USDAA Cynosport Nationals experience

Last week Katrina and I drove the travel trailer to Louisville Kentucky for the USDAA Nationals. We have qualified many times before, but never have attended. I actually liked the idea of an indoor nationals, compared to the outdoor Scottsdale location, since both Skye and Rip do not run well in the heat, and with Scottsdale, it could easily have been in the 90's. As it turned out, the weather was perfect in Kentucky - probably no warmer than about 75, and it only rained a brief time on one day.

We elected to stay at a KOA campground instead of camping onsite for two reasons - the KOA was about $12 a day less, and the Louisville expo center could not guarantee that we would have full hookups - it was first come, first serve, and since we weren't planning on arriving until Tuesday afternoon, I didn't want to chance it. The campground turned out to be very nice with lots of trees and nature trails for walks with the dogs. Well, it was nice until the masses and their kids showed up anyway - more on that later.

So we arrived barely before check-in closed on Tuesday since one of the 2 main bridges over the Ohio? river in Louisville is closed for repairs, which put us in a 1hr+ traffic jam. Checkin was uneventful and we had a chance to setup our crates. We had 4 crates since Ice-man came along for the ride even though he wasn't competing. The crating area was a jam packed building and everyone was nearly on top of each other. This is a lot different than when we went to Tulsa for the AKC Nationals two years ago and had a 10x10 stall. Fortunately, my teammates donated some of their 4'x6' crating space to us and we had enough room for all 4 crates.

Rip was entered in the DAM Team events, as well as the Grand Prix Quarterfinals. Skye was entered in PVP Team events, and the Performance Steeplechase Semi-Finals as well as Performance Grand Prix Semi-Finals. Skye's teammate was Baby, and Rip's teammates were Sharon Murphy & Reo and Art Malott & Mischief (Missy).

Wednesday
Wednesday started the events for us, and we only had Gamblers on the schedule. So, I had 2 runs, and Katrina only got 1 run with Baby. Here is the course map:

This was an interesting course. It presented 2 distance challenges, but only 28 seconds to run the course. For every second (or fraction) over time, you lost 3 points. For every second under time, you got 1 extra point, up to 10.  The a-b-c/A-B-C challenge could be done for 10 points as a run-with (no distance) or do it as a distance challenge from the back side of the tunnel. So, handlers had to decide what to do - you could even skip the distance challenges altogether. This was a 1-2-3-5 scoring course, with the teeter worth 5.

For me, I got a little greedy, which is always the downfall of Gamblers. I tried the A-B-C-H distance challenge with Rip and he came out of the first set of 6 poles when I went behind the tunnel. I also tried the 1-2-3-4 distance with him and he turned back and backjumped #2. We did not end up with many points, as we were also 1.07 seconds over time which subtracted 6 points giving us only 13. My teammate Reo had an OK Gambler run for 24 points, but Art & Missy had a worse run than Rip and ended up with only 7 points, so we were near the bottom of the 175 total teams running - I think we were in 150th place or so.

For Skye, I had the same plan, but I intended on running with him at the a-b-c challenge. He did the first 6 poles, the jump, and missed the entry on the second set of 6 poles. I didn't remember, but I could have fixed it and earned the 10 points, but we just went on instead. I also incorporated the 1-2-3-4 challenge and Skye got it very nicely, but my timing was off and the buzzer went off when Skye was on the AFrame on the way out, so we lost 18 points by being way over time! Don't get greedy!!! Skye also ended up with just 13 points, but Baby had a good Gamblers run with 38 points to offset Skye's mess.

Thursday
We had Team Standard on Thursday as well as Perf GP Semi's for Skye. The Standard course wasn't too bad. Here is the map:

No real leadout was needed. Skye ran this first. Skye did look at the finish jump #19 after the AFrame, which I didn't expect, but I got him into the tunnel fine. We were going great but coming out of the tunnel before the #12 teeter, I didn't give him a very good line, and he fell off the side of the teeter. I put him back on it, but he missed the up contact in the process. We finished the rest of the course OK and ended up with just the 7 points worth of faults.

For Rip, he started out a little worried since the leash-runner came right up to me to get his leash. Rip hates having people behind him at the start and got concerned with ears pinned back and all. I got him going fine and he was slow over the AFrame (again worried because the judge was right next to the frame) but once in the tunnel, he shot out like a cannon! We got through the rest fine up until that darn tunnel to teeter section! I stood closer to the tunnel exit than I should have, to make sure he didn't offcourse the #16 jump but my position sent him right to the weaves. I screamed his name and he stopped just short of entering the poles and came over to the teeter and we continued on fine. He had a really fast dogwalk and we finished with just the 2 point refusal fault.

For our teams, Baby had a great run in Standard and was clean with no faults. This moved us up quite a bit in the standings - maybe 40th place out of 120?
Rip's teammates also got through without any 'E's though everyone had some faults. Still, we moved up to around 100th place, up from 150th.

Skye ran the PGP semi-finals but we ended up with an offcourse. I tried to do a rear-cross at a 180 turn and Skye looked at me like 'Huh?' and went right around the jump. In Grand Prix, you need to be clean, so I didn't bother to bring him back and fix it and just continued with the 'E'. They were not calling fault limits, so anyone that 'E'd a course still got to run it all the way through.
Here is the map from PGP. The problem jump was #13 and he went around the right side of it and then onto #14.

Friday
We had team Snooker on Friday, along with Grand Prix quarterfinals for Rip, and Perf Steeplechase semi-finals for Skye.

Here is the snooker map:

I was happy to see that we could only do 3 of the reds. It gives too much advantage to the really fast dogs if they can do all 4 reds, so this leveled the playing field a bit. The time allowed of 46 seconds isn't enough to get really aggressive with Skye - I was concerned that if I tried to go for too many points that we would end up with the buzzer while doing #7 in the close.
Also, since the #7 was jump/AF/jump, with that enticing tunnel under the frame, I elected to stay away from it. Both of my dogs would have a really good chance of grabbing an offcourse tunnel and ending our run early if I tried it.

For Skye, the conservative plan was 5+5+6 in the opening. Other than slipping and almost landing on the ground between the first 5 and the second 5, everything went great and we got all the way through the closing.

For Rip, the plan was for 6+6+6 in the opening. It went really smooth and we got all the way through #6 in the closing! When doing the 7 in the close, Rip took the jump but then shot into the tunnel under the frame (I knew that was a chance!)

For my teams, as it turned out, everyone but me had trouble with this course. Katrina and Baby got 1 point as Baby went behind her and took a jump she wasnt expecting. Rip's teammate Reo also got 1 point - they were going for 7's and after the first jump in the 7, Reo took the tunnel (see! Danger!). I didn't see Mischief run, but she at least got through #4 in the closing. Our team placements suffered after Snooker. I didn't tell Katrina that had she completed her plan, we would have been in 20th place, but instead were about 65th place.


