Latigo AKC Trial - we have Heat, sort-of...

(Love this pic of Rip floating over the dogwalk)

Rip and Skye played AKC agility at our nearby facility, Latigo Trails, this weekend. Latigo is only 10 minutes from home, so I rarely pass up an opportunity to trial there. They told us they would have finally installed heat in the arena this winter, but they were only able to install some radiant heat over the small bleachers. It was appreciated, as we had an area to sit and warm up, but the rest of the arena probably never hit 40 degrees all weekend. Burrrrr! Maybe by our March trial...

Anyway, it was an OK weekend performance-wise. Skye went 2/4, getting Q's in both his JWW runs, but no Q's in Standard this weekend. Saturday's standard was not good, and I ended up pulling him from the course at the table which was obstacle #8. He had popped his weaves, then entered pole 2 when I made him redo, and then he fell off the side of the dogwalk since he was looking at the judge and not where he was going. Then on the table, he popped up before the count was done, so Mr. No Focus was pulled before we could embarrass ourselves any further.

Skye's Standard run on Sunday was much better, with the only fault being the AFrame contact. I have a training issue to work on with regards to contacts where there is a tunnel between me and the contact. Skye has a tendency to come off the side of the obstacle when I am not right there next to it - I really need to set this up and proof it in training.

So, I am bummed that we did not get a Double Q this weekend, but you gotta be happy with a steady 50% Q rate.

Mr Rip had a fun time this weekend. He always runs with such enthusiasm and seems to have a great time just doing agility. He only got 1 Q in his 4 runs, but it was a Standard Q for once. I am also happy to say he only dropped 1 bar all weekend. He had a great Open Jumpers run on Sunday with just that 1 bar down. His other Open JWW run on Saturday wasn't bad, but he did pop his weaves and then have a run-by on a jump followed by a couple offcourse jumps. He DID hit a really tough weave entry that almost no novice dogs hit on Saturday.

We do have A LOT to work on of course, and trialing makes this more apparent. I had another episode of Rip running by the dogwalk, just like I had in his previous trial. He did that on Saturday. I also had him pop out of the weaves on both of Saturday's runs. He is popping out when I pass him - so many more reps needed there with reinforcing of him staying in the poles and doing his job. I am also seeing a deteriorated performance in his teeter. He is leaping when it hits the ground. He didn't get called on this, but it's not his performance, and it is getting worse.

Finally, just like I have done on his dogwalk, I am going to have to introduce a stop at the bottom of the AFrame until he understands what his job is. He missed a Standard Q on Saturday by leaping the AFrame again. He's probably missed 5 or 6 Q's in Standard by leaping contacts, though now its the frame instead of dogwalk.

So, in addition to our normal training, we will be stepping up training of:

Teeter leapage

AFrame stop

Weave pops

Dogwalk runby

Videos to follow.

Rip's videos from the USDAA show

Here are the videos from Rip's runs (those that were taped at least) from last weekend's USDAA.

I have an AKC trial this weekend for Skye and Rip as well!

Skye and Rip play USDAA in the new year!

I did a 3 day USDAA trial at the Douglas County Fairgrounds over New Year's weekend. I didnt think ahead that it would mean I had to be in bed early new years eve.

On Friday, I scratched Rip from his 3 runs as he was still favoring his right rear leg a little from tweaking it on Thursday.

For Skye, I had signed up for PVP Team with Pete & his Kelpie Rex. Skye ran great in Team and didn't have any offcourses. Unfortunately, on Friday Rex had an offcourse in Jumpers which knocked us down in the standings, but we still were above the "Q" line.

On Friday, we also ran round 1 of Performance Steeplechase, and Skye got 1st place!

On Saturday, we finished Team competition with team Snooker and Relay. Skye did great again but Rex had another offcourse in Relay, so that put us out of contention for the team "Q". If Rex had finished his 2 courses, we would have been just 20 points out of first place.

We also ran round 2 of Performance Steeplechase - only 3 dogs in the 22" height had moved to the finals. We ran a good course and got 1st again!

Skye also had an attempt at Gamblers on Saturday and though we had a great opening, he did not get the distance challenge, which was to go through a tunnel, then push out about 18 feet to a set of weaves, then a jump. Skye instead flipped back into the tunnel.

Rip ran 3 runs on Saturday. He started with Standard and wow he was wound up. It started with a very obvious (so I thought) sequence of jump, jump, AFrame. He did the 2 jumps, then shot off about 30 feet to a tunnel. I got him back on the frame, and then instead of going straight to a jump then weaves, he went back for that tunnel! Once we got past that it went well, except that he launched his dogwalk contact into another awaiting tunnel. No shortage of enthusiasm though!

Rip also had a Gamblers run and he did a good job in the opening, though he did pop one set of 12 poles. He got the Gamble for a "Q" and his Starters Gambler title!

At the end of the day we ran Pairs with Jan and her speedy border collie Meg again. Rip really likes Meg. We had a great run with the fastest Pairs time in Starters, though Rip knocked a bar so we got 2nd place.

Sunday brought just 2 runs for Skye. He did Standard first thing and had a nice run. We got 2nd place by just 2/10ths of a second. Later he did Snooker and we were trying to get a Super Q. Something completely unexpected happened though - when we started, I was going for the red jump in the back and while trying to keep Skye off the nearby jump, he veered off and climbed the AFrame which was NOT PART OF THE COURSE. Course builders had set the frame at the edge of the ring, still inside, and I didnt consider that Skye would go over there. It wasnt blocked in any way, so he wasted about 3 or 4 seconds doing that and getting back to me. That was enough to cause us to run out of time just before he was taking the final #7 jump in the closing. It cost us the Super Q and at first I was pretty mad that the frame was left on the course like that, all setup, but really, Skye should have just stayed with me like I was telling him.

Rip had a great Standard run to start the day, and he hit both his contacts, but he knocked 2 bars during the run. Maybe he was still a little sore from whatever he did to his leg Thursday. We also did a very short 2 obstacle Snooker run. He turned the wrong way when I FC'd the weaves and went back through pole 1/2 to get to me. We ran Jumpers at the end of the day and he ran a smokin run but again knocked 1 bar in an otherwise great performance.

I came away with a few things to work on of course and generally had a good time. I would have really liked to have earned a gamble or the snooker for Skye to get us that closer to Perf. ADCH, but it will have to wait !