Chaos Crew

Chaos Crew

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Rip weave practice and tennis ball antics

I filmed Rip's weave practice and the necessary ball playing session while we were at the training building.
I am using the weave-a-matics with Rip and I have closed them up quite a bit. I am not happy with how this has affected his footwork though, as he is not single-stepping through all the poles - a couple times he gets caught up and double steps, so I will be opening them back up a little and getting his footwork correct again.
I am also likely going to get the new Susan Garrett 2x2 DVD for weaves and will try that method for both Rip and for improving Skye's performance too.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Another crazy self-entertainment Rip video

Rip is at it again with his self entertainment antics. I was heading out to do some practice with him and he found a tennis ball in the snow on the way to the building. He then proceeds to toss it in the air and chase and pounce it. I had the video camera as I was going to film our training, so instead I filmed his fun. Enjoy!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Video from AKC trial below

Here's the video from the Thanksgiving AKC trial discussed below

More self entertainment by Rip

So I have been finding that Rip will sidetrack when bringing the ball back during our agility practice sessions. He likes to walk up to a jump or the tire and drop the ball over, and then pounce on it. It makes me laugh when he does it, so I brought the camera out to catch him in the act. Here's a video condensed from about 10 minutes of ball throwing in the training building.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Rip weigh-in and height measure (attempt)

Last week I weighed Rip at 42.5lbs. He looks to be filling out a bit and not so skinny anymore. I double checked weight again yesterday and he was back down to under 42lb. Ugh!

He does not like the measurement wicket that we have, so getting any semblance of an accurate height measure has been difficult at best. He sort of slinks under it when I can actually coax him under with food rewards. I was clicking/treating when he got near it, then as I got him to duck under. Still lots of work to do on that. I found that if I entice him with cat food in a can, that the wicket isnt as scary. Soooo anyway, his measurements are all over the board, anywhere from 20.5" to 21.25".
Probably somewhere in-between is the reality. I dont know how much longer Rip has to get taller, as he is now 14 months old.

Of course, if he is over 21", that means jumping 26 in USDAA if we want to play in the Championship division. Seems really high, which is why I have Skye jumping 22" in the Performance division, as Skye measures 21.25".

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

3 days of AKC at Latigo, Thanksgiving weekend.

Skye and I attended the 3 day AKC show in the cold and snow this weekend. Fortunately the Latigo facility is only about 5 minutes from home, which made for a much easier drive than many people had with all that snow. Unfortunately, its not a heated facility, so by each afternoon, most everyone was feeling the chill.

Our Standard run on Friday was an eye popper with more faults than I have accumulated in an AKC run. Oy! We had a jumped DW contact which went to the table, with an on-and-off the table performance, then Skye got off the table at the 4 count, so that had to start over, then he popped out of the weaves at 10, and we finished it up with a knocked bar on the triple. What fun! JWW was nice except he entered the weaves at pole 2, so it was an NQ day.

Saturday wasn't much better than Friday, though we didnt have any disaster runs. The day started with JWW and again he had a weave fault. I haven't been stopping him for missing entries or popping, trying to keep his weave motivation high and not worry him or slow him down, which has been working for the most part, so we just keep going... Standard was an OK run, with good weaves (yeah!), but it was again a Dogwalk to Table and we had the repeat of Friday with a jumped DW contact followed by and on-and-off the table performance. Guess what Skye-boy got to practice on Saturday night!

Sunday I went in with good thoughts and we managed to salvage the weekend with our 3rd Double Q!!
I was mildly concerned that again the Standard course had Dogwalk to Table, but it went OK this time. I wasnt behind him on the DW this time since it was a tunnel with a flip up onto the DW. I felt like we ran a bit conservative, but still got 17 MACH points out of it.
JWW was a nice flowing course and again we had good weaves! We managed 10 MACH points.

