USDAA in Fountain, CO with the boys

I ran Skye and Rip in this local USDAA trial (only a 40 minute drive). We did not enter Friday's team events.

Since there have been so many trials in a row, and with the expense of entering 2 dogs, I only entered select runs for both dogs, thus I played in Gamblers, Snooker and Jumpers on both days with both dogs, and did Pairs with Rip. No Standards or tournaments this time. I was trying to still avoid dogwalks for Rip until I think he will hit at least 50% of them in competition.

So, Saturday was a pretty good day. Skye got a tough gamble with a send to a jump straight away from a teeter, where the gamble line was before the fulcrum of the teeter. He also Q'd his Jumpers run with a 1st place in the dark - the trial ran sooooo late, that it was nearly dark (7pm with no lights) when we ran it. He had his own idea for Snooker and took an offcourse jump instead of coming to me when I called him, and we thus joined the Zero Point Club for snooker. I also managed to take a spill during the gamblers run and wipe out a jump. I was fine and popped back up, but the little bit of time and downed jump cost me 1st place (3rd instead). Video to come :)

On Saturday, Rip also Q'd his gamblers run. The Starters gambles are not very tough, but Rip works away from me better than Skye does, so I expect gamblers will not be an issue. Rip also had a very nice Snooker run and was the only big dog to finish the closing. We did 7/7/6 as it was the most logical sequence in keeping good flow. He knocked one bar in his otherwise very nice jumpers run. Rip-boy is a lot of fun!

Sunday was not quite as successful for us, though not too bad. In Skye's gamblers run, I didnt think we had a chance, so it was just a warmup for the other runs of the day. Only 10 of the 70+ masters level dogs got the gamble successfully, and we were not one of them. It was offside weaves, with a flip around to the chute, then over a jump. The gamble line kept you behind pole 6 and when I stopped, Skye came out of the weaves to me as expected. We did a little bit better in Snooker but Skye ended up ahead of me and took an offcourse tunnel in the opening. Our Jumpers run was last and we had a good run with 1st place again. There were quite a number of scratches on Sunday as the weather was cold (40 degrees) and cloudy most of the day.

With Skye's performance this weekend, we are now only 2 Gamblers and 1 Snooker Super Q away from our Performance ADCH.

Rip's Gamblers run was, if I do say so, rather unfair. It was not setup as indicated on the course map and instead put the dog coming out of a tunnel under the AFrame facing right at an offcourse jump. I tried to get ahead and grab him coming out of the tunnel and it was ugly, but I kept him off the offcourse jump, but when then sending him to the finish jump, he dropped the bar. We got the "hard part" but it was not a fair setup for young inexperienced dogs and/or handlers as it gave a high chance of collision between dog and handler, or just take the offcourse.

Rip's Snooker run was fairly shortlived as he did the 7pt weaves but after the first jump of the 4pt combo, he spotted a tunnel that he just HAD to take. He was rather giddy about it too.

We ran pairs with Jan and her border collie Meg who Rip really likes. Unfortunately, he picked this run to forget how to complete 12 weave poles. I got pop outs 3 times, so I just went on and took the "E" for the team. Every other set of weaves he did this weekend were perfect.

In Rip's Jumpers, we took 1st with a nice run. I need to learn to push him to go faster though - I want to bring out even more speed in the Starters / easier courses so we can be ready for the big 22" speed demon class when we make it to Masters.

So, all in all a good weekend. Rip did miss one AFrame contact, and we didnt do ANY dogwalks so no misses there :)

Videos to follow.