Rip got to run the Grand Prix quarters next. This is the course:

The course was a little tricky. He went wide after #5 as though he didn't see the tunnel, but went in OK. The obvious tricky area was around 9 through 14. There were a lot of obstacles in close proximity with multiple direction changes. This one caught us, and after jump #10, I thought I had Rip's attention for the tunnel but he started up the dogwalk behind me. Whistle! I did get him and put him in the tunnel, and then we finished it up clean. He really ran nice, but you cant be getting offcourses! Unfortunately, Katrina was busy staring at the snooker ring next to this one and didn't watch us or film us.


At the end of the day, around 5:30pm, Skye got to run the Perf speed jumping semi's. The course was made for fast dogs and I knew this would be trouble for us as we can accel more at handling type courses. Here is the course:

We ran this clean without any bobbles and I was trying to push Skye to go fast. We ended up with a time about 36.1, but the real fast performance dogs were turning in times in the 30.x's. Once you factor the 15% average, the qualifier cutoff was around 35.1 so we didn't make it. I was still happy with his run - he did a great job.

Saturday
For us, Saturday was the last day of competition. Sunday is for team and GP finals which we were not in.
Saturday's team jumpers course was really challenging, and though I don't have the exact numbers, this course proved really tough for the bigger dogs with about 1/3 of the competitors getting an "E".
Here is the map:

The line from jump #3 to #4 caused many of the issues. Dog after dog took the #9 offcourse. The other biggest problem area was jump #16, as it was a slice and the dog's momentum tended to put them past the plane. Lots of dogs missed taking #16 altogether and shot into the tunnel.

I am proud to say that both Skye and Rip ran this well with just 1 bar down. I ran it conservatively for Rip, though I wish I had pushed a little more as it was a good course for him. I did a blind cross after the tunnel and he knocked #18.

For Skye, I got momentarily lost around 5-6-7, and this caused the #7 jump to get knocked. I did regain my senses and we continued on and ran the rest clean.

For my teams, Baby also ran this with just 1 bar knocked. This helped move us back up a bit in the standings and we finished in 43'rd place out of 120 teams.  In the woulda-coulda-shoulda category, had Katrina finished her Snooker plan, we would have been in 16th place. They took just 12 Performance teams into the finals, so we still would not have made it, but we were really close and a better Gambler performance from me & Skye could have pushed us up even further. Ahhh if only!

On the other hand Rip's teammates did not fare well in this course. I saw Reo take the #14 triple after the #6 jump, so E for them. I didnt see Mischief's run, but she also earned up the 'E'. Surprisingly the two Es only moved our team placement marginally, and we ended up in 122nd place of 170. Not great, but not really near the bottom. Rip had the strongest performance on his team with no E's!
In the woulda-coulda-shoulda scenario for Rip's team - if the other 2 dogs performed exactly the same as Rip did, we would have ended up in 57th place.


Here's Rip's runs:


And Skye's:


Summary

In summary I would say our first USDAA Nationals was a successful event. I was not too nervous and I think my dogs ran really well.
Rip and Skye both hit every single contact! Other than Gamblers, they had perfect weave performances, and both dogs only knocked 1 bar (Rip knocked the start bar for snooker but it didnt count for anything :)

Next year, USDAA Nationals is right near home in Denver, outdoors in October. This can be risky - it could easily be cold with some snow, but I am planning on attending and deal with what nature brings us!

Laramie USDAA for Skye and Rip

We took the travel trailer up to Laramie WY again this year for their annual USDAA trial. This show always runs a couple Masters classes on Friday afternoon, which works out fine since we have a 3.5 hour drive up, so we wouldn't be able to drive up on Saturday morning anyway. The trip up was pretty uneventful, unlike Jackie's trip! We haul in what seems like half the household, with our 4 dogs and 4 wire crates and 4 fans, chairs, coolers, bedding, etc. This is a nice relaxing trial as it's only 1 ring, so no conflicts, and the arena is out in the country surrounded only by University of Wyoming agriculture buildings and hundreds of sheep (Hellllooooo Border Collies!). The only real downside here is the flies. Lots of flies. Flies crawling on you all the time. 


Here are some of Rip's videos. (I am having some computer trouble so havent been able to compile Skye's videos yet)





So we started the day with Gamblers, and I didn't do it right for either dog. I dont have the map, but it was seemingly straightforward - take a jump and send to a U shaped tunnel, and upon tunnel exit, pass back between the jump and the tunnel and take a distance teeter, and finish with a jump. It really didnt look very difficult. I started the gamble with both dogs on my left - worked great for Rip, but Skye took the wrong end of the tunnel. Skye then got the rest of the gamble just fine. Rip came out of the tunnel and flew back over the starting jump.  


Next we did Steeplechase. Rip had a pretty nice run but he did miss his contact on the first pass of the AFrame and then ended up knocking a bar, so we did not make it into round 2. His time was pretty good at 33 seconds. Skye had a decent, clean run, though he was a bit slow due to the heat. I think he ran it in 39 seconds - so Rip was 6 seconds ahead of him!


The last of Friday's runs was Snooker. Rip did well - we were going for 5-6-7-6 in the opening but he hit the third Red jump, so we went to the other and ended up with 5-6-7 opening, and in the closing it was going great, but Rip knocked a bar in the #6 combo so our 35 points wasnt enough points to Q. Skye ran the course great doing the 5-6-7-6 opening and went all the way through the closing, so he ended up with another Super Q! I've pretty much found that I need to run the same plan with both dogs or I will get mixed up. 


Saturday started with Standard - Skye had a great run and got 1st place in his small group of P3 dogs! 
I've really been wanting to get Rip out of Advanced Standard - it seems like we have had wayyyyy to many tries at getting Q's in Adv. Std without success - we only had 1 Q going into the show. So, maybe trying too hard, or caring too much factors into the NQ's as well - there is definitely something to be said about that as when you try to run more cautious, you DO end up making mistakes.
So here we go - the run is going great and Rip sticks his dogwalk contact nicely. We near the end and I am impatient and pull him off a jump before the AFrame - no problem though as no refusals are called on jumps, so I put him back over it, and then he launches his AFrame contact. Ugh. Followed by hitting the bar on the jump after the frame. There goes try #1.


Next came Grand Prix - this felt like a long course and the wheeling showed it as 194 yards. Yikes! It had a couple tricky spots for a dog like Rip who loves to suck to tunnels. 
Rip ran that course like a champ and ignored those offcourses and got a Q! He took about 5th place. There were not a lot of dogs that qualified on that longass course. 
Skye then ran the course and he also did great - he ran it in about the same amount of time Rip did and got a Q & 2nd place! Both dogs got their first Grand Prix/Perf Grand Prix Q's for next year's qualification period!


Last for Saturday was Jumpers. This was a pretty tricky course with some weird angles and a box with a 270 and offcourse potential. Rip ended up getting caught by the offcourse after jump #5, and Skye was pretty slow but dropped a bar, so neither dog got a Jumpers Q this time around.


Sunday had Standard, Pairs, Round2 of Steeplechase and a bonus round of Snooker.


As it turned out, Sunday was Rip's day! I tried not to overthink his Standard run and just run it. Everything went great and we got a freakin Standard Q baby! The dogwalk was the 2nd to last obstacle and the course put you a little behind on it, and I must have told him to "Touch!" while he was on the up-ramp! Good boy stuck that contact!


