks for the training tips!
Okay guys, I don’t want to make anyone feel guilty for reading my blog! I welcome you all here, agility, obedience, disc dog, newbies, veterans, whomever and whatever you do I am glad to have the lot of you and yes, a zillion good wishes to everyone for a kick ass 2010!
Susan, as much as I enjoy reading your blog along with the other 90-some thousand fans, I am not competing much and certainly have no access to any elite instructors 🙂 Just trying to gather tips and info and inspiration from someone I admire, for that future agility dog I hope to have someday.