UberPest's Journal - www.uberpest.com | Random musings on hiking, dogs, the outdoors, and life from a perpetually broke former college student.

Premier Conformation and Weight Pull Results

uberpest — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:48:38 -0400

So, my Premier weekend came in with a bang and went out with one.

As I said in my previous post, Ranger had a really good Thursday--he won the Best of Breed Top Ten at the Top Ten Invitational, then went on to a 5 point pull in weight pull. This was over 10 times his body weight. He probably could have pulled more but I did a handler withdrawal.

Friday and Saturday Conformation yielded no wins or placements (and thus, no Total Dog award on Saturday), but that was fine because on Saturday Ranger blew me away with his weight pull performance. Ranger pulled his personal best of 1455# on wheels (over 25 times his body weight) for an additional 15 champion points in weight pull. The reason we pushed Ranger in this pull was to see what he could do. That is, now that I know what he is capable of pulling I can adjust his training to something that will improve his performance.

On Sunday Ranger finished out the weekend with the final win needed for his UKC Conformation Grand Champion title. He went on to compete in Weight Pull one more time where he got a 10 point pull (he pulled over 15 times his body weight--19.2 times, to be precise).

Ranger finished the weekend with a great award from the conformation ring, a new title, a personal best weight pull, and a good start on the next title. I came home a proud dog owner with lots of tips on how to improve his performance.

(Ranger needs to learn to stay on the ground and NOT slam into the harness and I have a couple of tricks to try to teach him this).

Ranger's examination in the show ring.

UKC Top Ten Invitational

uberpest — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:36:06 -0400

I'm making a quick post before I head out for the first day of the UKC Premier.

Yesterday I competed with Ranger in the UKC Top Ten invitational. We competed in the 2009 season and Ranger earned points for Best of Breed wins and ended up #8 for the breed for 2009. 6 of the 10 dogs invited made the trip to Richmond, IN to determine who was the best of the best. Dogs came in from PA, ON, IN and WI. Ranger surprised me and won the Best of Breed Top Ten. He didn't make it out of the semi-finals round, but that's just fine by me.

Later in the day he got the first 5 points toward his advanced Weight Pull titles. We'll be working on those titles more this weekend as well as attempting to get the last win needed for his Grand Champion title, and maybe even a Total Dog award.

I'm really happy that all the conditioning (running with the bike, pulling, long drags, free running) has helped his physical condition.

My Craigslist trolling has paid off once again

uberpest — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:42:02 -0400

One of my rainy day activities is to troll craigslist to fill my wishlist. I missed out on a sweet deal on a pull-behind camper trailer last week, but the deal I got yesterday totally made up for it.

I'd originally planned to get a smooth-skinned aluminum dog box without top storage, but was concerned about it being large enough for my dogs as it was designed for bird dogs.

I found this for the same price as the other box instead.

It's awesome.

It has lockable top storage, lots of ventilation, insulation (cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter) and, being aluminum, won't rust. The only real complaint is that I can't put my stickers on the diamond plate.

I'm working on fixing up the trailer I bought last year so that I can use it when I travel with the dogs. Currently I'm getting about 20 mpg with the OD off (as leaving the OD on while towing isn't good for the transmission), so I'm going to attempt to remove/redo the sides on my trailer to make it a bit lighter.

I'm also working on a frame to help hold everything in place while it's on the trailer. I'll still strap things down, but a small frame will help keep the things like the cooler, water tanks, truck box, and the dog box in one place.

Updates on Training

uberpest — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:46:08 -0400

Okay, so my attempts at a weekly posting have really gone awry over the past month. I got crazy with work and, between the heat and the rain, I just haven't been out much. Or at least not enough to make an interesting trip report.

Things that have come up, though, are that because of the heat I wanted to make it safer for me to take Ranger for a ride in the cooler evening or morning hours. The problem with those times are that it's usually dark enough that people aren't looking for cyclists. I ordered a bike light set for my bike and am pleasantly surprised at the visibility, both for me and for traffic also on the road. The front white LED is a 1W and has several settings: flashing, low and ZOMG!MYEYES! The rear red LED taillight has solid, flash and strobe. Ranger also has a red flashing LED that hangs from his collar, and one that I can clip to the back of his harness if I put a harness on him. I have reflective vests for both of us. Mine is mesh vest in a bright highway-worker yellowy-green, so I wear it in daylight as well. I wear safety glasses and a helmet, despite research that I recently came across that says bike helmets may not protect you in an accident.

Ranger has put in about 70 miles on the bike tow leash and has had a lot of fun with it. I've taken him across the dam where I live. The walkway there is narrow and has a barrier to keep you away from cars. The flexibility of the bike tow leash has allowed him to safely drop behind my rear tire in this situation. On days when it hasn't been pouring rain I take Ranger out. Of course, since it's not pouring, there are squirrels and rabbits all over. He hasn't been able to pull me over to get to them, and can't get around my front tire to get to the ones on our right as we ride by. This has definitely been a good purchase.

On the weight pull front, I purchased and assembled a wheeled cart for Ranger's weight pull training. It rolls pretty well and he shouldn't have any trouble pulling it for his qualifying weight (on wheels it's 8x his body weight for a qualifying pull and 10x for his CH and All Star points). Right now it's still so hot out that he'll only give me a couple of good pulls with little weight on it before he quits, so I have to start back at much lower weights (probably even an empty cart) to build up his confidence to keep pulling even when you have to put some effort into it.The house I live in came with a large pile of bricks behind it--about 800# by my estimates. This will be plenty for Ranger to practice on. I don't expect him to ever need to pull much more than that. He has moved about 1000# on rails before, but decided it was too hard (after almost a full 16-feet pull) so he stopped and barked at me. This is what I'm trying to avoid by building up his confidence.