I'll post video after getting it off the camera.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Rip training session video

Here's a video of a short training session with Rip. We did some warmups through the tunnel, then weave-a-matic practice and tire/tunnel sequence. He is coming along great with his weaves. I have also started to incorporate just weave entry training with a set of 2 poles.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Couple Rip pictures

My intent tonight during our short training session was to record Rip doing weave practice and some tunnel sequences. I was using my digital camera that has a movie mode. Well, it seems that I thought I told it to start recording, but when I downloaded the results to the computer, it seems it didnt actually record. Anyway, I did take a few pictures too. Here's a couple of them. I will try to actually press the record button tomorrow to get some video.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Rip in a basket

Silly Rip, who definitely has a clownish personality, decided the other day that the laundry basket sitting outside my homeoffice was a great place to be.
I got the camera and snapped a picture from my chair, but when I got up to get a better picture, he got out of the basket.



The other day, we got about 2 inches of snow (though we are back to the 70's). Rip had a great time playing with a flatsketball (popped basketball) in an area where the snow had drifted to maybe 4 inches deep. He was tossing the ball in the air, pouncing it, all the while making sure to stay in the deepest part of the snow. I wonder if he remembers snow from when he was a baby living in Pennsylvania. I cant wait until we get a real storm to see how he likes it.
No pictures or video this time, but next time I will be ready.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Rip training progress

I haven't done an update on Rip's training in a while. He is in our level 2 agility classes on Monday nights, which is where we begin some sequencing, focusing on crosses, as well as more obstacle familiarization and contact position training. Since we are already competing with Skye, we don't have to worry about the crosses and handling aspects so much, though I do have to drive in further to ensure Rip takes an obstacle, and don't run a sequence as though I am running Skye.
I am happy to say that Rip is really coming along well as an agility dog. His drive is ever increasing. Rip has come a long way from his original fears as he will now volunteer a fullheight teeter, which we havent trained in class. He's gone over full height dogwalks and AFrames without concern too.
Another cool development is Rip's interest in toys. He has graduated to constantly playing with a ball and bringing it to me to throw, which is huge. I have done a practice session with just a squeeky rabbit toy as reward.
During my daily practice sessions, I am working with the weaveamatics, doing contact positions, table, teeter, some light sequencing, some drive building, startline stay, jumping with wraps, etc.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Skye Halloween Costume

We had a halloween contest at class this week, and Skye went as "Army Dog".


Skye's girlfriend Sydney went as a cheerleader and was a big hit - she won the honors for best costume!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Rip plays with himself

Ok, he plays by himself quite a bit - much more so than any of our other dogs. He will pick up a tennis ball or a shoe or he will take an insert from a shoe, cap from a plastic bottle, anything really, and he starts tossing it around.
He discovered this purple squeeky ball in the doggie toybox and started having fun with it. Then his sister Rush came along to see what he was doing. Rip is more "class clown" where Rush is more "fun police".
Ok, check out the funny video

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Runs from DOCNA Champs

These are most of my runs from the DOCNA Championships from the post below.

Monday, October 13, 2008

AKC at Adams County Oct 11/12 2008

We were at the AKC trial this past weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday was not so good on paper, going 0 for 2, but the runs were actually nice. My Standard run was called for an offcourse before the timer even started - Skye decided to run with me rather than going over the first angled jump as I requested, so bring him back, put him over that jump, and then we had a nice clean run though with a very slow sit on the table.. In JWW everything was great but I crowded Skye at the weaves and he entered on the left side of the poles instead of on the right.

Sunday was much better with our second double-Q! Standard went well with again a bit of a delay requesting a sit on the table, but I managed to be almost 18 seconds under coursetime. JWW was a very flowing course and went fine. Almost 50% of the 20" Exc B dogs qualified in JWW. We placed 11th I believe, out of the 24 qualifiers.

Looks like I need to do some table work with Sits. Before my run on Sunday, while warming up I must have had him sit on command 10 times, and every time was fast, but add in a table, and its a different story. There's always something to train isnt there?!? Saturday's sit was probably 5 seconds wasted. Sunday's wasnt quite as bad, but I bet it was 3 seconds. I have Sundays run on tape so I will check this out when I pull the runs off it.

