This past weekend was a 2 day local trial at the Latigo Trails facility, which is the one only 10 minutes from home.
The judge, Terry Culley, had some really fun and challenging courses. Sometimes AKC courses seem considerably easier than USDAA, but that was not the case this weekend, especially on Saturday where only 5 dogs out of about 30 in the Exc. 20B group Q'd the standard course. That was followed up by only 9 dogs Q'ing the the Exc 20B JWW course!
Skye actually managed to get a Double Q on Saturday with a 3rd in Std and a 6th in JWW!
Rip had a really nice fast Std run in Exc-A, but he "bunny hopped" his teeter and got called (rightfully so!) - I think he may have thought it was the dogwalk. His time was faster than the 1st place dog in 20B which is cool.
I then had a first-ever with Rip in JWW - and not a good first either. He got spooked by the judge and wouldn't run the course. He took the 2nd jump and was looking at the judge who was standing near jump #3 and veered off, refusing to go anywhere near #3 and going away from me, just really freaked for some reason. I suppose the reason is he is a border collie, and sometimes they freak out! So I left after 2 jumps with Rip, pretty disappointed that we didnt get to try the course.
On Sunday, neither dog had a really good Standard run. I decided to push Skye a little, and he knocked the top bar of the triple and then came out of the weaves at about pole 4 after the triple, in order to catch up to me! He then missed both his AF and DW contacts. Jeeze.
For Rip, because of the bad experience in JWW on Saturday, I decided to "run with" from the start to keep it a positive experience - I didnt want any repeat of him being scared. Normally I would have taken a small leadout and front crossed between #3 & 4, but instead I did a rear cross, and Rip didnt cross tight and took an offcourse, skipping the triple and heading into the weaves. We continued and he then missed his AF contact as well. I made him hold his DW. I MUST remember to hold criteria on both dogs - gotta quit letting them get away with missing these contacts as they have really solid 2O2O in practice.
In JWW, both dogs ran really well. Skye got a Q & 8th place - about 50% of dogs Q'd the JWW course in the 20B group. Rip had a great run but did drop 1 bar as I decelerated too soon. He ran it 1.5 seconds faster than Skye did.
Here are some of Skye and Rip's runs:
Finally, I got to run Xena, a neat fast Aussie owned by Lana, as Lana had pulled a leg muscle on Saturday and couldnt run. This was my first time running Xena, though she is in class with Skye so she knows me.
Xena ran great for me. We took 1st in Open Standard and earned her Open Std Title! I then ran her in Open JWW and she also got 1st & Q'd, though we did have a little refusal bobble in that one.
Here is Xena's Standard run:
Chaos Crew
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
RM Regional - one more video
I was able to get Rip's Team Relay from Alan Tay (Powerpups) which is great since we had video recording issues.
Mary Ellen & Maizy had 1 bar, Rufus popped his weaves - and Susan says he NEVER does that, and then Rip had 1 bar, but no offcourse!
Wow look at that Maizy go!
Mary Ellen & Maizy had 1 bar, Rufus popped his weaves - and Susan says he NEVER does that, and then Rip had 1 bar, but no offcourse!
Wow look at that Maizy go!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Our USDAA Rocky Mountain Regional Report
Last weekend I attended the RM Regional, held at an awesome indoor soccer facility in Lakewood, Colorado - it's just west of Denver. The turf surface is really nice and the building is huge with plenty of crating space. On the downside, the building is not climate controlled except for some ventilation fans, and the weekend was up near 100 degrees, so it was quite steamy in there.
I had entered DAM/PVP team events with Rip and Skye, as well as the Regional Steeplechase & Grand Prix events. I passed on the IHC classes and the local Grand Prix to save some money.
Overall, we did really well. In DAM team, Rip's teammates were Mary Ellen Barry & her BC Maizy and Susan Scariot & her Papillon Rufus. They were really great and we ended up having a very successful team, considering nobody knew each other before we got there! Maizy was the top 22" dog in Team for the weekend, and Rufus scored really high. Rip did well too - no offcourses for us and our team ended up in 5th place overall, out of 30 very competitive teams.
My only regret is in Rip's snooker course. I had run the course with Skye and accumulated 53 points with a pretty flowing plan. I wanted to run the same plan with Rip, but didn't anticipate that he would head for an offcourse tunnel, so we only ended up with 9 points. Had I been able to execute the same plan with Rip, our team would have finished in 2nd - woulda, coulda, shoulda!
In this Gamblers run, there was a 3 jump sequence that had to be done as a threadle for 5 points in a 1235 scoring system. This was the only 5 point obstacle. Rip did it successfully in both the opening and in the closing (double points). There were only 3 other 22" dogs that did it in the opening - not sure how many did in the close. We had 42 points - 1st place was 45 points.
Skye & I were teamed with my wife & Baby. I turned out to be the weak link on our team unfortunately. Skye had an offcourse in Standard, at the tunnel / dogwalk discrimination. Looking back at the video, I can see that I greatly contributed to that offcourse. Bummer. Our Gamblers was good, with Skye getting 1st in 22" performance, and our Jumpers and Snooker were good too - Skye also had 1st in Snooker. We were in 6th place, 'above the line', going into the relay. Alas... Skye found another tunnel to take that wasn't part of the course and we NQ'd our side of the relay. Baby-dog was perfect all weekend, putting up really nice scores all around, but with Skye getting 2 offcourses, we ended up in 7th, just below the Q line. It didnt really matter as we had already Q'd for Nationals, but still!!