Skye ran really well and I thought we had Q'd the P3 Standard, but then I found out after that he actually missed his dogwalk contact. It was a popular fault because of the way the course was designed.


We ran Pairs - Rip was paired with Julie & Rift and we did great. Rift is Ice's brother. This was our second try together and this time our only fault was a bar that Rip knocked, but our time was plenty fast to get the Q. This was also Rip's Master Pairs title!


Skye ran pairs with my wife & Baby. Unfortunately Katrina didnt notice that Baby missed the weave entry so when she continued to the next obstacle, she was whistled. Last time we paired, it was me who messed it up, and this was her turn. 
The bummer is, I am trying to get Skye's PDCH-Bronze title, and all we need are Gambler and Pairs legs, and we got neither at this show.


Skye got to play in Round 2 of P-Steeplechase. He was running pretty slow, so I didn't expect too much, but he did run clean. Shar & Tar'n ran after us and they had a bobble at the weave entry, but even with that, they still ended up 1.5 secs ahead, so Skye got 2nd place. Still good for $8 :)


Finally we got to play the bonus Snooker. As Rip still needs all his Super Qs, I tend to try and come up with a high point plan that will give us a chance. He's not the fastest dog, so I usually can't go for all 7's and make it through the closing, but again we had the option of 4 reds and I was going for 7-7-6-3 I believe. Rip was actually going for something different though! I did a long leadout and planned to call him over a red and through the tunnels so we could take the teeter in the back. Rip was coming to me and I flinched and he veered into the #3 tunnel. So, plan change, we did #3, then did the 7, then 6, and instead of #3 as planned, Rip did the #2 tunnel, but that was OK, we continued through the close. The buzzer went while the #7 teeter was tipping down, so we didnt get those points. No Super Q, but we did get the regular Q anyway.


For Skye, I ran a 7-7-6 opening and we got through the closing. The 16" & 22" groups got combined in performance and 1 super Q was given out - it went to my wife & Baby who did 4 reds. 


All in all a very successful trial. So glad to get an Advanced Standard leg for Rip, and also really glad to get each dog a Grand Prix Q!


I am not happy about how many bars Rip knocked this weekend. Some were probably my fault, and some were his fault. I may have to go back to staggering his jump heights in practice again - I will see after this weekend's 3-day USDAA show that is going to be at the same nice indoor soccer facility where the RM Regional was held. I also have to continue my work on contacts for both dogs. Skye did really well only missing 1 dogwalk contact all weekend. Rip did well on his dogwalks, hitting them all, but did miss a couple AFrames. We are not quite there yet!

Skye and Rip do AKC at Latigo, July 2011

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:

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.

USDAA in the forest!

This was a really weird trial for us, with as many good moments as bad. It's set at a nice park among tall pines with no view of any street. It's also only 25 minutes from home.

I was running Skye and Rip, and also ended up running Baby for Katrina as she had a leg muscle that didn't feel right and didn't want to chance it after last year's hamstring pull. That amounted to about 15 runs for the weekend.

Lets review Rip's runs first. He had a decent weekend, even though we still manage to find a way to NQ every Advanced Standard run we do. We have 1 Q in the last 11 attempts at Advanced Standard!
We started the weekend off on a good note, with a Q in Master Gamblers. He did a nice job on the send over two jumps to a tunnel, then back over two jumps to finish. That's his 4th Master Gamblers Q - I dont think gamblers will be our issue like it was for Skye!

His Saturday Standard run was really slow - like I didn't know what was wrong with him slow - and later I found out that he really needed to potty, so bad dad on me. He ended up running around the chute, so I put him back in, and then I didn't cross and caused a wrong end of the tunnel.
He ran nicely in Steeplechase round 1, but he did knock 2 bars, so that kept us out of round 2.


He ran pairs with Amy & Nes, and we squeaked in with a Q. Nes is consistent but slow, so we barely made time. This was also our 4th Master Pairs Q.

To save some money, we did not run Grand Prix, as we already have our 2 Qs for nationals.
On Sunday, we started with Standard and had a good run going - then he popped out of the weaves at pole 10. Damn! That was our fault for this try.
Next up we ran his first ever Master Jumpers course. Rip did a very nice job and kept all the bars up for a Q. Good boy!


We then had Snooker, which was an interesting setup. The 7pt combo was three tunnels set far apart, and you had to run by jumps to get there.
Because Rip loves tunnels, I thought this would be a good course for us to try for all 7s. I figured I could tell him to 'go tunnel' and he wouldn't care about the offcourse jump options. I was right - he did a great job and never looked at the jumps, but with the 90 degree+ heat, he wasn't running all that fast, and we got through 6 in the closing, and then the #7 in the closing wasn't the tunnels, but a 3 jump combo instead.

Rip got up to the 2nd jump of #7 in the close when the buzzer went. Only 1 dog completed all 7s and got through the close, so this *woulda* been a super Q for us. Instead it was a regular Q.


Rip finished the day by trying the IHC jumpers course. Again he was running pretty slow, and he did a good job with only 1 refusal on the course. No offcourses.

Now Skye's turn...
On Saturday, for whatever reason, Skye popped out of the weaves at pole 10 five different times. I cant even remember the last time he popped out prior to this trial. He did this 3 times in a row in Gamblers to start off the weekend. He also popped in Perf. Steeplechase and Pairs. I was
pretty frustrated with him and those thoughts of 'retirement' crept back in. I figured I would just have to wait and see what the rest of the weekend brought and decide what to do later. Fortunately, he did not pop out in any run on Sunday.

So, Skye managed to only get 3 Qs this weekend, two in Standard - both 1st place in pretty small classes, and he also Q'd the IHC Jumpers course.


The days were pretty hot, which tends to affect Skye's performance - he is definitely a lot slower in the heat.
In Gamblers, we had an alltime low number of points - since he kept missing those weaves. We got 2 whole points, and no distance challenge - but my heart was not in that part anyway after the bad weaves.
In P-Steeplechase round 1, he knocked the broad jump and the weave popout that we did fix. No Q, but we made it to round 2 anyway.

In pairs, I had to re-do the weaves again, and then I forgot the course so directed him over an offcourse jump.
The Snooker run wasn't bad, though he didn't listen and took an offcourse jump after #5 in the closing, so we had 36 points and no Q!
His Jumpers run was nice except that he uncharacteristicly knocked 2 bars.
His round 2 of P-Steeplechase was pretty nice, right up to the point where he skipped the broad jump. I didn't go back and fix it.


Skye ran pretty slow in his IHC Jumpers course, which I am sure contributed to us being able to Q it. The course had a threadle and push around challenge as well as some interesting angles.


On a good note, according to the USDAA website, those 2 Standard Qs for Skye this weekend give him 100 Qs for Lifetime Achievement standings.
That also leaves us with needing 5 pairs and 5 gambles for our PADCH-Bronze.

