Tuesday, April 24, 2007

CAWA State Titles Wrap Up

So last weekend (Friday night and Saturday) was the CAWA State Agility titles. For such a small state we had a good entry of over 500 runs across the two trials. Friday evening went well for me. I had Cypher in Open Jumping first up and he did a nice run for a 9th place out of 17 qualifiers. Next up I ran Dexter in Excellent Jumping, he dropped a couple of bars so we withdrew. Then I had Raven in Open Jumping – she was well on track for a placement when I stuffed her up not being certain enough with indicating a jump to do (already thinking about the tunnel after it!) and I caused her a refusal. Other than that it was a great run. Next was Raven in Masters Agility, I didn’t make my call sound firm enough or give it early enough for the seesaw and she came off it early. This was our only fault on a challenging course. Next up was Rumour in open jumping and she gave me a great run and handled everything really well. She liked the cool air I think! She ended up in around 12th spot. Next was Cypher in Masters Agility, I didn’t hold much hope as this course was tough for a boy who likes to pick his own way sometimes. However with much holding of contacts and keeping right on him the whole way round we made it home clear! That gave us our sixth masters pass in agility so one more to go for his ADM. He came in at 13th spot (which didn’t surprise me I handled very conservatively and with extra time on the contacts).
Next it was onto Masters Jumping and Open Agility. I ran Rumour first up in Open Agility and with one tiny blip she was happy and running on beautifully and we came in clear and seventh! Which meant she had made it into a final for Saturday afternoon, both her owner Andrea and I were very pleased. Raven was first up in Open Agility. We ran a cracker of a run and she held her contacts (she wasn’t feeling her usual self) and gave me time on the seesaw to get into a good position. We ended up winning the class and she had a spot in the final. Cypher was next in Masters Jumping, and I think I had a suspicion when I did my lead out that things would go pear shaped. He lay down and started being really interested in the grass in front of his paws. I tried to get him to sit but he just looked at me. I talked to him though to get his focus and when I had it I released him. We got halfway round the course and up to a box up the top of the course when he decided not to rear cross when I crossed behind him telling him “Turn” and ran out towards a tyre, a good 6 meters away. At which point I yelled “Come” and he kind of hesitated slightly and then literally looked like he thought “Ahh well I’m here now may as well do this tyre” and jumped through it! I didn’t yell or call him names or even stamp my feet. I stopped dead, looked at him and walked off towards the exit. I said thanks to the judge to let her know I was withdrawing and left with Cypher on lead with no tugging. We went just about straight from that ring into Open Agility where he was completely switched on and didn’t put a paw wrong and we came out and had the best tug game going. He went clear for a fifth place which put him in the final as well! Weird how these young male BC minds work I tell ya! Next was Raven in Masters Jumping, again we were going great guns and I failed to realise that a call was required to get her to take a jump. One of the few occasions when I should have *not* kept my mouth shut. She ran past it, we got a refusal and the rest was fine. *Sigh*
So at the end of the night Cypher had three passes, in both Opens and Masters Agility, Raven had a first in Open Agility and Rumour had two passes in both Opens plus a spot in a final! Very pleased also very proud of how Raven ran considering she was feeling somewhat distracted.
Why? Well Raven as you may have read before is an atopic dog. She sleeps with a bucket on at night and whenever we cannot watch her or have her in the same room as us. She has a special home made extenda-bucket which lengthens the depth of the bucket otherwise we find she can get round the normal size bucket. In a bid to find a better solution we ordered in two Bite-Not collars from the US. They came last week on Tuesday. We trialled the collar on her for 4 hours on Tuesday while we went out, Tuesday night, Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday during the day and it would seem that it was working. We knew if she wanted to she could still get to her tail but it seemed like she was not bothered enough by it to try. I was wrong. She spent all Thursday night and Friday morning chewing on her tail and I woke up to her on Friday morning with just this huge mass of hair all knotted up and chewed away from the skin and a sticky weeping, hotspot just about the length of her tail on the underside. I put her straight in the tub, clipped away the knotty hair and pyohexed it clean. Needless to say she was not too happy Friday night, but when we had our runs she forgot about her troubles for a while. It was still sticky on Saturday but I had kept it clean and she was on antibiotics for it, I knew it was starting to heal.