Sidenote: This was my first trial held indoors at the Adams County fairgrounds site. I had been to two outdoor trials there on grass which were nice, but indoors with 2 rings is very crammed with crating everywhere, people jamming the aisles everywhere and generally not such a good experience. Not enough room to take Rip along with me. This place goes to the bottom of my list of enjoyable facilities. At least there are a few good places there to throw a frisbee with the Skyeboy

Greg & Skye

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Rip's 1st birthday!

Rip was born 1 year ago today, on Oct. 11 2007. Happy Birthday Rip boy!
I tried to take some pictures to show how similar he looks to Joey but he kept giving me the "slinky" look with ears tucked down and wanting to leave, so the pics arent so good, but they are all I have.
When I weighed him last week, he's mostly maintaining at around 40.8lbs. He needs to fill out more but I dont want him fat, so we'll see how he progresses.
He's moved on to Level 2 agility now and had his first class yesterday - he did really well and his confidence has increased tremendously.



Friday, October 10, 2008

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Offtopic thoughs from the DOCNA Champs

Just some thoughts I had about the DOCNA champs and getting to/from there.

- Why select a facility to host an agility trial that doesn't have any grass available for the dogs to use? Even wild field grass would be nice. There was a grassy area next to the arena that we were told to keep off of, as it was a kids play area. There were no kids there for the 4 days we attended, and its just an empty grassy area, no playground equipment, nothing. I think having grass available somewhere other than tiny patches growing wild next to the building should be a primary concern.

- Arizona & New Mexico seem to be full of these nasty plant "spikes" that get stabbed into a dogs foot rather easily. These spike plants seem strategically placed around rest areas and other logical potty spots for the dogs as you travel. I'm not talking about cactus, just some kind of crazy spike plant.

- Jeeze the FLIES! We must have had 50 flies come into the camper trailer at the site in Arizona, and another 30 in the truck. Holy moly that would make me insane having to live near there with that many flies.

- Doesn't anyone fly the American Flag anymore? Driving along, I was looking for flags to see what direction the wind was blowing, and NOBODY IS FLYING THE FLAG. Lets go back to the post 9/11 days when everyone got all patriotic.

- Agility has now become a "Star Spangled Banner" sport, where we got to hear our anthem before starting each day. Why is it we only hear the anthem before sporting events? Is that what our founding fathers envisioned?

- DOCNA needs fewer divisions or more attendees at their Championships. I know its a new venue and is growing, but there sure were a lot of divisions with 1 dog entered, and many more with 3 or less dogs entered. I know everyone does agility for different reasons, but isn't there a little bit of competitiveness in all of us? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take that 1st place ribbon by running better than another team? At least for me, there are tons of dogs in the 20" competition division.

- Gas price gouging is alive and well. Many of the stations that are just off the freeway were charging up to 50/cents a gallon more for diesel than another station a mile or two away, closer to "town". Go where the bigrigs go and you will be way better off.

Ok, thats all for now. See ya!

DOCNA Championships Report


The DOCNA championships was our first "championship" type event that we've attended since we started competing about 16 months ago. This was a great experience and one I am glad I did.
The "warm up" two run trial that was held on Thursday was a nice benefit, letting you get in a couple runs to get familiar with the facility, equipment and the surface. It also showed that there was going to be some good competition. We had a good run in Jumpers yet only placed 4th. Our Standard run was good and our time was good enough for 2nd, but we dropped a bar so we were out of the placements.
Since we had to get our Championships entries in before the trial that we held in September, most of my runs were done at the Intern level. Had they allowed move-ups, we would have been running at Specialist level, though the competition in the 20" comp group was just as tough in Intern as it was in Specialist.
So how did we do?? In summary, the best thing I can say is that we have the speed and skills to place in the top 3 for all the events.

So, we started the event on Friday doing Traditional Gamblers and we managed to get 2nd place! We ran round 1 of Standard and Jumpers on Friday too, and at the end of the day we did Snakes and Ladders. I had small but costly errors in both Standard and Jumpers - 1 bar down in Standard, and some time wasted in Jumpers where I didnt support a jump and had to go back to it, thus I was in 6th place after the first round for each. In Snakes and Ladders, somehow I was judged as having only done 5 of the 6 contacts/weaves possibilities. I didnt know this until I checked scores later, and on film it appears I got everything right (If we had a missed weave and didnt fix it, I wouldnt get credit for the weave set). At best, though, even if I was given credit for all 6, it would have been out of placements with a 4th so I let it go.