And finally, I ran Baby this weekend...
Baby ran really well for me with just 2 exceptions.
I ran her in Perf Grand Prix and got 1st place and another bye certificate for Katrina. We ran P-Steeplechase and she had a good run for 2nd place in round 1, and then she followed that up by getting 1st in round 2 on Sunday!
She was sassy in Gamblers, so she did not get the gamble as she was barking at me instead. Her only other issue was in Saturday's Standard course when she was looking around for mom, and skipped the 2nd jump, then as the course turned back to where Katrina was filming, Baby went over for a quick visit - she also didnt want to lay down on the table, the little stinker!
Katrina did run her in Pairs for the 10 obstacles, while I ran Skye (see above).
She Q'd Jumpers, Snooker, Standard and IHC Jumpers. Sunday's Standard run was great, good for 1st, especially considering her foolishness on Saturday. All in all, a good time running Baby-dog!
Standard:


Grand Prix


Steeplechase Rd2

Double Q's and the Meeks!

This past weekend we competed at the 3 day FRAAD AKC trial. This is a fun trial because it's one of our few shows that includes the FAST class. It was 3 rings, with 2 indoors and 1 outdoor, which can make for some conflicts, but it wasn't really an issue for us.

We had a really successful show, except for that darn FAST class! I also got to run Meeker - which I will talk about later.

Friday
Rip put together three really nice runs. He is in Exc. A for STD and Exc. B for JWW. His standard run was great - he ran fast, motivated and listened really well. Unfortunately we knocked the panel jump so no Q, but still a great run with a time that would have been 3rd place in the Exc B class of 50+ dogs.
He also ran a really fast JWW run - it was his kind of course with a lot of areas to use his stride. I called too early for a wrap jump and made him knock the jump before it though, so no Q's, but very happy with the runs. Rip ran both STD and JWW more than 3 seconds faster than Skye did. I am starting to see some of his speed actually come out on course.
We ran Open FAST at the end of the day and he got the Q to earn our Open FAST title! That puts us in Excellent for all classes, yeah!

Skye continued his good consistent running on Friday and earned us another Double Q - this is the 5th one needed to qualify for Nationals.

Rip STD


Rip JWW




Saturday
Rip put it together and got Q's in both Exc A STD and in Exc JWW! His first 'virtual' double Q! We still need 1 more Exc A qualifier to get into B for Standard. He was just a touch behind Skye in JWW, and about 1.5 seconds ahead of Skye in STD.

Skye ran Saturday's courses great too and earned yet another Double Q - the last one we needed for Nationals. We still need a little over 100 points more, but that should not be an issue.
In the JWW course on Saturday, I believe I put 7 front crosses in for Skye to keep him running motivated and it worked, putting him just ahead of Rip.
The Standard course had a tunnel under the AFrame that caused a lot of dogs to turn the wrong way upon exiting (including Rip) so I ran and FrontCrossed for Skye which turned him correctly. This course also had a weird intentional back-jump combination, where obstacle 15 & 16 were the same jump - take it one way for 15, turn around and take it the other way for 16. We did it without issue.

Skye JWW


Rip STD


Skye STD


Sunday
Finally, Skye was going for the perfect double Q weekend after getting the Q in JWW. So close! After the dogwalk, we were to wrap a jump and go back to a tunnel under the dogwalk - but Skye had spotted a different jump and headed in a direction to cut me off before the jump - I pushed back to the correct jump and told him to wrap but his approach was off and he knocked the bar. The rest of the run was great.

Rip ran two really nice runs again, with 1 mistake in each. In JWW, I got momentarily lost and he saved my butt when I realized I was about to pull him off the correct jump, but then I rushed a front cross and cut into his path, causing him to knock the 2nd to last bar.
In Standard, I got out of position after bailing on a cross before the AFrame. This put me behind, causing me to rear a jump after the frame, and then rear into the weaves. He hit the weave entry but skipped a pole, so NQ.

FAST
The Excellent FAST courses this weekend all had the same theme - some kind of approach to a tunnel where you had to get the dog into the difficult end. Skye and I failed the challenge all 3 times - ugh!!
Rip had his first 2 tries at Excellent FAST but did not get the Q's. Sunday's was as close as you can get without actually Qing it - he got the distance piece, but turned around on the AFrame after a bad approach. I stood for a moment trying to remember if I could put him back on it, then the buzzer went and it took us 5 seconds to get over the finish jump, which put our points total at 59 - just 1 shy of qualifying!

"The Meeks"
On Saturday and Sunday I ran Meeker for one of our students, Liz, who was injured. Meeker is a big fun Aussie who jumps 24". I have run him in class before, and he stayed with us one time when Liz was on vacation, so we do have a little bond.
Meeker ran great for me, and we actually went 3/4, earning her a Double Q on Sunday. Our only NQ run was caused by Meeks hitting the triple (and knocking it flat!). He is such a good dog and runs well for others. He does already have his MACH 2, so he is definitely well trained.

Meeker STD

USDAA fun in Pueblo.

Ah, the joy of May, the only month when we have back-to-back local USDAA trials.

This weekend, it was Pueblo's turn, and we had a great time in spite of the weather. Pueblo was unusually cool both days, more-so on Sunday, with a little rain and drizzle and just a bit of sunshine too. If you asked the dogs, they would tell you it was perfect!

Skye was again a superstar, getting a Q in everything he ran, except for one Gamblers course where the Q rate was about 10%.

He finished qualifying for the Nationals with another Grand Prix Q. Along the way, he also Q'd both of his Standard runs, Jumpers, Snooker, Gamblers, and Pairs. We scratched from a bonus Snooker run because it was very late in the day and it had started to rain.

The Snooker we did Q had a knocked bar in the opening, which kept us from getting another Super Q, but the run was still nice, and Skye hit 4 good AFrames in that run!

He also Q'd Perf. Steeplechase, getting 1st place in round 1 and 2nd place in round 2.

So now with Skye qualified in all 3 events for Nationals, I need to start planning on going. It seems Katrina will likely not go, in which case I need to come up with team(s) on my own.

Rip also had a very good weekend, even though Standard Q's still elude us.
Like Skye, he also managed to get his 2nd Grand Prix Q, so he is qualified in GP and Team for Nationals.
Rip finally managed to get another Steeplechase Q this weekend (our last was August last year). We seem to be consistently about 6 seconds slower than the fastest of fast dogs, which this weekend included Kim Terrill and Steeple, though his speed is improving.

Somehow I need to get Rip to be more confident on course and run like I have seen him run. His weaves were Really slow this weekend, probably 3-4 seconds a set. When you are up against dogs doing weaves in 2 seconds, and have to do this twice on course, you are pretty far behind!

Rip managed to get a Snooker Q, despite taking a jump I didnt plan on - our recovery skills were great in that run!

We also ran Pairs with Rio and we had a nice fast run for a Q.

Finally, at the end of the day Sunday, we ran Jumpers and Rip Q'd that one too, earning our Advanced Jumpers title - now we are in Masters for everything except Standard.
Darn Standard - our run on Saturday was great, with an AFrame contact fault. On Sunday, I made some handling choices that I would change if I could do it over. Sunday's standard run was pretty messy with numerous faults.