Saturday had more hard luck stories than I knew what to do with! First run up was Cypher and he was really switched on and we ran a nice smooth course for a clear round, our JDO2 and a seventh place which gave us a spot in the final. Next up was Dexter in Excellent Jumping and we made it through just about the whole course when he knocked the bar of the spread on the second last obstacle home. Bugger! It would have been fun to run him in the final! Next up was Raven in Masters Agility, it was a testing course and stuffed it near the beginning, think I took my eyes off her for half a millisecond and she was putting her paws on a wrong obstacle. From there she went into Open Jumping and I thought we had nailed this course but it seemed that I didn’t run on to finish strong enough because she did the last obstacle (the broad jump) and the judge was calling “Clear” when she looked across and saw the first plank of the broad had been tipped. Double Bugger!!! Next up was Rumour and she did a funny weird Rumour moment, she refused the first jump…she does that from time to time. We’re not sure why but Andrea said she was definitely feeling hormonal with a phantom pregnancy going on. Then I had Cypher in Masters Agility and this I handled even more conservatively than Friday night! This would have been his title pass! So we get to the end of the dogwalk, he is in his contact position four on the floor, I’m telling him to wait, we only have about 6 obstacles to go. I go over to the tunnel entry (there were three possible tunnel entries to take) I release him to the tunnel entry and he goes straight past it into the next tunnel entry….ARGH!!!! I could’ve cried! All the time holding the contact just so I can make doubly sure of the tunnel entry and we still get it wrong. Triple double bugger!
As a friend said “We need to put those moments in a ball and just throw it away!” She’s right but my problem is my ball isn’t big enough!!!
So onto the next two courses Open Agility and Masters Jumping. Cypher runs in Open Agility and does quite well but missed the distance challenge which I wasn’t too worried about, I worked his contacts really well and got some good weaving out of him. In Masters Jumping I again have a ball throwing moment when I just let go of Raven’s focus a touch too early releasing her into a wrong tunnel entry…everything else perfect and she hasn’t yet dropped a bar all weekend. *Sigh*. Cypher’s in Masters Jumping next and apparently I left my “Come” call way too late and he went into the *same* wrong tunnel entry. I’m absolutely convinced if I had run a third dog on that course I would have got it spot on! Then the last run before the finals was Raven in Open Agility. Virtually the last dog to compete. You know I wish I could just record some feelings and moods completely onto my ipod and just replay them back over me at trials, letting them wash into me so to speak. I went to that line with absolutely no expectations, she had qualified for the final already, she had won it last night and right then she felt a bit flat (no doubt due to the highly irritating hotspot) I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had knocked a couple of bars. I got on the line, judge said “Go when you’re ready” I lead out, turned back to her when I got to my spot and then just grinned for the sheer hell of it and released her and we were off. She again held her contacts and I ran like I meant it (which is not to say flat out fast as I could but with absolute determined purpose) and we finished clear and in second place. Our run from the night before was obviously better but I remember this one more simply because of that feeling I had before the run. I remember thinking as we finished and I ran back to the car with her to jackpot her that I really wish I could recreate that feeling every time I was on the line with her at a trial. I definitely will try, it will take complete practice and many, many repeated attempts but I’m sure I can get to that ‘place’ again in my head if I really tried. It shall be a goal of mine for the next couple of weekends and not one that I will necessarily talk about with others as I don’t think it needs voicing. Not sure if that makes any sense.
