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MDSA 2008 Events

Mark Your Calendars!!!

The Capering Canines of Cape Cod are hosting a Musical Dog Sport
Association Live Event in New England.

Dates: Sat. 11/1/08 - Sun. 11/2/08
Location: Cape Canine Fun Center in Dennisport, Mass (Cape Cod)

Event includes:
- 1 Day Seminar with Emily Pyle
- 1 Day MDSA Titling Event / Fun Match

More details to follow soon.

This is the announcement many of you have been waiting for!!!!!!!!

The MDSA is starting Titling Events in 2008. The first one will be a video event with a closing date of June 1.

These are the details:
All who enter Titling Events will begin in the Novice Class (single dog). This class is offered for the first time for the Spring 2008 Video Event. It will take 2 qualifying events (legs) to earn a Novice Freestyle Dog title. (NFD). Each event will require new music and new choreography. Titles are awarded to a dog and handler team. Only 1 entry in a titling class is allowed for an event.

You may earn legs for the titles at video or live events. MDSA will offer titles for Standard and Premier as well as Novice classes at a future event.

Many of you may want to join us in the fun of the non-titling, non competitive event such as a Fun Match. The MDSA still has that for you! For the June 1 event, we offer the non-regular classes of Rookie (single dog or team) and Veterans (single dog). The Rookie class is open to MDSA members only. You may also enter a routine in the Novice class and choose to not be scored; you will be able to mark your form as such.

The Entry Form is available in the Files section of the MDSA Discussion List . The Performance Guidelines are available in the Files section now with a date of March 6, 2008. Both the Entry Form and Performance Guidelines will also soon be available in the "Publications" section of the MDSA website at : http://www.musicaldogsport.org

A DVD of the teams entering will be sent to all exhibitors. Each performance will be evaluated or scored with the Performance Guidelines providing the basis for the evaluation. The DVD, a thank you to those who entered and a wonderful learning tool, will not be sold.

We invite you to participate in the first MDSA 2008 Video Event for fun and/or a leg on an MDSA Novice title. Either way, you will help shape the future of our wonderful sport.

The MDSA will also be having a Video Event ending Nov.1. The details will be announced in the spring.

We are also planning a live Fun Match this year in New England. Any MDSA
member interested in hosting a Live MDSA Event should contact the MDSA.

Questions about this event are always welcome. Just ask on our Discussion List or email one of the Executive Board members with your questions.

Best of Luck to You All!
MDSA Executive Board

MDSA Festivals and Competition

Freestyle "Film" Festival

I would say that the first Musical Dog Sport Association Freestyle "Film" Festival was an over whelming success. It was freestyle history in the making. We had 49 entries into this noncompetitive video event that allowed us to test our guidelines. As many of you already know video performances have their own special set of problems and challenges. We wanted to have the opportunity to identify and find solutions for problems encountered by teams when performing on video.

Carolyn Scott,
MDSA President

Sample Videos

Nancy Tanner & Ocean

Ocean has been one of the best teachers anyone could have. She has been the heart of our family, not to mention the energy! Always wanting to know, try, learn something new. She competes in agility, herding, tricks, and now freestyle. She is a tender soul in many ways, but give her a really fun training session in anything and she is as courageous as they come. I have been professionally training and working with dogs for 5+ years, but have had dogs who were unknowingly trained for 35+ years.

Susanna Pathak & Louie

Both my rough collies, Dash and Louie, train and compete in canine freestyle. Louie is 2 years old and “Taken By Supreeze” is his first formal routine. Ann Priddy, fellow MDSA Executive Board member and our freestyle teacher at Richmond Dog Obedience Club, chose the music for Louie and helped me choreograph the routine. It’s a wonderful piece for him with very exciting percussion, regal horns and terrific dynamics that match a striking young dog that is brimming with confidence and enthusiasm. I wanted to showcase these qualities in our routine as well as Louie’s beautiful movement, athleticism and high spirits. Although this performance has a few little bobbles, I love the patch of sunlight that appears in the video since Louie’s registered name is Jag-View Sunrapt Sultan. He is a delightful dog who loves to leap and circle and prance around a ring.

Ann Priddy & Polly

“It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings.” - L. Frank Baum

When asked to do a biography for our freestyle performance I found that it was not me I wanted to write about but my dog, Polly. Like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, it has been my little Cairn Terrier that has led me on this merry adventure of Canine Freestyle. Along our journey we have made many friends who have helped us on our way. There have been ups and downs, good times and bad but there has always been something new and exciting around every corner.