All in all, I was really happy with Rip's contacts. His AFrame is getting faster again, and he only missed 1 that I recall. He also never missed a weave entry and only popped out once!

Rip didnt feel well on Sunday, having stomach issues, so I am sure he didnt give 100%, but I really am going to try and work his confidence so that I can get him running faster on course. He worries too much, and gets concerned about the people around him, and the judge standing nearby. This contributes to him running with some fear, instead of being his happy goofy self.

Videos:
Rip Standard


Rip Steeplechase


Rip Pairs



Skye Standard


Skye Snooker


Skye Perf Grand Prix

What happened to Spring? or USDAA in Brighton.

We attended the 2 day USDAA trial in Brighton this past weekend. We didn't go to this one last year, though I usually try to make it since we have so few USDAA's available. This time, we ended up with mid 80's to 90 degree temps in early May. You really never know this time of year - we have had ice on the grass at this trial too in years past, as well as microburst winds that like to come midday and destroy canopies.

So, with the high temps, I lowered my expectations for Skye and Rip, as neither of them do real well in the heat. Skye seems to run at about 1/2 speed - I know that is an exaggeration, but that's how it feels while we are out there.

It turned out to be a successful weekend overall, though neither of my boys managed to get a Standard Q this weekend.

We did pretty well in the tournament classes - Skye was one of the few Perf 22" dogs to run clean in Grand Prix so he got 1st & a bye certificate. Rip ran well in Grand Prix though I pulled him off a jump - we kept going and got whistled. I continued and got whistled again - apparently during the briefing that I missed, the judge decided to implement the rule that you leave after an offcourse. I at least did 5 or 6 more obstacles before leaving. How much time are we really saving at a local trial doing this for $22 runs? Maybe a couple minutes? Aggravating.

In Steeplechase, Skye ran clean except for 1 bar, but we still managed to get into round 2.  Rip had a nice clean Steeplechase run, though a little slow due to the heat. We missed the cutoff for round 2 even though we were clean, thanks to 3 really fast dogs who set the cutoff time. In round 2, Skye had 1 fault - hitting the broad jump pretty hard, but finished for 3rd place.

Skye had issues with contacts this weekend - he missed a couple dogwalks in standard, missed quite a few AFrames as well throughout - costing us a Super Q in Snooker (though we dont need them), and costing us Standard runs.
Rip was 100% on contacts this weekend - awesome!

Each of them had a couple bars down, though the grass was thick in spots, and very slick in other spots, so it was hard for them to judge the footing. There were a number of handlers who took nasty falls, and a number of dogs sliding, hitting bars and uprights and getting a little hurt.

My finally tally was
2 Qs for Rip, a Master Gambler, and Advanced Jumper, out of 8 runs.
6 Qs for Skye, in Gamblers, Grand Prix, Pairs, Perf Steeplechase, Snooker, and Jumpers of 8 runs.

Skye is now qualified for nationals in Perf Steeplechase and Team and needs 1 more Grand Prix.
Rip is qualified in Team, but needs 1 more Grand Prix, and still needs 2 Steeplechase.

I did load a couple videos onto Youtube. I got a new HD video camera, so click the fullscreen link to check them out in 1080p High Definition!

Rip Jumpers:


Rip Snooker:
I mixed up Skye's plan with Rip's plan - we had a great run going, trying for 4 7's.


Skye Grand Prix:


Skye Jumpers:



We have another USDAA next weekend in Pueblo - I am hoping that its not going to be hot again!

Fire Alarm Practice aka USDAA Loveland

We went to the annual USDAA trial in Loveland again this year and were greeted by a warm (81 degrees) windy Saturday followed by a coldfront with snow on Sunday.
Maybe 15 minutes into the trial, Ice was running Gamblers when the fire alarms went off in the arena. Katrina ended up finishing the run as the buzzer had gone off signaling time to do the gamble, and Ice got it, and we grabbed the dogs and went outside with everyone. Seems a burned batch of popcorn at the concession stand was the culprit.
If that wasn't "fun" enough, on Sunday morning at the hotel, at about 6:50am, I had taken Skye and Rip out to the truck so that we could pack up the room. While I was out there, the fire alarms went off at the hotel! I was really glad that my timing was such that my dogs didnt have to hear that (Rip would have absolutely FREAKED I am sure). However, my cardkey would not let me back into the room, so Katrina came out on her own with Baby and Ice shortly after - they were not too happy, but we were at least the closest hotel room to the exit.

So, aside from that, we had a really successful showing at the trial.

Rip managed to get his first Advanced Standard Q, along with a coveted Grand Prix Q, a Master Gamblers Q and a Master Snooker Q! He would have had a Steeplechase Q as well if I didnt push him and cause a jumped AF contact.

Skye got two Q's in P3 Standard, a Q in P3 Pairs, a Q in P3 Jumpers and another Super Q in Snooker.

Rip knocked only 2 bars this weekend - one in our first run, an Adv. Standard where you had to call for the AF/Tunnel discrimination and I must have called over the bar. The other bar came in his last run, Adv. Jumpers when he hit the top of the triple.  He hit all contacts except when I pushed too much in Steeplechase.
Rip's weave speed is really hit or miss. I will be doing much more weave practice for speed. I am waiting for him to 'click' with his footwork - that is what is keeping his speed down, as he is not consistent with footwork and sometimes appears to be stumbling over himself through the weaves. He *can* single-step them - I've seen it in practice and on rare occasion in competition.

Skye ran very well for the most part, and though our Q's were almost always 1st places, I know he was not giving me all the speed he can. He had a 'duh' moment in Gamblers when I attempted to send him to a jump/tunnel and he veered off to the right. Whaa? Not sure what he thought I was saying. In his Standard run on Saturday, he bashed his chin when jumping up on the table. It makes me cringe a bit watching the video, though he finished the run with a Q & 2nd?!?. The following run was Grand Prix and he fell off the dogwalk at the start of the downplank, so that wasnt so good. We still need 2 Grand Prix legs for Nationals.

Here are some of the videos - the camera was acting up this weekend, so I dont have video of some runs, and some I just dont feel like posting :)

Rip
Rip did great in his first ever Master Snooker run - only 1 point away from a Super Q. I had 7 seconds left and could have gone for the 4th red (easy to say in hindsight!)



Advanced Jumpers - pretty good run with 1 bar. I thought it ran well up till the last couple jumps that went wide.



Master Gamblers - a Q, though slow in the weaves and he popped his first set of poles.



Adv. Standard - this is the Q run - I made him stick his contacts. Pretty good run on a very long course.



Adv. Standard - the NQ due to the bar before discrimination. I was happy with this run.



Skye

Standard - Q and 1st place



Snooker - Super Q and 1st place. Same plan I ran for Rip, though Rip did it 3 seconds faster.



Jumpers - Q and 1st place



Standard - Q and 2nd place. This is the run where he smashed his face on the table. You've been warned ;)



Pairs - Q and 2nd I think. Skye knocked a bar in this one.