On Saturday, we played the darn Strategic Time Gamble. I've yet to figure out how to be real successful with this game! We did a great job racking up points in the opening, but ended up beyond where we planned for the closing, so I ended up crossing the line a bit earlier than we wanted and didnt place very well.
It was then time for the big event, the North American Challenge, which is the only event where the scores from the West Championships is combined with the East Championships to determine an overall winner. Fortunately, it was during the NAC that we put together a great, almost flawless run, and managed to get 3rd place Nationally! So cool to get in the big 20" dog group.
We also did round 2 of Standard and Jumpers, and I needed perfect runs to move up to at least 4th place as the top 4 dogs in 20" were going to move on to the finals. In Jumpers, I caused a knocked bar on the 3rd jump and then after a FC got momentarily lost, so jumpers was toast. We ended up 9th overall in Jumpers. Then in Standard the run was going along great until Skye decided to pop out of the weaves at the 10th pole (his only missed weave all weekend), so redoing the weaves cost us too much time, even though the rest of the run was nice, and we ended up 6th overall in Standard.

Sunday was only Trigility for us since we didnt make the finals. I was teamed with Katelyn & Flicka, and we took a random draw on our 3rd partner, which, OK lets be honest here, really sucked. Our partner was the definite weak link on this team. Katelyn & Flicka ran a nice Jumpers portion of the course, then our partner missed a contact in his Standard portion, then forgot to finish the course and the judge reminded him that he should finish, so finally he got his dog to jump the last jump and then Skye & I had a good gamblers portion. Somehow we managed a 3rd place with this, so I have no doubt we could have had 1st with a better teammate.

I'll post some video after I get a chance to pull it off the camera.

Greg & Skyeboy

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Off to DOCNA Championships

Wednesday we are leaving for the DOCNA Championships in Prescott, AZ. I am competing with Skye, Katrina is competing with Baby, and my daughter Katelyn is competing as a JH with Acesy her Papillon and Flicka, her grandmother's lab. My son is going along for the ride and still had no interest in agility. We are also taking along our young border collies - Ice, Rush and Rip, so it will be a dog filled adventure. We are towing the travel trailer and will be camping at the trial site.

Last year, Katrina went to the first DOCNA Champs and she took 1st place in the North American Challenge event with Baby.

The weather is supposed to be in the low 80's, and the trial is indoors on dirt, so hopefully I wont have the slow version of Skye-boy due to heat. I'll post an update when we return.

Skye's AKC weekend at Castle Rock Sept 2008

We did the 3 day AKC show at the DougCo fairgrounds this past weekend. It was the first time we did an Excellent Only Friday which was cool. Friday we did Exc A Std, and we were the only 20" dog that qualified - I think there were about 17 dogs?! This earned our AX title and let me move up to Exc. "B". We missed the JWW run with an off-course tunnel that was just too tempting to Skye-boy. I was in position, but he had made up his mind beforehand - I should have suspected it and called harder to get the wrap - lesson learned there!

So starting Saturday, I am now in the land of Excellent B with all the other 20" dogs out there. Welcome to competing against 50 dogs every run! Our standard run was NQ'd with a wrong end of the tunnel entry. I had planned a FC that I talked myself out of which was a mistake. We did Q our JWW course though with an 8th place. We also missed our Open Fast run with a questionable jumped contact call.

Sunday was great with an 8th place Q in a tricky standard course (see course maps below for Sunday), followed by a Q in the Open Fast course outside, and then finally a 9th place Q in that JWW course. Our FIRST DOUBLE Q!!