Anyway onto the afternoon’s finals – Cypher was first in Open Jumping, it was a nice course and a couple of our top dogs had run clear on it, there were no qualifying certificates to go for so I decided to run flat out with him and see where it got me. With it being the accepted understanding that all dogs run faster if you run with them I decided to try and push him a bit for speed. We were doing great until a slight miscommunication about a tunnel entry but other than that he was a good boy and quite switched on for a Saturday afternoon after so many runs. He responded well to the challenge of me handling him like he was a super fast dog and was not too far behind at all. He also did a great set of weaves facing straight into the sun so I was very pleased with that. Next final was the Open Agility – this got a bit tricky as I had Rumour, Raven and Cypher in it! With only 14 dogs in the whole class there wasn’t a lot of room to separate them with! Rumour went a bit funny on me again and refused the first jump. I started again because I don’t want her thinking she can bail on me like this and then go running to Mum or Dad for sooky hugs. We made it round to the weave poles where she shut down again so then we left, I put her lead back on and gave her quick rump massage (she loves it when I dig my fingers into her fur and give her good rub with my fingers). She didn’t think she was in trouble but she would have also noticed the absence of her jackpot at the end!
Raven was looking more flat than late morning by then (it was around 5pm – she’d been up since 6am and without a good night’s sleep!) so I wasn’t expecting her usual speed so I got a bit caught out when she hit the dogwalk and decided to blast through and do her usual speedy running contact! It caused us to have a very wide turn to the next jump and then the aframe which then flummoxed me enough to forget my plan and I moved in on her aframe contact way too much which caused us to stuff up the distance challenge part. She then dropped a couple of bars. We kept going though because I knew she was tired and pissed off and distracted and I didn’t want to add the downer of not finishing a course to her mood. She nailed the seesaw and did the last three jumps very nicely to finish the course. She got her treats and went back to the car pretty chuffed with herself. I didn’t disenchant her of this and told her she was a pretty fantastic dog who was an absolute star for me this weekend. So all in all the only real major bummer of the weekend was her tail and the fact that she was bothered by it bigtime. There was really only a few things I could do for her, make sure she got antibiotics into her for the pyoderma, keep the hotspot clean and when we were not out and about have her lie down with the desk fan on it cooling it off and drying it out and applying neocort cream. I was really impressed however with the fact that even feeling a bit flat she was still racking up very competitive times.
So it has totally dried out by now (Tuesday night) and she is not as bothered by it now as she was. It’s scabbing over nicely and there is no sign of infection. However the vet did end up clipping the hair off properly. I know these things heal better without any stupid hair sticking to them but I still think he went a bit OTT with the clipper. He left the white tip on but the rest is shaved virtually to the base. To be frank it looks ridiculous and I think (being totally anthropomorphic here probably) she is slightly embarrassed by it. Although it is healing and ok to touch now and you can handle the tail she still insists on wrapping it around her back legs (either left or right) and keeping it well and truly clamped to her butt. Poor little girl. It is going to take a while before it looks even slightly normal…and I doubt that will be by Nationals! I’d show pics of it but I have this vague sense of feeling like a betrayer to her if I did that…weird I know but she really does have an expression of horror on her face when she catches a glimpse of it in her peripheral vision. She even jumped slightly in fright once when it swung round on her. I think the sight was an unexpected one. She has started to wave it around a bit more lately as she felt better – she now employs it again in her bossing of Spryte and in the chasing away of the cat next door or any errant birds that happen to land in our backyard. So she is coming to grips with her near naked tail look. Either way I am grateful that it is something that is external and can heal relatively fast and she can still do everything she usually does. We leave in a few days now, still a heap to sort out and try and organise. Sounds like it is going to be huge – there are over 3,200 runs scheduled not including the finals and the teams events. This weekend coming up there is 600 runs Saturday and 800 runs Sunday. I like the sounds of those numbers. It means plenty of space between the dogs so I can really warm them up and cool them down properly. It will be great to catch up with all those from the last two nationals, I’m looking forward to getting my annual agility fix overload bigtime!

