ADCH Rip!

Rip got that last Super Q he needed for his USDAA ADCH title this weekend at the DAPPR trial at Black Forest park. He did it in fine style too, by earning 1st place in the 22" Championship division.

We have had a few shots at this last Super Q - starting back in March of this year. I really didn't have high hopes since again we were dealing with really hot temperatures. It was well into the 90's this weekend, and Colorado Springs tied their alltime high temperature of 100 degrees today (as a side note, I am surprised it's never been over 100 in the Springs!) I had ordered a 'cool coat' for Rip from Clean Run last week, but it still hasn't arrived yet, and I also ordered a couple crate pads, one for Rip and one for Skye, that are supposed to help draw heat away from their bodies, but again those hadn't arrived yet either. So, I had to resort to wetting rip with the hose, something he is really not crazy about - ok he hates it and wants to know what he's done wrong... but I wanted him to have at least some motivation, and it worked! I did not get normal speed, but enough to get us through the course.

As the map shows below, the course was 3 or 4 reds, so of course we had to try for 4 reds. I couldn't come up with a good plan that would include multiple 7's and still let us finish the closing, so I decided on a plan of 5 5 6 7. I wanted to stay away from the 6 point weaves as much as I could, since weave speed is Rip's weakness, ESPECIALLY in the heat.

We ran the course pretty efficiently and finished just under time, with about a second to spare. When it was all said and done, we scored 54 points, and a few other dogs scored 53 points, putting us in 1st place!

The DAPPR club provides an ADCH bar and a really nice ribbon. They provide a personalized version of the ribbon, with date, dog names and title if you are willing to wait a couple weeks, so we used the one they gave for photo opportunities, and gave it back to await the custom version.

Happy Rip and Greg, with the judge Carol Kramer Smorch.



Now without looking further below, study this course and see what plan you would be willing to try... then look to see what I came up with.


Here's how I decided to do it, starting with the Red color, to Yellow, to Blue, to Aqua, to the closing in Purple.

Foiled by Fluff

I am a little late on writing this post as I had two trials in a row and somehow lost the time to write about either.

Two weeks ago, we were at an AKC show - it was a three day show but I only did Saturday and Sunday. It's one of the few that offers both FAST and T2B as well as the regular JWW and STD, so with both dogs entered, I had 8 runs a day which is much better than sitting around for two runs per dog!

This turned out to be a really great show for us. If you've followed previous posts, distance challenges found in FAST or Gamblers have never been Skye's cup-o-tea, but he really shined this weekend by getting both of the FAST challenges for Q's! Rip also got one of them.

For T2B, Skye ran clean both days, though not terribly fast, and managed 5 points and 6 points. Rip ran almost clean both days (he missed the AFrame contact on Saturday) and managed 7 points with his Q.

Then, it was time for the regular classes. Saturday was really hot, and though the indoor soccer field turf is a fabulous running surface, the building's ventilation is really bad and not air conditioned, so it was steamy indoors - probably in the neighborhood of 95 degrees inside. That means I have slow dogs. On the bright side, slow dogs tend to be more accurate :)

So, Skye ran clean in both runs for Double Q #19 towards his MACH 2. He had the slowest time in JWW that he's ever had, earning only 3 points - he really does not run in the heat. That meant that Sunday would be our first shot at that MACH 2.

Rip also ran clean in both runs, and though he was not near as slow as Skye, he was still not himself.

On Sunday's regular runs, both dogs Q'd the JWW course in the morning. The temperature had dropped back to a normal 70's area and the dogs were running pretty nice. That meant that Skye would have his shot at MACH 2 at the end of the day when we ran Standard.

Rip was again first dog on the line all weekend (I hate that!), so I got to run the Standard course with him first, and we ran it clean!! That meant we had our first perfect QQ weekend together!

My plan for Skye was the same as with Rip. The run started just fine, but after landing the 5th jump, Skye veered off his line to check a piece of white fluff on the turf - it might have been rabbit fur or something interesting right? So when he looked back at me, he was off his line enough that he missed the next jump. Ugh! Foiled by Fluff! He has never done that in all the years I've been running him.

We don't have another AKC show until the July 21st weekend - it's a local one only 10 minutes from home, so hopefully we can get that MACH 2 there!

On another interesting point, I noticed that while keeping track of points/double Qs for Nationals, that both dogs now have 4 double Qs, but Rip actually has about 20 more points than Skye! We still are only about halfway on points accumulation, so we need to stay consistent if we want to qualify for Nationals in Tulsa next year.

Here's Skye's "Fluff" run:


And here is Rip showing how it's supposed to be done!

Milestones

Today was a milestone day for me and Skye in a couple ways.

First, I entered a USDAA trial later this month and for the first time ever, I entered only Rip. Skye is already qualified for Nationals this year, and at our last trial, he earned his Lifetime Achievement and P-ADCH Bronze titles - those are both items that factored into my decision, but also Skye really does not run well when it's hot out, and since this trial is outside in a park, at the end of June, it can very easily be 85 or 90 degrees, and I thought that rather than enter him and then be disappointed with 'slow Skye', that I will just not enter him.

Second, Skye Played! We got Skye as a rescue dog when he was probably 1.5 years old. In the 6.5 years that I have had him, he has had only 1 dog friend - an Aussie named Sydney who had as much attitude as he did. Funny how the two cranky dogs really liked each other, and loved to chase and hang out.
But...
Today, he actually played and wrestled with a dog - my daughter's new border collie puppy Carbon. They played like old friends, and he was so appropriate and never hurt her. Carbon is only 11 weeks old but is quite spunky, and she really enjoys wrestling.
I was glad to have the video camera sitting on my desk so I could record this monumental event! They actually played for about 10 minutes before other distractions in the house took precedence.