Overall the courses were challenging, which made them that much more enjoyable - there was maybe a 20% Q rate. Lots of wraps, serpentine's, get arounds, and offcourse potential. Skye hit every set of weaves successfully too, which is Huge.
Greg & Skyeboy


Saturday, September 20, 2008

Devil eyes

This past week we have had some spectacular "moon rises", which is called the Harvest Moon this month. As it came over the horizon, it was glowing red/orange and huge. I decided to try and get a picture or two but waited too long and it had risen enough that it wasnt red any more. While taking pics of the moon, I had Ramsey and Rip out with me. Check out the devil eyes when I didnt use the flash.





Saturday, September 13, 2008

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

DOCNA at Paws 4 Friendship, Sept 6-7 2008 and random thoughts.

Our club hosted its 3rd annual September DOCNA show this past weekend. Its a lot of work but seemed to go off very smoothly this time.
Skye and I got 9 Q's in 11 runs. We missed our first run of the weekend with a jumped contact in the gamble, and our second run with an offcourse (Skye just cant resist a dogwalk. "But dad, it was right there, so close to that tunnel you wanted me to go in"). After we worked out those kinks, it was smooth sailing the rest of the weekend. Yea to team Skysydgeon for a blazing first place Intern Trigility run. Go Team! We were only 1 second behind the "dream team" in Specialist.
We Q'd the North America Challenge with a blazing time, but placed behind Leslie & Pirate due to a 5pt fault.
Along the way, we finished our Intern Jumpers title and Intern Standard title. Now we get to play in Specialist for everything except Gamblers.

Some thoughts about the trial - we were not completely full, probably around 3/4ths full, but each day still went fairly long. I think what we are seeing more of is people running dogs that really aren't ready to run. When you have a novice dog with attention/focus issues, and you get them wandering around the course, a typical 40 second run then turns into a minute 40 seconds. Repeat this behavior for 10 dogs, over 5 or 6 runs a day, and you just wasted an hour. We also saw dogs pee on course, and then the handler continue their run afterward. I wish they would have been immediately whistled off. Dog potties on course and you are done! Sheesh.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Rip weigh-in today

I weighed Rip today and he's at 40.5lbs now. I weighed him last week too and he was 39.5lbs. As a comparison, my Skye-boy weighs 44lbs and is 21.25" at the withers.

Still need to check on Rip's height.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Rip and his sister Rush

Here's a shot of Rip and his sister, though she looks like she's planning a getaway.

Skye enjoying Ice cleaning his eyes

When Ice-man comes up to Skye, its usually to lick his face and clean his eyes. Skye will usually grumble and complain and show teeth as this is not his favorite activity. Katrina had the camera out when Ice decided to clean Skye's face and here's what it looked like:





Thursday, August 28, 2008

Rip triaining update.


I've been taking Rip to two training classes a week for the last couple weeks - he is in an Agility 1 class and also participating in the Puppy class, though he really is outside the "puppy" classification.

I am really happy with his progress. As I had mentioned, when he arrived to me just over a month ago, he had no interest in any toys, tennis balls, or any kind of "play" interaction. He has really come along and will play quite a bit now. I bought a stuffed rabbit toy that he really likes, and he will tug and play with a cow udder toy, as well as run and get a tennis ball and bring it back to me. Good boy! Funny thing is he thought the greatest toy ever was this roll of duct tape that was about used up. He was tossing it and chasing, generally being a goofy puppy with it.
We've been working on a lot of foundation and its going well. He even will happily get on the wobble board and is OK with its movement - he wouldnt get on it at all before.

Though I am planning on teaching a running contact with Rip, we have done some work on locating 2o2o contact positioning.

I am still working on his confidence, especially when meeting new people. He is still crouching down and acting a little afraid, but when they bend down to meet him, he will be a snuggle boy.

He went with us to the USDAA show in Laramie, and he did good on the 3.5 hr ride in the truck, though he spent a lot of time sitting and watching instead of sleeping like the other dogs. At the USDAA show, he was very intent on watching the agility action just like he does here. One time I asked Katrina to hold his leash while I got something and she somehow had the leash slip out, and Rip went tearing into the ring while someone was running. Ugh! The judge let the person rerun, and they Q'd so no love lost, but that was not a good moment.

I'll update with a weigh-in tomorrow. I am hoping he is closing in on 40lbs.