Sunday, April 22, 2007

CAWA State Agility Titles 2007

Here are some photos of the dogs....update later, too busy recovering from my 25 odd runs...we did have a win though!

Cypher seesaw - his last run of 8.

Cypher weave poles





All Cypher Jump shots
Raven actually stopping on dogwalk contact - not feeling too well!
Raven A Frame
Raven last jump of the weekend after 8 runs
Cypher tyre

Cypher happy dogwalk
Cypher seesaw

Cypher A frame

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Cypher's Dogwalk...4 on the Floor

Ok had a few queries about Cypher's dogwalk contact - here is a video of it.
http://www.yourdogphotos.com/cy4onfloor.wmv
As you can see when he is going at full speed he ends up with his front legs tucked right under him. This is the only drawback to this behaviour and why eventually I will transfer it to a running contact.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Ok...time to bite the bullet.

I'm going to be brave and finally post a video or two.
These two runs are of Cypher from last night and of Raven from last November (we missed getting her Masters Agility run from last night).
Cypher is doing his Masters Jumping run (4th place) and Raven is doing a Masters Agility run (1st place) and yes I got lucky with that seesaw call, the judge was being very consistent all night with those calls.
Both runs I could have shaved a number of seconds off by handling better in a more than a couple of sections but that's why I love playing this game every weekend I can, the challenge and thrill of running the course in the best way I can.
Why is this brave? Well who knows who will check this out! LOL!! Comments and tactfully worded suggestions/advice shall be readily received!
Cypher's Masters Jumping April 14 2007
Raven's Masters Agility November 11 2006

Raven has a win :-)

Tonight was Perth Training’s Agility and Jumping Trial. We definitely fared a bit better this Saturday than last! Raven was a star again and took 1st place in Masters Agility. It wasn’t smooth sailing in a number of places but her speed compensated for that. We had a brilliant run in Open Jumping apart from the 3rd bar from the end coming down. In Open Agility she kept all bars up I just managed to handle her into a refusal of a jump – my ugly early rear cross move came out. She also managed to miss the distance challenge (easier than last weeks but needing more handling than most people had given it). Masters Jumping was our first run of the night and she was handling like a mack truck on the opening going very wide all over the shop on all the turns, she eventually had a bar down so we stopped, replaced bar and withdrew.
Cypher was like a yoyo tonight – he did a lovely Masters Jumping run first up and was very smooth and surprisingly he ended up with a 4th place (he never feels like he is moving as fast as he could!). I think he is very efficient sometimes, deceptively so.
Next up was Open Agility and I handled a very poor 270 move that failed to execute at all, causing him to treat it like a pull through instead of going round the outside. However he then pulled his same stunt from last week on the weaves! Found the gap just fine on a difficult angle but then just ran straight through the gap past all the poles, now I watched this back on video (yay for Tim the videographer tonight) and there is no reason for what he did. It is quite bizarre. I have to think on this some more and see what to do. He nailed both sets of weaves in Masters Agility and Open Jumping. The entries were easier though so perhaps it is simply the unusual entry angle and I haven’t proofed them enough lately. I shall work on it. In Masters Agility I think he thought – “oh this is the same as the last course I just did” (And the opening did look exactly the same as Open had been nested with Masters) and went straight in the wrong end of the tunnel as Obstacle #2. I took him back and started again, recalling him straight to me then turning him into the tunnel. He then just about tripped me up as he cut me off to do the wrong end of the next tunnel we came across *sigh*. That was quite frustrating I must admit. Nailed the rest of the course quite nicely. His last run was Open Jumping and apart from one wide turn he was extremely responsive and running well. He ended up in 7th place on this one.

I ran Rumour on this Open Jumping course and she ran like a cracker! Unfortunately she just curved in a bit early before going out to a jump and got a refusal but other than that it went very smoothly and rapidly…she was fast tonight. The only other run I had was with the young red and white BC Dexter – I ran him in Excellent Jumping and again it was a lovely smooth run and we came in clear for a 3rd place which his owner Janice was very happy about! Looks like I am handling him at next weekend for the State Titles too so that will be fun.

So no luck on the ADM title front yet for Cypher, still sitting on 2 legs to go. I’m hoping he’s saving it up for the two trials then! Raven is running pretty well right now, I think the swimming has helped her jumping and as long as I can get my directions out clearly enough and early enough (but not too early) we should be right!

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Elephants: 1 Tourists: 0

Yet again I am reminded of the human races' capacity for stupidity.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=57b_1176192902&c=1
When a 7 tonne Bull Elephant *pretends* to charge at you; one would think that would be a rather large clue as to the perilous situation which you currently find yourself in and a very strong hint that perhaps you should extract yourself ASAP?!?!

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Dogs I've had a go with...

I was just thinking tonight about the different breeds I have tried Agility with...either in a very informal way at training or just mucking around or that I have run in trials with..let's see;
Sheltie - Rumour, who I am currently trialling with, who has moments of such drivey brilliance I can see why they are so popular.
GSP - Emmy who I run in Strategic Pairs and anything else her owner Lisa let's me borrow her for...she's such an awesome dog if I had the room I'd seriously consider one!
Corgi
Rottweiler (long time ago, there are no Rotties competing in WA right now)
GSD - had fun there and seriously thinking about training up my parents boy Zeus for some fun.
Irish Terrier
Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever
Labrador Retriever
Kelpie
Whippet
Aussie Shepherd
Golden Retriever
And that's about all I can recall right now. I've always wondered what Large Munsterlanders and Belgian Malinois would be like and also what a BC Whippet might be like! I've also never run a Dobermann and that would be interesting. So many breeds and so many fantastic little crossbreeds out there as well....there is just not enough time in this short life!

