8/30/2014

Box Transformation







sidi larbi chekaoui and anthony gormley
表現力やシンプルな箱の移り変わりに感動しました。
時間があったらどうぞ!

I'm amazed by their expression by the transformation followed by simple boxes.
If you have a time, have a look :) 

8/25/2014

Hasting Trial, Beach and Spring!





Finally Spring has come to Melbourne :) we had a lovely day at Agility trial near our favorite beach~ It was 21 Degrees, blue sky with just perfect temperature for running agility and walking on the beach.   No luck from agility trial, but Niah and I did satisfied runs in Ex-Agility.  
Running contact got it! just small mistakes by me! 

メルボルンに春がきたよー 週末は21℃と本当に暖かくていい天気!おまけに私達の一番のお気に入りのビーチのすぐ近くでアジリティトライアルがあったので、トライアルでは結局クリアラン出来なかったけど、ランニングコンタクトもミスしなかったし、 総合的に私の小さなハンドリングミスのみだったので 大満足(笑)
次頑張ろうっ

8/21/2014

O/E online course summery

The last 3 month, I've learn agility from Jouni & Isabelle, Finnish/Swedish coach.  Advanced and " real running" course! It was really fun!  so much fun :)
More to come on next course

3ヶ月間のJouniのオンラインコース、楽しかった ♥
次もがんばります

8/12/2014

Sheep herding 1st lesson at Driving force working dog club!






 
We are finally back in sheep herding last weekend!
It has been 2.5 years since we stopped herding lesson.
This time, we are attending to another working sheep club for
2 reasons:

  • Koto's confident building:  Work on her reactive behavior to dogs and animals, We want to build her confidence and connection to us. 
  • Perhaps, start sheep herding trail with Niah next year.  This herding club has own trial using ISDS trail form, which is very exciting.  Always good to have something to work for and achievement.

Our new school was excellent, environment, teaching method and instructors are all great.  Instruction fee was very cheap for this environment too. We will be working on both in small pan to teach basic commands and learn what handler will do! 
Then, also take them to paddock, so that dog will learn how to bring sheep back to us. 
We did trail assessment day, both Koto and Niah had a 4 go in the pan and paddock. 
We are happy with what they have done, Specially Niah has good instinct of herding sheep in calmly.  Koto is more likely for moving a large mob of stock. 
Hope her barking and running will be less and she will figure out what to do, and not to waste her energy too much. But most important things for her is "life lesson" through sheep herding.  She is not really suitable for sheep herding... but we believe her timid, reactive, and anti-social behavior will improve!
Lets find out!

2年半ぶりにハーディングへ行ってきました。ずっと前から行ってみたかった学校のトライアルレッスンへ参加したのですが、凄ーく良い学校で驚きました。環境、先生のインストラクション、それにカリキュラムが素晴らしい。ペンの中での練習だけでは犬は右回り、左回りマテやステディなどのコマンドくらいしか学ばないのでフィールドでのレッスンと平行して行います。
そして何と言っても犬は本能で動けるのですが、その本能を操る為の”ハンドラーのレッスン”をまずしっかり行ないます。羊の性格や動き方、ファーマーにとっては基本的な事なのかもしれませんが、都会でペットのボーダーと暮らす私達には解ないのです。 
犬なしで3頭の羊をどうやって動かすのか? 100頭の羊はどうやって動かすのか? 
そんなレッスンから始めいきます。
来年はこのクラブ主催のハーディングトライアルも行なわれる予定なのでそれに向けて
これから月に2回ペースでレッスンして行く予定です。
 
今回のハーディングのレッスンへ戻って来た目的は二つ。
  • 琴に自信をつけさせて、犬へのアグレッション、動物へのリアクションを 減らす事。マナーを学ばせる、それから私達とのもっと深いコネクションを築く事。
  • ニアとトライアルをやってみる事。 
とってもジェントルマンなニア君は静かに羊を動かせます。それに最近の公園での行動をみていると、遠距離の羊を動かせるのではないかと思い、やってみる事にしました。
反対に良く吠える、スピードをつけてどんどん追いかける琴は100頭とか大きな群れの牛 や羊を動かす力を持っています。でも 正直、羊追い向きの犬ではありません。
無駄にエネルギーを消耗している、まだ一体なにをしていいのか解っていない。。
とにかく琴はハーディングよりもマナーを学ばせる事と自信を付ける事が一番大切なのです。 ゆっくりやっていきます!