Monday, August 25, 2008

USDAA at Laramie, WY, August 2008


Skye and I were up in Laramie at the USDAA show this past weekend. Since I have to wait for yet another install to complete for my computer that needs to be rebuilt (a whole 'nuther story), I will write about our results.

I am happy to say that we had a really good weekend. We drove up on Friday, as the trial wasn't starting until 4pm. We only had 1 run for Friday, which was the Steeplechase round 1. You had to do the weaves twice in this course, and Skye missed his entry (what weaves dad?) twice, but after stuffing him back in them, he completed the course and we managed to Q and get into round 2 to be held Sunday.

Saturday we ran Gamblers first and we missed Q'ing that by a wrong tunnel entry in the distance challenge, but generally it was a good run. Next was Standard which we Q'd with a 1st, and nice weaves! I did try to step on Skye when he came out of the chute but we talked that over and he forgives me.
Then we ran Grand Prix (ok the performance equivalent Perf. National Standard) and we got a Q with 1st place! That was worth a "buy" certificate into the second round at a Regionals. Nice big blue ribbon too!
Finally we did Jumpers and got a Q & 1st there too.

Sunday we started with Pairs, and I did something I had never done before - I skipped part of the course! It wasnt a matter of forgetting the course, like a "where am I" kind of moment, it was a "here's the baton, you start your part now" I am all done kind of moment, then when the judge blew the whistle, I realized I skipped a jump, the weaves and a tunnel, but the way the course was designed, it was easy to do, and I wasnt the only one who did!
We then ran Standard and we got a Q & 1st again. No weave troubles there!
Next up was the Round 2 of Steeplechase. I was having a great run but damnitall if I didnt get the wrong end of the tunnel on a really tough sequence. I could have handled it better, though Skye pretty much just decided he knew where to go. Our time was really good and we would have taken 1st if not for the oops. That probably would have netted me about $15 in winnings!
We finished the day with Snooker, and it was my first ever P3 Snooker run (think Excellent). The weaves were the 7pt obstacle, so since we were actually having a good weave weekend, I decided to go for a couple sets of weaves for points, and he did them great. We had a good run, but with Skye acting somewhat goofy and causing a little bit of time wasting, the buzzer went off when he was in the weaves during the closing so we didnt get the final 7pts. We did Q, but just missed our first "Super Q" by about 1 second.

Greg & the weavin' Skyeboy

Friday, August 15, 2008

Rip training.


Rip has gone to a few level 1 agility classes now and is learning some new skills. I am working on improving his confidence and drive, as he is a bit "soft". He was not brought up in an agility home, so for them, a soft dog was a good thing - very well behaved, but I want him to be a lot more rambunctious.

When he first arrived a few weeks ago, he had no interest in toys or balls. This has improved considerably and he is now running to get a toy, playing some tug and tossing a mini tennis ball around. He really likes this particular cow udder on a rope toy. I am still working on his desire to bring the toys back to me when he runs out and grabs them, so I need to pick up a couple identical toys that he likes and play games with him.

He is getting very good at Perch work and is perching and circling around for rear awareness. Funny thing is I brought out a higher perch (3rd height change) but it was made of slippery metal (an old popcorn tin) and he didn't want to perch it. I need one of similar height that is made of plastic or something.

Today I took him out to the building for some simple jump training, as he wasn't too interested in doing the jump when we tried in class two weeks ago. This time he was jumping and having a lot of speed and drive which I was quite happy with. He was even seeking it out and jumping to earn a treat. I am keeping the jumps low for now (12") as he is still young and inexperienced.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Rip's brothers

Here's a few pictures of two of Rip's brothers. Both of them are big, so I am hoping Rip keeps growing and gets to their size. Kelty is 44lbs and Debit is about 50lbs and nearly 22".

This one is Kelty




This one is Debit


Monday, August 11, 2008

Chute Picture

This is such a cool picture of Skye coming out of the chute. I got an 8x10 of it..

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Rip gains a little weight


I weighed Rip today and he is just under 39lbs. Thats good because he was a little thin when he came to us about two weeks ago, so he's put on 3 or 4 lbs since he got here. His brother Kelty weighed about 48 lbs a month ago - a big boy. I will see if I can locate the picture of his brother.

