Freezing Fog

I grew up in the Los Angeles and the Dallas area.  Outside of the occasional dreadful ice storm in Dallas, neither region is known for its winter weather. 

Eastern Washington has an honest-to-god actual winter.  Ameliorated by being within a few hundred miles from a honkin’-big body of water (the Pacific Ocean)  our Palouse winters don’t hold a candle to, say, North Dakota, but it has taken a while for this former Texican to sort of get used to multiple variations of frozen water.  There’s snow, of course, which comes in a lot more varieties than seem possible, from big wet sticky flakes that glue themselves to the leaves of the old spruce tree near our house and bring branches down to graupel, also known as soft hail.  Look it up on Wikipedia, ‘cause graupel isn’t the topic of the day.  Freezing fog is. 

Winter has been incredibly snow-free so far. I see on the news that the east and mid-west are getting their full dose of winter this year.  We had a spell of bitter cold in early December and a single day when we had about 5 inches of accumulated snow.  Since then, most of the snow has stayed east of the Rockies.  And they are welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned. 

The MLK weekend was so nice, with no significant precip in the forecast for at least a week, I hauled all my ring gates and jumps out of the garage and set everything up in the yard.  Sure did feel great to be outside working with the dogs instead of in the small loft in the garage. 

But back to the freezing fog.  The fog’s been rolling in an out for a couple of days, mostly acting like normal, above freezing, fog.  Last night, the temperature was low enough and the fog heavy enough that it became freezing fog.  The moisture in the fog freezes on trees, fences, and everything else above ground, coating it all with a fuzzy layer of ice crystals.  The fog has stayed all day, with the temperature hovering close enough to freezing that the frost melts away from some surfaces, then returns. 

All in all, this was a pleasant dose of freezing fog.  The surrounding black-soiled farmland was softened to gray.  The noise from the highway a mile from our house was damped out, making our normally quiet country yard even quieter. 

You see, the first time I experienced freezing fog, I was enthralled with the way it turned the world into a soft, quiet stillness.  Outlines of trees and fences are blurred with their fuzzy coating of white.  The green of the conifers and the yellows of the winter stalks of vegetation are muted to grayish. Then, one winter three or four years ago, a winter when we had plenty of snow and the fields were covered with a blanket of white, the freezing fog rolled in.  And stayed. And stayed, and stayed, for nearly two weeks.  White snow, white air, fuzzy white-gray tree branches.  All sound muffled into cold silence.  No wind.  No horizon.  White sky, white ground, light-gray ghostly trees, barely visible across the yard through the heavy fog.  Very cool the first day.  And the second.  By the third day, it had started to get a little old.  After a week, I was feeling like a subject of one of those sensory deprivation experiments, where they put a person in a soundless, dark room on a padded bed, with their hands wrapped in padding so they can’t feel anything.  Those people start hallucinating after a few days.  I was getting there. 

It the years since that long spell of freezing fog, I have gradually come to like the muffling, cold fog again, although in the back of mind is always the possibility it will settle in for a long time.  Today was pleasant.  The fog got thicker all day until the hills outside the yard were blurring.  But, it didn’t bother me, because Weather Underground says it will be bright and sunny tomorrow.

They had better be right.

Resolutions for 2014

For Alder, the poodle boy, who is 7.5 years old

·        Simple: Get those next two Qs in Utility.  I won’t water down the resolution this year with TRY to get the next two Qs.  Alder will be 8 years old in June.  He’s never been the most athletic dog.  If he can’t finish this year, I’m not optimistic about his continuing to be able to jump 24” beyond 2014.  I so often hear the dog training advice “It’s not a race.”  Well, sometimes, it is a race.  The prime of your dog’s life fades to old age far too fast. 

For Maple, the Golden girl, who is 4.5 years old

·        Reliable jumping on mats.  We built a garage this year.  It has enough space to put mats down on the concrete so I could work on Maple’s confidence on mats.  Problem?  We spent too much money on the garage to afford mats. 

·        Last leg of Open.  This goal will be a lot easier if Maple will jump indoors on mats.  If we can only Q on grass, we’ll have a tough time finding enough venues around here.

·        Utility Title.  Probably being too confident thinking I can get all 3 UD legs (especially if we can’t jump on mats!). 