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The WA Team for 2007

Inspired by the NZ blog about their team The Pawblacks I have decided to do a little post about the 2007 WA Team representing our State at the ANKC Agility Nationals in Adelaide in around 3 to 4 weeks time. They are called Western Power. Made up of the following members;

Gina and Indie, a 4 year old BC girl who runs at 400, missed the Nationals last year but won the Open Agility final in 2005.
Sue and Nifty, a BC boy who has not long turned 3, won the Open Agility final last year and in 2005 was National Novice Jumping winner.

Kriszty (Team Captain) and Jess, our most experienced team member now representing WA for at least the 4th time, Jess is 8 years old and has won CAWA Agility Dog of The Year a couple of times now.
Kriszty and Terra, a very young BC girl just about to turn 3 years old, started competing in March 2006, who has won at the Classic and won a Novice Agility qualifying class at last year’s National.

Rod and Toby, another very experienced pair, Toby is 7 years old and this is at least his 4th year of selection as a WA team member. Toby won the Masters Agility final at the 2005 Nationals and has also been CAWA Dog of The Year a couple of times.

Cathy and Alex, WA’s first and only Toller to be selected to represent WA at the Nationals, a huge achievement for both Cathy and Alex. One of the most consistently clear round pairs competing Alex (who is 5 years old) has notched up an impressive record also placing on a regular basis.
And that is the WA team...5 BCs plus a Toller. 3 boys and 3 girls ranging in age from just on 3 to 8 years old, all of them capable of brilliance! Go WA!!

Sunday, April 08, 2007

First Day Trial 2007

Cloverdale Canine Companions held the first day trial for the year today and I think my brain overheated with the hot weather and the humidity! Sadly we only had one Q out of 10 runs and I managed one other Q with one of the other dog’s I ran. I also learnt a lesson about not overdoing it the day before a trial with my two, swimming and some equipment work for an hour or so really took it out of them today. Raven felt somewhat slower than usual and Cypher’s muscles were feeling it I believe. His weaving skills also departed around half way through the day. In Masters Agility he was right on track for entering the weave poles until I mistakenly thought I’d have to straighten his line put a ‘Come’ in which he responded to instantly and I ended up putting him into the weavers at the 2nd gap. In Masters Jumping I just let go of his head a bit too early (no I am not physically holding him…I’m talking about that invisible line between your hands and the dog’s head) and he went over an off course jump. In Open Jumping (this was around lunchtime) he lost his weaving skills and we have no idea where they went, I hung back to pull him into a tricky entry and was pleased to see him head straight into the first gap and then dismayed when he ran straight through the gap as if the poles were not even there! Weird! Open Agility class had a rather crazy distance challenge so I ran over the line with him to save the confusion. I’m glad I did there was not one clear round out of 27 dogs entered. However he also got out of sync in the weavers in there and missed a couple. So really Open Jumping was the only one I could wonder what he was thinking instead of me knowing that I was definitely responsible!
Raven had a brilliant day herself, she kept her bars up in all four runs – she is such a star. Again I messed the weaver entry up in Masters Agility….not the same way I might add! I had realised Cy didn’t need any direction and I had stuffed him up by giving direction so I figured I’d just shut up on this one…turns out Raven needed to know where we were going, she tried to self correct but ended up entering the poles from the wrong side. It was too bad as that was our only fault, it was a really nice run apart from that. In Masters Jumping I completely got myself into the wrong place by running too hard into a pocket and thus caused her to take an off course jump. This is starting to sound familiar! In Open Jumping I changed side when I really didn’t need to causing her to take more off course jumps. In Open Agility in a futile attempt to complete the distance challenge at the end since we had run clear up until this stage I ended up putting her into an off course tunnel. She didn’t care she still got her sausage jackpot at the end of every run and had a heap of fun running the Excellent Gamblers course in the afternoon. I followed my plan right up until about the last three obstacles where I put her over the dog walk in the opposite way to what I had intended thus causing us to lose some time getting to the gamble when the whistle blew. This still gave us a very respectable 2nd place for which I was extremely grateful for! I also ran Rumour for a 3rd place and her title in Novice Gamblers. Cypher could not do one set of weaves in the opening sequence and instead of changing my plan instantly to make up for this I stupidly attempted them at least three more times before giving up and going straight to the contacts, hence we were 6 points short in the Opening sequence however he did the four poles in the gamble section beautifully of course! Suchis the humour of the agility pixies or fairies (see the Editorial in the latest Clean Run Magazine).
So we went home tired, hot, sweaty but not completely without any passes, and hey a chance to run Agility all day is fine by me! We now wait till next Saturday night to trial again at Perth Training’s event. I have included some pics below of the dogs from today since Tim was able to get out and take some pics again. Also a really nice story from today’s trial is about Stoli’s debut, read about Stoli here and you’ll know what I mean. She had a go at Novice Jumping and didn’t do too bad at all! I have included a couple of Tim’s pics of her below.
The Raven Dog Walk - only 1.8 seconds today, feeling a bit tired *g*
But still completely reckless and irresponsible of me
allowing her to move
at over 6mps on this obstacle!
Again with the speed thing!
Cypher going very well as it was the tyre *before* those weavers!