Polly has been a wonderful teacher through the years. Together we have taken the lessons we have learned to other venues as well, succeeding in the Obedience and Rally rings, always as a team.

Polly finds great joy and freestyle and although she sometimes worries during a *real* performance she always comes through for me. She has taught me the importance of us being one and being connected.

Throughout her career Polly has strutted her stuff to many types of music but I think this piece captures the sweet and dear side of her personality. It was filmed very early on in the training of the routine and since then we have both become more comfortable with its simplicity and flow. It fits her perfectly at this time in her life.

This has been a wonderful experience and a way to truly celebrate this delightful dog that I cherish so much.

Reija Puolakka & Eku

Eku is my 6. dog in my 30 years long "dog owners life". I have had dobies, a labrador, a dachs hund and a german shepherd - and now Eku. I have always mostly been interestid in dog training and involved in working/rescue dog trials (tracking+ search), obedience and - skijoring. I found freestyle (and clicker training) in late 1999 and started to clicker train new moves to my gsd when she was almost 9 ys. The event quickly won friends and activity in Finland and I was able to compete with my oldie in her last two years. Eku came into my life "by accident" I learned to know her when her ex-owner, an older woman came to my basic obedience class with then 2,5 ys old dobie without any mannors. She also attended to some tracking training, with my partner Marita as handler. Eku has exellent nosework. Marita decided to work with her to some competitions. Eku spent quite a lot time in our family - learning a lot of how a dog is supposed to behave - but her training moved more and more into my hands.. Ekus owner had problems with her health so Eku moved temperarily to us. At that time I had started to clicker train her for freestyle. My gds then died in 12 ys age and I bought Eku to be my own, at the age of 3,5 ys. Now she is 7, my angel and my nightmare. I adore her ans she has taught to me so many things - but she really is quite a handfull. She is very intelligent, absolutely energetic, very dominant, easily driving high but has a very soft and cute side in her, too. When she is in contact, she works exellent but quite as well she suddenly can just run away. She is a challenge - but we freestylers do love challenges - eh?

Emily Pyle & Henri

I got my miniature Dachshund Henrietta (Henri) nearly four years ago while living on (yet another) temporary assignment, this time in Los Angeles. For about three years after college was over, I was living in all sorts of strange cities far from my home and friends in Houston, Texas, and the constant moving was starting to take a toll; it becomes difficult to make friends when you move every year or two. So, I decided to get Henri just for companionship. Of course, I planned to do the basic manners training with her, but considered nothing more. That was the plan---that is, until I got lost on the way home from work one evening (I was, of course, new to the area) and found the dog training school that pretty much changed everything. That’s where I first learned about clicker training, and the speed with which Henrietta learned anything and everything was amazing. We eventually ended up in freestyle. I had avoided freestyle; I was one of those kids who never went to the school dances and was easily embarrassed in front of crowds. But, I took the class one summer “just to keep Henrietta busy” until the more “serious” Obedience classes restarted in the fall. Of course, we never did enroll in more Obedience classes. For one thing, we started doing fun things like freestyle demos and experiencing the “oooh” and “awwww” from an appreciative crowd, and then it was also fun to just hang out with a group of gals who had a sense of humor and enjoyed doing things like going to lunch with the dogs on a Saturday afternoon.

But the part that really hooked us was when The Wag appeared in the second freestyle class we ever took. Before freestyle, The Wag only came out when Henri was tailing a tasty scent, like a rabbit or squirrel or old garbage; it is a very specific and fervent kind of tail wag that she only uses when she is extremely excited, is thinking hard and intensely concentrating on the task at hand---to put it plainly, she’s as happy as a Dachshund can get (and I am totally frustrated because this means the nose has taken over!) That wag is completely different from the “so-happy-to-see-you” wag, and if you’ve seen it on your dog, you know what I mean. I’ve discovered the only thing (other than varmints) that can start The Wag is freestyle, and that’s why we’ve stuck with it. Freestyle is never the same, and there is always more to learn and new things to dream up and try to train. I think that sort of variety and challenge is what really gets Henrietta going, too. My goal is to get The Wag in the routines I craft for her, this one included. It often means I’ve got to put all sorts of pace and direction changes, and ask for interesting moves and new chains of moves to keep her thinking and watching carefully. Also, I can rarely stick with the same routine for too long; the music may be the same, but I have to really work to mix it up a bit. All this variety can be pretty challenging to choreograph and dream up on a regular basis, but there’s absolutely nothing more exciting and rewarding than to see it pay off with that Wag!