So Rip certainly enjoys breakfast and dinnertime and eats very fast. You can see that he's making sure we didn't leave any kibbles behind in this bag...


I've been teaching him to "perch", first on an upside down food bowl, and then on a plastic box that is about 6" high. I want him comfortable stepping up on things, such as when I am asking for the teeter bang. Boy is this pup smart. It took him all of about 15 seconds to figure out what I wanted him to do, and on our second session I could already get him to perch and move all the way around to the left or right while staying on the perch.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

AKC in the heat at Arapahoe park


Well in case there was any doubt, my Skye boy does NOT like to run in the heat outdoors. I did the 3 day AKC trial at Arapahoe park near Denver on Aug. 1-3. It was triple digit temps and blazing sun. Each day we ran STD, JWW and FAST.

Friday was 102 degrees and I know that contributed to us getting no Q's. Skye missed his weave entry in Exc. STD, and though it was a slow run, it wasnt bad other than the entry. I then had to run my novice FAST to try and finish that title (its the last novice anything title I need). I mishandled it and brought him over the distance line so NQ. Then we ran in Exc. JWW with about 65 other dogs and he came out of the weaves about pole 9. He was really just walking through them anyway with zero motivation, so I just finished up the course.

On Saturday it was a similar story, though this time we did manage to Q our novice FAST and earn our NF title. We got 2nd place, 1 point behind 1st though our time was faster. Similar issues as Friday with STD and JWW, as again it was I think 101 degrees. Just slow slow slow Skye boy.

Finally Sunday was supposed to be cooler (ha, like only about 96) but at least the morning started off comfortable. We ran a nice consistent Exc. A STD and managed to Q with 3rd place. With very little time to breath, I then had to go run my Open FAST and though we did get the distance bonus, Skye would not weave and caused us to waste too much time so the buzzer went off when I was way on the other side of the ring and we didnt have enough points to qualify. The JWW run was actually nice, he wsa running pretty darn fast until his nemesis weave poles came into view. He nailed the entry, I started cheering him on to get through the damn things, and about pole 7 he decided it was too hot and too much work to be weaving, so we just continued on and finished the rest of the run. NQ again.

So for us, this was a really bad weekend as far as Q's go, and I am pretty sure I will not be entering any more outdoor trials in the summer - just not worth chancing that its going to be 100 degrees.

We left the other dogs home so they could stay cool. They still had the sad puppydog faces when we were leaving without them though.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Tired Rip boy!

Rip just couldnt keep his eyes open after a busy day yesterday.

On Monday night, I took him to his first agility class and he did great - he went through a tunnel and did the chute after a little coaxing. He did some ladder work for rear foot awareness, began targeting and was introduced to the weave-a-matics.

I have been working on left & right commands which he caught onto quickly. He is not liking the wobble board and isnt wanting to do "bang it" on the teeter, so I am going to work on some "perch" work in the house to get him more comfortable about getting up on things.



Sunday, July 27, 2008

AKC trial at Latigo, July 26 & 27

My Skyeboy did me proud this weekend at the AKC trial at Latigo. I went into the trial needing 1 Q for both my AXJ and OA titles. Skye got those Q's for me on Saturday (two first places too), and decided to get two more Q's on Sunday to go 4/4. Yea! My boy also got all his weaves, which always makes me happy.

Sunday's Exc. Standard course tricked a lot of people - the Q rate was less than 25%, and of the Exc. A dogs, only 3 of 27 managed to Q. Skye was one of the very few!

Sunday's JWW was our first run in Exc "B" and our first opportunity to earn MACH points. We managed a Q and now I have 6 points.

Rip went with us (along with Ice and Rush) and he did awesome. Wow this was the first time since we got him a week ago that I actually heard him bark, and what a loud bark it is! I was having him watch some of the runs and he was all excited and barking & bouncing - a good sign for a future agility star. More of his personality comes out each day and he is such a sweet boy, he has made lots of friends, both human and dog.