AKC at the Denver Stockshow

This is Colorado's biggest AKC show - it's 4 days long, and is combined with the CKC Cluster - including Rally, Obedience and Confirmation. It's held at the big Denver Stockshow facility and is 3 rings of indoor agility.


We played 3 of the 4 days. Unfortunately, my work needed me to fly to California just before the trial, so though  I had planned my flight to get back to Denver at 6:30pm Thursday, which should get me home by 8pm, the flight-delay gods were working against me and imposed delay after delay. I ultimately got home just before midnight, and that left me just 5 hours before needing to get back up to leave for the show!


We got there in time to get checked in and do the first walkthroughs. This was Rip's first trial entered in Excellent A for both Std and JWW, which is probably easier with less conflicts than being spread about the classes. 


Skye ran Standard first and we had a pretty good run for a Q! Nice way to start off the show. He then got to run in Exc. FAST.  This weekend we did not manage to get any Exc. FAST Q's - it just wasnt meant to be.  We ran JWW near the end of the day and unfortunately Skye dropped a bar, and then popped out of the weaves - its unusual for him to drop bars, but not all that uncommon to get a weave pop!


Rip got to run JWW first, and he ran awesome for his first ever Excellent JWW Q! Its so great to see him able to get through a course without knocking bars now. He ran well in Standard, though did not get the Q. I dont recall what the issue was on this run - we did not get any Standard Q's this weekend in Excellent, but he was really close. I believe the issues along the way were a skipped weavepole, a misread for an offcourse, and a missed dogwalk contact. Generally though, he ran very well with good focus and handled these courses like the champ that he's going to be!


Rip also had a great weekend in FAST - we came into the show with just 1 Novice FAST Q, since we almost never see the game in Colorado. So, on Saturday and on Sunday Rip got nearly all the points including the easy distance challenges and 1st place in both. That let us move up to Open FAST for Sunday. He got to run against his girlfriend Vega (among others) and Vega beat us since we were slightly over time, which subtracted points from our 79 point total. Vega took 1st and Rip took 2nd. He is a far better distance dog than Skye is, and I hope that trend continues into Excellent.


For Skye, he got a Q in JWW on Saturday, setting us up for another chance at a double Q. This time, in Standard he knocked the top bar of the triple. Bummer with the bars for Skye this weekend!


Rip did not Q JWW or STD on Saturday or Sunday, though on Sunday he ran perfectly in JWW except for one bar on a jump coming out of a tunnel - it was just a tough turn with speed. Cool thing is, he and Skye ran 1/100th of a second apart - 29.92 vs 29.93.


Skye had finally pulled it together on Sunday and Q'd both JWW and STD for a double Q! This was after a disaster of a FAST run in the morning.


My blooper of the weekend came in Rip's STD run first thing in the morning Sunday. There was a tire/jump/jump pinwheel before turning to the teeter. I planned a front cross before the teeter, which I did, and found myself straddling the teeter plank and moving forward. I had to put my hands on the teeter and push off it to avoid falling up the teeter. Of course, Rip wasnt able to take it, and got a refusal. I put him back on and we continued - he had a really great run except for my blooper! 


I will post videos soon

Rip and Skye runs from Latigo AKC

AKC at the not-so-cold Latigo

January at Latigo is always a risk - one year it was about 5 degrees out, and not a whole lot warmer inside. We got lucky with a little bit of a warmup leading up to the trial (Friday was 60 degrees) and then about 50+ on Saturday, and maybe 45 on Sunday, so not so bad really, though it felt warmer outside in the sun than in the arena!

This was our first AKC show since the Thanksgiving trial at the same location. I thought the judge's courses were good with challenging aspects, but very fair for the most part.

On Saturday, Skye had one of those hardly-ever situations where the course turned left but he went right. That resulted in a backjump, but the rest of the standard course went well. I saw on the tape that I did not rotate soon enough for him to know where we were going.

He ran a nice Jumpers run though, so we got a Q for the day.

Rip had a good standard run and hit all his contacts. His AFrame especially is nowhere close to what I want for a finished product - he gets to the top and comes down very slowly, but better than a big launch I suppose. No trouble with the chute this trial, and the rest was clean for a Q - yeah!

Rip ran his first ever Exc. JWW course and did a really great job. There was an offcourse trap right before the weaves that got a lot of dogs, including Rip, but still it was a great run and even with the offcourse, he was within .7 seconds of Skye's time.

For Sunday, we again started with Standard. This time Skye ran fast and clean and even managed to get 3rd place! Sweet.

We ran a jumpers course that was going to force me into two consecutive rear crosses, along with 3 front crosses. I botched the second rear cross, pushing Skye off the jump, so we didn't get any Double Q's this weekend, but still ended up 50% overall - cant really complain.

Rip's Standard run was not great - he did some sightseeing at the top of the AFrame and was a bit distracted in the beginning of the run. He took an offcourse tire, and then came off the table after the weaves. We finished the second half of the run much better than the first. I was shocked to find out that even with those 2 faults, it was still a Q, which earned us Rip's Open Standard title!

In his Exc. JWW run, we really ran a great run. So proud of his focus and jumping. The last jump was the triple, and the top bar came down, but still, what a great run. A big "awwwww" was heard from the crowd when the bar fell. Rip was only about 2.5 seconds off the 1st place time, which I am really happy with, since he was pretty wide on a number of turns, (worth about a second or so), and I am trying to speed up his weaves, which would be worth another second.

So Rip also went 50% and earned his title so we are now in Excellent for Std and JWW.  Our next show is 'CKC' - a big event in Denver in a couple weeks at the stockshow. We are doing 3 days, including FAST, and a demo run of T2B which should be fun.

It was great hanging out with a whole bunch of folks from FAAD - I think we had 10 students entered in this trial, and even more came to watch and support - such a great group!

Goals!

If you don't write down your goals, or tell anyone of them, are they really goals? We once had a student who said they had a goal to earn a big title by a certain time, but never told anyone about it until after they finally got that title. It seems to me that to be accountable first to yourself, you have to write down your goals, and then if you let others know about them, even if it's just a select few others, then you may get some assistance and motivation in achieving them.

At FAAD, we submit goals to Katrina in January each year. Since we have to write them down, come the next January, you can measure how you did. With Skye, I can go back a couple years and find we had issues that we still sometimes see still!

So, with that said, I am going to post my goals for Skye and Rip for this coming year. Maybe it makes them more real this way...

For Skye:

Short-term goals:

1. Continue practicing with toys and not food, keeping Skye very motivated during practice sessions..
2. Work on various distance skills, like turns from a tunnel and better push outs.
3. Keep working on the startline in practice – this has been paying off as he’s been much better during competition..
4. Need to proof frontcrossing the AFrame – these tend to push him off the side. Get him to keep driving down even if I am in front of the frame.
5. Work on being able to really peel off the weaves without causing popouts.