Stoli - looking pretty as a picture
Stoli's first go at Novice Jumping - she kept all her bars up, it
was just that tunnel shape that stumped her!

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Training

Here's a couple of courses I've come up with in the last week or so.
With the one above I was aiming for challenges in obstacle discrimination (Tunnel/Dogwalk), difficult angle broad jump, and also wanting to work Raven's weakness in collecting, rounding over a jump whilst I'm doing a front cross very close to an upright (obstacles 12, 13 and 14 of the white numbers). The AFrame OR the weavers should be used depending on which obstacle you most need to work on. There was an issues with whether or not you could get a front cross in between 5 and 6 of the white numbers which depended entirely on how much you had to baby sit the difficult tunnel entry. If you couldn't get there and then had to rear cross at 6,7 or 8 you had to take care to keep driving towards 8 otherwise the dog turned in on you. The angle for 10 to 11 (white numbers) was also tricky and with my guys I was having to indicate 11 *before* they took off for 10. There was also a debate about whether you did a front cross after 15 to get the line to the broad or you just did a pivot turn almost with shoulder pull and then a turn back into the dog's line to get them straight over the broad. We think the latter option was quickest.
Set up this jumping course last night. My aims were to work extension into collection (The minimum distance of 4 meters between the following; 3 & 4, 7 & 8, 12 & 13), also to try and work on improving my 'steady' command for when I want her to jump collected *even* if I am driving forward. That one I worked on number 8. There was a difficulty changing the angle of the dog's jump over 9 in order for the dog to be able to take 10 and not 2. I ended up having to give Raven a very firm 'Back" verbal to get this one. There was little choice with the home run 16 through 20. I could not handle it with me being on the inside at all I had to stick to the outside and have her take those jumps on my left. It was a good training session.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Dogs' Perspective Part 2

Just realised after a comment left on my last post that I didn't finish the photo below, I left the other end of the seesaw contact uncoloured and therefore not a true representation of the seesaw. So here is the photo version 2. Is this picture different enough? Maybe I should have another play with this photo and paint some yellow slats onto the dogwalk...it will be interesting if a couple of clubs in WA have a trial of the painted slats solution to see if that works.

Dogs' Perspective

The photo below was taken this morning of a friend's backyard equipment. It is the seesaw and dogwalk side by side taken from the angle of the dog's eye level as it comes out of a tunnel. Now my friend wisely elected to have her dogwalk and seesaw contact areas painted in different colours (the dogwalk has a blue contact area and the seesaw has a yellow contact area). However I have altered this photo so that it looks like what dogs see in trials where both the dogwalk and the seesaw are painted in identical colours. If you took away all the background info you have (seesaw legs don't usually protrude to the side on our trialling seesaws, you can see the dark underside of the dogwalk down ramp etc) as these are details that dogs would not see due to the fact that they are (or should be!) focusing on the up plank; and just tried to really picture it at a dog's view not even going terribly fast; say 2 to 3 meters per second I think you can imagine why some dogs are going up planks thinking they are seesaws when they are dogwalks and vice versa.