Steeplechase round 1 had 2 sets of weaves - this turned out to be Rip's downfall. His weaves this weekend were pretty slow with the heat, and having to do 2 sets just cost too much time. Rip ran clean, but was just too slow to make it into round 2.
Skye's Perf-Steeplechase was good, though he knocked the last bar. We just made it into round 2 as the last seed.
In Grand Prix, Skye already had a bye into round 2, so it was more or less practice. I didn't monitor contacts and Skye missed both his DW and his AF, but otherwise had a good run.
Rip ran pretty well except in one spot where I was doing a wrap/rear cross on a jump and he didn't read my motion and turned the wrong way and knocked the bar. I am bummed that we didn't get that run on tape so I could see what I did.
So, Rip did not get to play in Round 2 of either Steeplechase or Grand Prix - no bye's for him!
Skye did play in both Round 2's. He took I think 3rd in Perf Steeplechase. I thought his time was not fast enough for a bye, as I believe we got combined with the 16" group, but then on Sunday the trial sec told me I DID get a bye for Steeplechase, so if that is the case, then cool beans!
The last run for us was Perf Grand Prix, and though Skye was not all that fast due to the 99 degree heat, he did run it clean for 2nd place and a semi-final bye!
I would really like to do a Regional where I don't have to run in 100 degree heat. The only regionals I have done have been local and really hot, which makes my dogs really slow. Maybe next year I will investigate doing one somewhere else, either in a climate controlled place, or at a cooler time of year. We shall see.
I had entered DAM/PVP team events with Rip and Skye, as well as the Regional Steeplechase & Grand Prix events. I passed on the IHC classes and the local Grand Prix to save some money.
Overall, we did really well. In DAM team, Rip's teammates were Mary Ellen Barry & her BC Maizy and Susan Scariot & her Papillon Rufus. They were really great and we ended up having a very successful team, considering nobody knew each other before we got there! Maizy was the top 22" dog in Team for the weekend, and Rufus scored really high. Rip did well too - no offcourses for us and our team ended up in 5th place overall, out of 30 very competitive teams.
My only regret is in Rip's snooker course. I had run the course with Skye and accumulated 53 points with a pretty flowing plan. I wanted to run the same plan with Rip, but didn't anticipate that he would head for an offcourse tunnel, so we only ended up with 9 points. Had I been able to execute the same plan with Rip, our team would have finished in 2nd - woulda, coulda, shoulda!
In this Gamblers run, there was a 3 jump sequence that had to be done as a threadle for 5 points in a 1235 scoring system. This was the only 5 point obstacle. Rip did it successfully in both the opening and in the closing (double points). There were only 3 other 22" dogs that did it in the opening - not sure how many did in the close. We had 42 points - 1st place was 45 points.
Skye & I were teamed with my wife & Baby. I turned out to be the weak link on our team unfortunately. Skye had an offcourse in Standard, at the tunnel / dogwalk discrimination. Looking back at the video, I can see that I greatly contributed to that offcourse. Bummer. Our Gamblers was good, with Skye getting 1st in 22" performance, and our Jumpers and Snooker were good too - Skye also had 1st in Snooker. We were in 6th place, 'above the line', going into the relay. Alas... Skye found another tunnel to take that wasn't part of the course and we NQ'd our side of the relay. Baby-dog was perfect all weekend, putting up really nice scores all around, but with Skye getting 2 offcourses, we ended up in 7th, just below the Q line. It didnt really matter as we had already Q'd for Nationals, but still!!
Steeplechase round 1 had 2 sets of weaves - this turned out to be Rip's downfall. His weaves this weekend were pretty slow with the heat, and having to do 2 sets just cost too much time. Rip ran clean, but was just too slow to make it into round 2.
Skye's Perf-Steeplechase was good, though he knocked the last bar. We just made it into round 2 as the last seed.
In Grand Prix, Skye already had a bye into round 2, so it was more or less practice. I didn't monitor contacts and Skye missed both his DW and his AF, but otherwise had a good run.
Rip ran pretty well except in one spot where I was doing a wrap/rear cross on a jump and he didn't read my motion and turned the wrong way and knocked the bar. I am bummed that we didn't get that run on tape so I could see what I did.
So, Rip did not get to play in Round 2 of either Steeplechase or Grand Prix - no bye's for him!
Skye did play in both Round 2's. He took I think 3rd in Perf Steeplechase. I thought his time was not fast enough for a bye, as I believe we got combined with the 16" group, but then on Sunday the trial sec told me I DID get a bye for Steeplechase, so if that is the case, then cool beans!
The last run for us was Perf Grand Prix, and though Skye was not all that fast due to the 99 degree heat, he did run it clean for 2nd place and a semi-final bye!
I would really like to do a Regional where I don't have to run in 100 degree heat. The only regionals I have done have been local and really hot, which makes my dogs really slow. Maybe next year I will investigate doing one somewhere else, either in a climate controlled place, or at a cooler time of year. We shall see.
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