This cart has a 1200# capacity (I don't know the weight of the cart itself, but it's over 50#). I used 1400# test vinyl-coated metal rope for the traces. I clip him in using a screw-gate carabiner. I tied down the steering mechanism, but am still having some trouble keeping it from moving around, so it sometimes doesn't track very straight. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve that, please let me know in the comments section.

PCT Hiker Meals on the Cheap

uberpest — Sun, 09 May 2010 18:27:35 -0400

WalletPop.com had two of their reporters (Adam Kaufman and his girlfriend, Katie Lorah) go to a bulk food store to stock up on supplies to fill drop boxes on their Pacific Crest Trail hike.

Note: for some reason the embedded video doesn't show in the RSS feed. It works fine after the click through.

Related Article: Drop Box Planning

Continued conditioning

uberpest — Sun, 09 May 2010 18:16:08 -0400

I've been stepping up Ranger's conditioning over the past several weeks. Compared to how he looked a month ago I can see some genuine muscle development. In the past month his chest has expanded 1.5" in diameter. From two weeks ago his top speed sprinting alongside my bike has increased by ~~0.3~~ 1.8 mph (to 19.7 mph--and he still had more to give me). His average speed is now 12.8 mph over 2-3 miles. When I give him a drag weight to pull on the trail he isn't nearly as tired when we get back to the house as he was even two weeks ago. His feet are much tougher. It's really cool to see all of this happen.

Now, if I could do something with his ears....

In all, I'm really impressed by this little dog-he's really coming into his own now that's he's coming up on his second birthday. He's done everything I've asked him to, so he's definitely earned his place. He hasn't saved my butt yet (in the way that Lucy and Beau each did at some point) but he hasn't been put in that position, either. With any luck he won't be.

While on the trail or biking I've been working on his commands. He's really good with "let's go!", "gee" and "haw." His "whoa," "on-by," and "settle" need work. His "stay" is still virtually non-existent. I've been teaching the directions by repeating the command every time we make a turn. He's catching on well enough that I can get him to turn the correct direction when we are at a trail crossing.

Summer Training

uberpest — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:41:36 -0400

I found this great blog about small dog team training. There is great info on skijoring, scootering, and bikejoring.

I've owned a bikejoring setup for several years, but have never had a dog that was the right dog to train with it. I haven't tried it with Ranger yet but may this season just to see what will happen. I'd also like to try canicross with him since he's done well with something similar (running in a pack while tied to my waist via a bikejor line). I have a good (not excellent) mountain bike, but am seriously out of shape. This could be continued incentive to get off my butt and exercise.

I also very much want to invest in the Pawtrekker Freetail. I say this because somewhere in the back of my head I am still going to try a dryland dog race. If I do ever get one of these (or even one of the lower-end models) it will be a while as I have various bills that take precedence to my wants--such as car payments and brake jobs. I know it's just the thing for me because it comes in bright orange.

Canine Health Records

uberpest — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:04:14 -0400

Since I got back from Louisiana a few weeks ago I've had: minor injury (Ranger), major illness (Beau), minor illness (me), and another minor injury (Ranger again).

This got me thinking: I used to keep pretty good records of the dogs' physical fitness. A good physical exam is often the only way to know if a dog is making progress in a training/conditioning program, or the first sign that something is really wrong with him or her. You can do a basic exam at home.

I put together a simple chart for tracking your dog's health between vet visits. It has a line at the top to record the dog's name, Date of Birth, color/markings and gender. The chart itself has room to record the date, the dog's weight, heart rate (very useful for a conditioning program), and there's room for notes, such as vaccinations received, routine grooming (nail trimming, teeth cleaning), changes in diet, medications given, changes in conditioning, or warning signs such as wounds, vomiting, or diarrhea.

This makes it easier to keep track of how each dog is doing at home, plus it can help your vet with various details that you may have forgotten by your next trip.

Trail Mix #1

uberpest — Sun, 02 May 2010 13:17:12 -0400

One of my favorite Trail Mix recipes:

1/2 c. Dried cranberries
1/2 c. Golden raisins
1/4c. Peanuts
1/4c. Cashews
1/4c. Almonds
1/4c. White chocolate chips
1/4 c. Semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 c. Peanut butter chips

Serving size: 1/4 cup. Number of servings: 10. Calories per serving: 165.

Weekend fun and stress

uberpest — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:12:55 -0400

I just got back from a UKC dog show in Wapakoneta, OH. While we were there Ranger earned two more competition wins toward his GRCH title. He just needs one more to finish that title! He also comes home with 4 Top Ten points from the weekend. Ranger needs to get some more muscle, so we'll be using the bike leash and weight pull harness a LOT over the next few months. That was the fun part of my weekend.

The not-so-fun part actually started a week ago. Beau worked through his cow knuckle very quickly, which caused problems with his GI tract. Long (and TMI heavy) story later, Beau passed the last of an impaction caused by an overdose of cow knuckle. He is much better now and will be on electrolyte replacer for a few more days to make sure he's well hydrated and so all the last little bits in his system can dissolve. It turns out that Beau, unlike Ranger, will eat all the meat off the bone then eat the bone itself in just a matter of hours. Ranger, on the other hand, will eat all the soft bits and take 2-3 weeks to work on the bone. Lesson learned: Beau doesn't get any more chew bones like that.