8/06/2014

Searching for snow Day-2

Sunday, we drove about 2.5 hrs to search more snow in the mountain!
I mean, a real decent snow! 
And yes, we definitely found amazing amount of powder snow, perfect spot for us to enjoy snow hiking!

Koto and Niah just love it running back and force with full speed with the happiest smile!  It was priceless to watching them running so happily :)
How could you imagine to fine a pure powder snow in Australian bush?

Unfortunately, we couldn't climb to the summit, there was fox baits sign on the road.. We didn't wanted risk our self from koto and Niah accidentally eating baits...
But we still enjoyed so much! We did hike another mountain road for about one hour!
We also saw an amazing water fall on the way there! 
Here are koto and Niah's happiest smile!!

日曜日は更に雪を探しにうちから 2.5時間ドライブして山へ入りました。
雪と言っても 先日の雪とは違って、この日は積雪量の多い標高1400の山へ行ったので フカフカの パウダースノーが見れました。
もう琴とニアは大興奮‼︎

途中、倒れた木で道がふさがっていたけど、無理矢理山へ入って来てちょっと心配だったし、頂上へ行く道は キツネの数を減らす為にフォックスベイトを撒いたばかりで
入れなかったりだったけど、遠くまで足を運んで良かった〜 途中で滝も見れたよ!
(フォックスベイト:生肉の塊を道路脇などに置いて仕掛けていることが多いのです。強力な毒で 犬も食べれば直ぐに死んでしまいます。オーストラリアは外来種のキツネ、ウサギ野生の猫の数が増えてしまいネイティブバードの数が減ったりと生態に影響が出て来ているのでこうやってコントロールしています。)







  


8/05/2014

Searching for Snow -Mt. Macedon hike -easy climbing for 1.45hrs-









War memorial on top of Mt.Macedon






This year, Australian Alps/mountain above 1400m has a lot of snow! 
Its not usual, we very rarely see this much snow! 
In fact, I haven't seen snow in Australia at all and Koto & Niah never seen snow yet. So it was exciting idea to take them to snow mountain hike! We decided to find some snow near from Melbourne last weekend.

Saturday, We climb to the top of Mt Macedon.  Mt Macedon has many roads, tracks and narrow paths for hiking and we've been here quite a lot for day hike.
Its very easy forest mountain and took us just one hour to climb up. 
Not much snow but still had a bit on around summit!
It's very popular mountain, so after many people walk on the mountain with snow, foot path was just turned into muddy! so we had very dirty dogs! but they had a great time running around the forest off lead! 

今年は珍しくオーストラリアの山でもかなりの積雪量となっています。
こっちに引っ越して来て8年経ちますが雪を見た事はなかったし、なんといっても
琴とニアは雪を見たことがないので、メルボルンの近くの雪山にハイキングに行く事にしました。
土曜はメルボルンから1時間半程の近場、低めの山マウントマセドンへ行ってきました。
頂上までは1時間と優しいハイキングコースです。
近場なので人気のハイキングコースで足場は人が沢山入ったせいかドロドロ。。
琴ニア、今晩はシャンプーですね。。でも人の少ない頂上付近ではオフリードで思いっきり森のなかを走らせる事ができたので二匹とも大満足!
足冷たくないのかなぁ〜。
とにかく楽しそうだったので◎
 

8/01/2014

Front Cross 90° turn v.s. 180° turn

レッスン3はジャンピングコース
以下に書き出したハンドリングを含むとぉぉぉーっても難しいコース。。
でも練習してみたらようやくタイミングと身体の動かし方が解って来ました。
それにしてもJouni さんのフィードバックはいつも細かい所まで丁寧に説明して貰えて
本当に勉強になる!熱心で完璧主義者のJouniと私の動きが遅くても身体が柔らかくてタイトターンが出来るニアのお陰で 随分このコースは楽しい♥のです

それにしても洗濯物干さえ無ければもう少しマシなコース設営が出来るのですがねぇ。。
どうにかしたいなぁ〜。。

そしてもう一つどうにかしたいのはフロントクロス!今回ヨゥニに詳しいフロントクロスのステップバイステップを指導してもらいました。Classic Aussie style front crossから抜け出して Stylish European front crossが出来る様になるぞぉ。

I need to improve my Front cross! I just received Online class, Lesson3's feedback from Jouni :) His feed back is always great advice with small detailed explanation, always talk about position, timing, tempo, and how to improve what am I currently doing  :) 
This lesson3, we had 
  • Double Blind Cross
  • Tandem turn
  • Forced Front Cross
  • Ketshker
  • Front Cross
I'm really happy with having a incredibly generous and perfectionist coach 
AND super flexible with tight turn dog Niah with decent speed! (Not too speedy!)
They are just perfect to me :) 

Wish we don't have that Clothing line in the center!! But well, better than not trying it and we love it:)
I really want to stop doing "Classic Aussie style front cross" with too much steps and spinning, I am mastering this "very efficient/stylish European front cross" with minimal 1-2-3 steps. 
Okay! Can't wait to practice Front cross and report back to Jouni! 





