Long-term goals:

1. In 2011, I would like to earn Skye’s USDAA PDCH-Bronze. This will take getting 9 more Pairs Qs, 7 Gamble Qs, 3 Jumpers Qs, and 6 Standard Qs. This will not be an easy task.
2. Qualify for USDAA Nationals and attend the event in October in Kentucky.
3. Qualify for AKC Nationals for 2012, as we have done the last 2 years.
4. Earn at least two more placements in AKC. We managed to get a 2nd and 3rd in 2010, so I would like to meet and improve on that. This can be challenging as we never compete against less than 25 dogs. More typically, its 50 - 75 dogs in the 20" class.

For Rip:


Short-term goals:

1. More practicing on the contact retraining. Continue to use the target to get him driving into position – don’t try to fade it so fast in practice.
2. Keep working his bar issues by varying jumpheights, including lots of crossing on jumpers type courses, doing figure-8 jumps, and other jumping exercises.
3. Continue to push for more speed in the weaves. Periodically open the channels to get him moving faster and faster. Once a month, film the weave performance and time it to measure any improvements.
4. Be more consistent with practice outside of classtime. I’d like to practice at least 2 times a week outside of class, and would prefer 3 or 4 times a week.
5. Enforce contact performance in competition – at the very least, mark an intentionally jumped contact with a down.

Long-term goals:

1. For AKC, I would like to earn Rip’s first Double Q, which will require us to get out of Open Standard, and Exc. A Jumpers.
2. Qualify for USDAA Nationals and attend the event in October in Kentucky. We are already qualified in Team, and have 1 Q in Steeplechase.
3. Improve our speed enough to be within 2 or 3 seconds of 1st place in a big AKC or USDAA competition.
4. Advance to the Masters level in USDAA and earn Rip’s MAD. We need 3 Adv. Standard Qs to get to Masters in everything, and then will need 3 Master Standard Qs and 1 Q in each of the games (we already have Pairs and Gamblers)

Rip's runs from USDAA Longmont

Here are Rip's runs from the weekend.

USDAA Longmont Recap

This USDAA trial was nice and relaxing with only 1 ring - no conflicts to worry about. It will be nice to get Rip up into Masters for all classes so that I wont ever have conflicts, but that's going to be a little while still.

We had 2 classes to run on Friday afternoon - Gamblers and Grand Prix. Since I've decided I want to go to Cynosport for 2010, I have signed up for Grand Prix to try and get my qualifying Q's.

We started with Master Gamblers. I've never run a Gamblers class where there was a 0% Q rate - and now I can say that I have! There were 46 Master level dogs between Championship and Performance, and not one dog got this gamble. I watched a number of dogs attempt it and get the offcourse jump coming out of the tunnel. I decided to try a resend of sorts, calling Skye toward me, and then trying to resend to the far away jump. This was tricky as they would have to pass the tunnel entrance up if they headed in the right direction. Regardless - Skye grabbed the closest jump and we didnt come close. Rip then got to try, and I attempted a similar tactic, only I rotated before the resend and sent him over the nearby jump back towards the tunnel. This is a gamble I should setup to see what it takes to get the dogs to turn away and seek out the right jump. I posted the coursemap at the bottom (thanks Elayne - I stole your scan)

For Grand Prix, there were a couple challenges with a sharp turn to the weaves at the beginning, and a DW / Tunnel discrimination. Skye ran it really nice, except he jumped his dogwalk contact. That was his only fault. For Rip, we were having a great run until after the dogwalk when I didn't properly support a jump and pulled him off it. I put him over the jump and we finished with Rip running past the Chute (a theme for this trial). Rip did hit all his contacts.

Jumpers was up first on Saturday. Skye ran a really great run, fast and motivated and we were clean for a 1st place. Rip was then up for his first Advanced jumpers since moving up at the last trial - he really nailed it and ran great. All bars stay up for a Q & 1st place (thanks to Bode dropping a bar).

Rip got to run Steeplechase - I hadn't entered Skye as he already has his 2 Q's for Nationals, and my entry fee was high enough already. Rip did a great job with a nice Steeplechase run and pretty good time. Bummer is, he jumped his AFrame contact, so that 5 point fault kept us out of round 2 and getting a Q by 1/10 of a second over the cutoff.

Contacts became an issue for Standard. Skye missed his dogwalk contact, and then Rip missed his AFrame again, and did not meet criteria on the dogwalk either. We AGAIN had issue with the chute - it was the 2nd obstacle and Rip decided to run around it. I brought him back and he did it right the 2nd time.


Pairs was next. I havent entered Skye in a pairs run since August 2009, since he really is a butthead, and gets all worked up around other dogs, so rather than stress about it, we just didnt enter after getting the 5 Q's needed for his PDCH. Since I decided to try for his PDCH-Bronze, we will need 10 more pairs Q's! Ugh. Well at least Skye got the Q. We ran with a steady but really slow dog. They took 30 seconds, and we took 15 seconds, just fast enough for the Q.

Rip ran pairs in Masters for the first time ever - he moved up at the last trial. We were paired with speedy Bode. We actually had a nice fast run, but each of us had a bar knocked, and Bode also had a refusal. Still our time was only 3 seconds off first place - not bad. Even with the faults, we still managed a Q! This was the only bar Rip knocked all weekend, and he's done this in the past in other pairs runs, where he isnt really paying attention and hits the first bar.

Sunday was snowing, and many competitors bailed, so it was quite a small group of die-hards left for the Snooker and Standard runs. We managed to be done by Noon for the slow ride home in the snow.

Snooker was fun - shortlived for Rip though. Rip backjumped the 2nd red so we were done pretty quick. Skye ran a very nice course, getting 7+6+6 and finishing the closing. He ended up with 1st place and another SuperQ!

Again in Standard, I had contact issues with both dogs. Rip missed his dogwalk contact again. This is pretty painful after all the work we have done to 'fix' this issue already, but back to the drawing board again. He will do the 2on2off in practice, but is too amped in a trial to do it. I need to start pulling him for these obvious misses. Maybe try a DOCNA trial where we can redo. Not only did Rip miss his DW, but AGAIN with the Chute. First try, run past, bring him back, and he runs past it again. Ugh, bring him back a third time and he does it.
Skye ran a good Standard course, though he missed his AFrame. His dogwalk was very close too. I botched the handling of a jump after the AFrame, but generally it was nice and fast.

Over Christmas and New Years, we take 2 weeks off of training. I am afraid this affected our contact performance. They both hit about 50% of their contacts. Not sure what is up with Rip's Chute performance, but I will now be taking that out to do some practice before our next trial - an AKC show the last weekend of January.

Perception is not reality

This was interesting - Skye's Excellent JWW and Rip's Open JWW courses from Sunday (see post below) had the same first 10 or so obstacles.
This is a great example of how perception is not always reality.
I felt like Skye was really flying through this opening, and that Rip was going slow. I decided to put them side by side to see, and I was amazed to see that they were basically running neck and neck until the weaves. Skye has better weaves so he got a stride on Rip there.
I know that Rip does have a lot more speed that he only uses occasionally, and I expect as he gets more confident, he will get much faster. Skye was giving me probably the speed that he can - I dont expect that he would run this faster.

Thanksgiving AKC Fun!