·        Make the OTCH/no OTCH decision.  This year, I think will be the decisive year for the OTCH possibility.  If I hadn’t gotten into hunt training, I’d probably aim for an OTCH, regardless.  Hunt training has opened up an alternative path if the OTCH looks like too arduous a slog.  I’ll persevere through a UD, but I think it’s a make or break year for the OTCH pursuit.  Maple will be 5 years old in June, in the prime of her life.  If her enthusiasm and performance in obedience hasn’t improved by the end of 2014, I’ll likely give up serious pursuit of an OTCH.  I’d rather spend her middle age pursuing something she loves. 

·        Field Work:  Blinds, blinds, blinds.  In 2013, I went to a lot of hunt tests and only a few obedience trials, but I did a heck of a lot of obedience training.  I expect 2014 to be the opposite.  I plan to go to a lot of obedience trials and not many hunt tests, but I plan to train, train, train on handling for blinds.  Ideally, when we do our next hunt test, I want to step up to the line and KNOW the blind will be a piece of cake.  We’ll probably show in a few hunt tests at the Senior level to support the local clubs, but my real goal by the end of the year is to have a dog that can do a 200 yard blind. 

For Me, as a trainer

·        At the start of every training session, have at least one specific weakness to work on, and a specific plan for improvement.  It’s all too easy in training to march through the obedience exercises or do a handling drill without asking yourself what, exactly, did you NEED to work on and did whatever you did actually help.  For example, I know our weaknesses in heeling.  I’m awkward at about turns at a wall or ring gates.  On the first halt in a heeling pattern, my dogs tend to forge ahead.  Etc.  I can go marching through a heeling pattern and not make much improvement, or I can zero in on the awkward about turns in a session.  Or the first halts.  When working on angle backs (field work), I can run through a handling drill in the same spot and in the same way we’ve done it before, knowing Maple will probably do it just fine, OR, I can improve her understanding by adding a little bit of a new challenge each time, by changing the distance between me and her or setting up with a different factor, like up a hillside or through a patch of tall grass.

·        Be more creative about distractions at home.  It’s tough for me to train in town with other people to try to simulate ring conditions better than home.  My annual resolutions to train more often in town don’t make much difference.  I’ll get into town as often as I reasonably can, and probably no more than I have the past few years.  So, instead of resolving to get into town more often than I know I will, I’m resolving to get more inventive about proofing at home. 

·        Keep up my training notes.  I keep my notes – blog posts, trial and test results sheets, training progress scrawls, and email posts – throughout the year in a 3-ring binder. At the end of each year, I bind the notes in a folder.  Last year was an enormously important year for me.  I learned so much about training in obedience at the higher levels.  I learned even more about training for field work.  I regret that I didn’t put more of my thoughts to paper.  My 2013 folder is about a third the thickness of my 2011 and 2012 folders.  At the end of 2014, I want to have a much fuller showing and training folder, and I want it to include plenty of pictures.

 

How did those 2013 resolutions work out?

Well, one of my 2014 resolutions will be to post to this blog more often.  Only 5 posts total in 2013!  However, before I get to 2014, there is taking stock of 2013.  How did those resolutions stack up against reality?

For Alder, the poodle boy

I’ve noticed a trend of becoming more cautious in my goals.  Both Alder and Maple have contributed to that caution, but Alder gets most of the credit.  I was so optimistic about Alder when we first began showing in Open. I remember during one of our first few runs, when I was standing with my fellow handlers commiserating while waiting to be called back during the groups.  One of the handlers was bemoaning how her dog didn’t yet have a leg and it was her 11^th run.  “Cripes,” I thought to myself, “No way will it take us that many runs to get a first leg.”  Glad I didn’t say that out loud.

When Alder and I got our FIRST leg after FIFTEEN runs, I was REALLY glad I hadn’t said that out loud.  When we got our third leg after nearly 2 years of showing and 25 runs, I wasn’t thinking UD.  Any and all UD training had fizzled out long ago as the CDX was looking like a climb up Mt. Everest.  I walked around on cloud 9 for about a week after we finished the CDX in spring 2012, putzing around a little with Rally, thinking about an RAE (and also about how much I dislike Rally), and then I started working on Utility exercises.  At first, it was just a few sends to a paper plate with a treat.  I was training Maple for Utility and Open, so it was no big deal to work on Utility with Alder, too. 

By the beginning of 2013, after about 7 months of training, we had all the exercises more or less roughed out.  My goal in January 2013 was NOT to GET a UD; I am way too cautious for that kind of confidence anymore.  It was to TRY to get closer to a UD.  In my 2013 resolutions, I planned to make Alder’s UD debut in spring 2013.  I backed off that goal and didn’t show him until fall, and not until he had done surprisingly well (to me) in a Grad Open class.  Not a Q, but he’d given me enough confidence to dip a toe into the real thing in fall 2013. 