Feedback comment:
-->
Obstacles 1-5
There is really no time difference between the two options here and this is good. Some dogs have better speed when doing alot of blind crosses but Niah has good speed no matter the option so you can just choose the one that feels best.

The timing is tricky with the blind crosses. The first time your second cross is too early and you can see how quickly Niah reacts to that and takes jump number 3 form the wrong side. The second time you are starting to find the timing but you kind of forget to keep on moving towards the next jump. It tells alot of your own timing when you look at Niah´s route from number 3 to jump number 4. There´s still a litlle hesitation between the jumps when you do the blind crosses for the third time but the fourth and last time your crosses are very well timed and Niah has good speed throughout the sequence. You also have enough distance to easily handle jump number 4 where you had some troubles before. One more thing is your own movement which is really good as well - you are really running fast yourself cause you no longer have to focus so hard on the blind crosses as they start to come more naturally. Very nice work

Obstacle 4-20
Great job with the tandem turn after the weaves. The problem in the beginning - at least for most of us - is once again the timing of the movement. Either you start the movement too early and the dog also comes out too soon or you are late and the dog turns towards you. But you really got it working quickly, very nice!

The first time you are late and since Niah is not yet familiar with the move she turns towards you like she has always done before after the weaves. The second time your timing is better and Niah now turns the right way but there is still some improvement to do so that you will be on time at jump number 10. The third time the tandem turn looks even better but stil you have problems in making it to number 10 or Niah at least does a bit wide turn after the jump. Remember that you should start the tandem turn as Niah enters between the third and the second last weave poles. This when you quickly turn towards her and continue moving back where you came from. Right now you are slowing down  or almost stopping before you continue moving so try not to do that and and start running even quicker!

On the third last jump (what would be jump number 18) you turn really early towards Niah and run backwards using only your opposite hand to point the obstacle. Now Niah gets insecure and is almost going for the tunnel (your body actually points towards the tunnel here). Sow instead of running backwards you should again time your movement so that you are moving forward until Niah is committed to the jump. In fact you don´t have to take more than one step backwards when you do the front cross here. Think that you do the front cross using 3 steps. The first step is a step towards the jump (in this case with your left foot). With this step you are sending Niah to the jump and your left hand is guiding her towards it. The second step is s tep backwards parallel to the jump. Here is when you the tempo change to make her collect before the jump. At this point you are also turning your upper body towards the dog. The dog side hand is still guiding the dog but also the opposite hand is turned towards the dog ready to take over. The third step is again a step forward with the left foot towards the next obstacle. At this point you have dropped the left hand the right hand has taken over and guides the dog towards the next jump.

Since Niah mostly has tight turns I think that doing the fcs this way will work good with her and you can avoid the kind of hesitation that you had now at jump number 18. Try it.

Eventually both the fc at jump 18 and the ketschker before the tunnel work really well. But as with the fc you need to be careful not to do the ketschker too early before the tunnel cause this might cause her to turn away from it. On the other hand she will become more familiar with the movement as you do more repetition and you will be able to anticipate the movement more.


Here is my Summery, After reading Jouni's comment
How to improve Front Cross 90° turn: 
From Jouni's explanation
(images are from OMD's video to visualize it)


1. The first step is a step towards the jump.  With this step you are sending dog to the jump and your right hand is guiding her towards it.
2. The second step is step backwards parallel to the jump. Here is when you the tempo change to make her collect before the jump. At this point you are also turning your upper body towards the dog. The dog side hand is still guiding the dog but also the opposite hand is turned towards the dog ready to take over.
3. The third step is again a step forward with the Right foot towards the next obstacle. At this point you have dropped the Right hand the right hand has taken over and guides the dog towards the next jump.
 

Push Back Front Cross
180° turn
Jump No.7

Front Cross Feet movement is drawing Triangle shape
Dog leading foot (on this picture left foot) STEP INTO THE JUMP, Direct dog to push back position
Then ONE STEP backward, PARALLEL to jump with other foot
(Larger step than 90° turn to get away from dog's line)
And then, the dog leading foot is now is looking towards to next obstacle direction
  Moving towards to next obstacle