(This is an older picture of Rip that I just bought this weekend as it was on sale)

There's a local (10 minutes away) 3day AKC trial after Thanksgiving every year that I like to attend. The downside is the arena is not heated, and is often affectionately called things like The Icebox, The Arctic, The Meat Locker, etc. This weekend was no exception - you could definitely see your breath in the mornings as we had temps in the teens, though it warmed up enough to not need your coat by the afternoon.

Skye and Rip had a really good showing at this trial.
Friday is Excellent only, so Rip was only along for the ride. Skye had two really good runs, and Q'd JWW with about 8th place, though he was called for his AFrame contact on an otherwise nice and fast Standard run. Skye loves to run in the cold!

On Saturday, I had a perfect day with the boys - both went 2 for 2! I again had fast running Skye and he placed 3rd in Standard (about 30 dogs in the 20" group this weekend). He followed it up with a really nice JWW run, I think about 7th place.

At our last AKC trial, Rip had finally moved to Open Standard, though he already had 1 qualifier in Open Jumpers. So, on Saturday he got his first open Standard Q with a nice run, though slow on his contacts (better than launched!). He also had a nice JWW run for a Q, but he ran cautiously - he has a LOT more speed to give me.

On Sunday, we weren't quite as successful, but it was still a good day. Skye missed his dogwalk contact so that run turned to a training run, and I pushed him and he did well. I mishandled the last 3 obstacles and caused him to spin and end up taking the finish jump from the back side! He was having a really fast run up to that point. In JWW, there was an interesting sequence from the weaves over 3 jumps to a tunnel, with the offcourse side staring right at the dog. I was out of position for my planned line and tried to throw in a last minute front cross that didnt work as I was too far past the jump and I pulled Skye off the jump instead.

Rip missed the same dogwalk contact in his Open Standard run. When I gave him a big 'Oh No', he then went around the chute - so we just ran for fun and finished it upbeat. The last run of the day for us was Rip's Open JWW, and he nailed it! He had a great run, and now he has his Open JWW Title. Next trial we will be trying Excellent A JWW!
I have video that I will post soon.

Rips runs from SWAT USDAA

Here are Rip's runs from last weekend's trial.

Took the left turn to Albuquerque

I did actually - had to take I25 south, then left on I40 in Albuquerque, to get to the fairgrounds for the SWAT USDAA agility trial this past weekend. (if you dont know the reference, you need to watch more bugs bunny!)

One of my goals this year was to get Rip out of Novice/Starters classes in both AKC and USDAA. We met that goal for AKC over the summer, but for USDAA, we still needed 1 more Standard Q - one that eluded us at the October trial in Fountain, so there was my motivation to drive 6 hrs.

I am really happy to say that the only bar that Rip dropped all weekend was the 1st bar in his second leg of our Pairs run. This is a huge accomplishment, especially considering we ran 10 runs over the 2 days.
So, not only did we manage to Q that Standard run on Saturday (2nd place of the 16 starters dogs), but then we managed to also Q Sunday's Standard run with a 3rd (Ms. Vega had an awesome 1st place run in that one)!! This means Rip has his 'AD' title and will be moving up to Advanced for the next show.

Also, by keeping up all the bars this weekend, we had a great Jumpers run with a Q.
The pairs run I mentioned was run with Kim & Quin as our teammates, since neither of us had a partner assigned. They usually only pair small dogs with big dogs as a last resort, but in our case it worked great - we had Fast Quin, and even with Rip's bar down, we still got 2nd place and a Q to finish Rip's pairs title - Masters Pairs, here we come!

We also ran a nice Advanced Snooker run, getting all the way through the closing for a Q & 1st.

No Master Gambler Q's for Rip this weekend, but he gave it a good try in both cases. We came close in Grand Prix and Steeplechase too, but no Qs.

For the Skye-boy, I found that they don't seem to grow the dogs very big in New Mexico. For nearly every class he ran in, he was the only 22" performance dog. There were maybe 2 or 3 classes where he ran against a huge Great Dane, but otherwise it was just us against the clock.

Skye ran very well with no offcourses, no missed contacts, no popped weaves and I think just 1 dropped bar in Gamblers and one in Grand Prix.
We ended up with 10 first places (hahaha) and 7 Q's. We did get another Snooker Super Q on Sunday - they combined all the performance dogs together and gave out just 1. We also were the only dog who ran clean in round 2 of Perf. Steeplechase, to win me $5 !
With the 2 Q's Skye got in Snooker, we earned a new title - Bronze Accomplished Snooker Dog (or something like that). When the building was cool in the mornings, I had fast Skyeboy, but as it warmed up, I had the slower version, but still he did a great job.

I saw that the club plans on hosting this trial again next year at the same location on the same weekend - I would go again as it was a well run trial, plenty of parking up close, plenty of bleacher seating, good food vendor, etc. The indoor surface was good - no dust, and lots of room for the 2 rings.

I will try and post some video soon.

Rip and Skye qualify in USDAA Team!

We had a local USDAA trial last weekend in Fountain, CO - only about 35 minutes away. This show offers DAM team on Friday and Katrina and I were looking to pair - we put Baby and Skye together in a Performance Versatility team, and we had Rip & Ice together and were looking for a 3rd. After almost not entering, we ended up partnering with Stacy Peardot-Goudy's awesome youngster SoBe. So it was a young-dog team looking to play with the big dogs.

What a blast we had! Skye and Baby had 1st place after 2 rounds, but some dropped bars in Jumpers and a mistake on my part in Gamblers moved us down to 5th place going into the team relay. We had a great clean relay run and moved back up to finish in 3rd place of the 10 teams.

The Rip, Ice and SoBe team did awesome (Rip's having a SoBe on Ice)! There were 18 teams total and we were in 2nd place after the 1st round, but slipped to 3rd after the Standard round with a couple missed contacts by Ice and SoBe and a dropped bar by Ice (Rip was clean, though not fast). After Jumpers we maintained our 3rd place position. We ended up going conservative in the closing of Gamblers (a timed gamble) and though we all had good points, those dogs that went aggressive ended up pushing us down to 5th place. We had an almost clean (1 bar) relay to finish it up and wound up sticking to our 5th place finish! What a great accomplishment - no offcourses by any of the baby dogs!

The rest of the weekend consisted of regular classes- we did not do the other tournament classes. Rip got 2 Qs - one in Advanced Pairs and one in Masters Gamblers. He had two awesome starter jumpers runs, but 1 bar down in each. He also had a clean (except for DW up contact) starter Standard run. Snooker wasn't our game this weekend as we failed to make it to the closing in both attempts.

Skye ran Snooker, Jumpers and Gamblers for the rest of the weekend - he had 2 great Gamblers runs with Q's (now that we dont need them for APD, we get them!). We had a great Jumpers Q and a Q in snooker that wasn't pretty. He had a "what the?" moment in a jumpers course on the third obstacle when he decided to head left when I went way to the right.

All in all a very good weekend. The weather was perfect and the company was great. One thing we see at this trial that we see nowhere else - the trains that had to rumble by 100 feet from the park every hour or so, blowing their very loud whistle as they went by.

I will post the videos I have in an upcomming post.