Alder got his first UD Q at a show in Wenatchee on a sweltering hot day when I expected him to wilt, on only his 3^rd run in Utility.  No one was more astonished than I.  We ran two more times before the end of the fall show season.  We didn’t get another Q, but that first Q made me think Alder, the poodle boy, might be able to pull off that UD after all.

For Maple, the Golden girl

Hard to believe Maple is 4.5 years old.  Maple, Maple, Maple, my brilliant, eager girl with the fatal flaws of hating to ride in a vehicle and be away from home.  She is so smart and so loves training, but only if she doesn’t have to leave home. 

By the beginning of 2013, my hopes of Maple becoming the OTCH dog I’ve wanted for so long had mostly faded away.  She had finished a CD and RE.  I had continued to show in Novice B for a while, trying to tackle her travel anxiety and raise her heeling scores.  That strategy was failing miserably, so I decided to try a few runs in Grad Novice and Open, while focusing mostly on hunt testing and training. 

I showed her only once in spring 2013, for an NQ in Open (for refusing all jumps on mats) and a Q in Grad Novice, which was outside on grass. She jumps on grass, but not on mats.  (We virtually never have the chance to train on mats.)  We worked on the jumping, but also aimed for outdoor trials in fall.  She ended the year with two Qs in Open (both outdoors on grass) and blew the Q in the last trial of the year on her most reliable exercise, the Drop on Recall.  She had an attack of sniffing and totally forgot what she doing, standing up and intently sniffing while I was waiting for the judge to give the recall signal.  Oh, well, I knew the sniffing in the ring was becoming an issue and it was a kick in the pants reminder that I needed to deal with it.

But the weirdest thing?  At the fall obedience shows, Maple was a whole lot less stressed than she had ever been.  I had changed a couple of things about our warm-up routine.  I quit giving any treats before we entered the ring and I quietly played tug with her before we went in, instead of doing heel exercises.  But, while those changes seemed to help her attitude in the ring, I don’t think they were responsible for her better attitude about traveling.  It was more like she finally crossed some mental line.  Maturity?  Better attitude towards traveling because of the hunt training? 

I don’t know, but the dying ashes of OTCH hope have gotten a little puff of oxygen again.  Her Open scores weren’t OTCH scores, but I can deal with training issues better than anxiety issues.  So, with some slightly revived glimmer of hope, we shall see how things go in 2014.

Hunt training was the other part of the 2013 Maple goals.  I wanted to finish her beginning hunt titles (the NAHRA SR title and the AKC JH title) in 2013, which we did.  I thought she might be capable of finishing the mid-level titles as well.  I was overly optimistic with that goal.  With a more experienced trainer, I believe she could easily be at the Master level (highest hunt test level), but we are both in the learning process with hunt training.

Maple brings back her duck at a hunt test in Carnation, Washington in August

 

For myself and both dogs

·        2013 Resolution 1:  Make time to play during training, especially when the exercise is difficult, and especially with Alder, who responds well to playing.

Result: I’d give myself about a B grade on this resolution.  I slacked off on the play towards the end of the year as the days got colder and darker and I rushed to get through training.  Playing takes more time than feeding a treat.  Alder showed increasingly less enthusiasm.  I recognized the error of my ways and started making the time to play.  He perked up.

·        2013 Resolution 2: Work on the things we need to work on, not the things that make me feel good because the dog already knows them.

Result: About a B+ on this.  I’m getting better, but could still be more inventive in pushing the dogs a little instead of being lazy and zipping through a few easy things when I’m tired.

·        2013 Resolution 3: When in doubt, simplify.

Result: About a C+.  When I think I’m getting better, I backslide and throw something too advanced at the dog, and then, instead of immediately scaling back, keep persevering until my dog is too stressed.  Kind of the opposite of the prior Resolution, and more likely to be a issue in hunt training, where I’m less experienced at knowing what to expect my dog to be able to do.

·        2013 Resolution 4: Make the effort to take the dogs into town to train in different places more often.

Result: About a C.  I just find myself too busy on the weekends to load training equipment and go into town.  Saved myself from a D by showing up at a few group sessions with fellow training group members. 

·        2013 Resolution 5: When training with a group, TRAIN, don’t test.

Result: I give myself an A on this goal.  I rarely let myself fall into the testing mode anymore in a group.  (Yeah!  One personal goal accomplished.)

 

And now….On to 2014.