Ok, he plays by himself quite a bit - much more so than any of our other dogs. He will pick up a tennis ball or a shoe or he will take an insert from a shoe, cap from a plastic bottle, anything really, and he starts tossing it around.
He discovered this purple squeeky ball in the doggie toybox and started having fun with it. Then his sister Rush came along to see what he was doing. Rip is more "class clown" where Rush is more "fun police".
Ok, check out the funny video
Chaos Crew
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
AKC at Adams County Oct 11/12 2008
We were at the AKC trial this past weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday was not so good on paper, going 0 for 2, but the runs were actually nice. My Standard run was called for an offcourse before the timer even started - Skye decided to run with me rather than going over the first angled jump as I requested, so bring him back, put him over that jump, and then we had a nice clean run though with a very slow sit on the table.. In JWW everything was great but I crowded Skye at the weaves and he entered on the left side of the poles instead of on the right.
Sunday was much better with our second double-Q! Standard went well with again a bit of a delay requesting a sit on the table, but I managed to be almost 18 seconds under coursetime. JWW was a very flowing course and went fine. Almost 50% of the 20" Exc B dogs qualified in JWW. We placed 11th I believe, out of the 24 qualifiers.
Looks like I need to do some table work with Sits. Before my run on Sunday, while warming up I must have had him sit on command 10 times, and every time was fast, but add in a table, and its a different story. There's always something to train isnt there?!? Saturday's sit was probably 5 seconds wasted. Sunday's wasnt quite as bad, but I bet it was 3 seconds. I have Sundays run on tape so I will check this out when I pull the runs off it.
Sidenote: This was my first trial held indoors at the Adams County fairgrounds site. I had been to two outdoor trials there on grass which were nice, but indoors with 2 rings is very crammed with crating everywhere, people jamming the aisles everywhere and generally not such a good experience. Not enough room to take Rip along with me. This place goes to the bottom of my list of enjoyable facilities. At least there are a few good places there to throw a frisbee with the Skyeboy
Greg & Skye
Saturday was not so good on paper, going 0 for 2, but the runs were actually nice. My Standard run was called for an offcourse before the timer even started - Skye decided to run with me rather than going over the first angled jump as I requested, so bring him back, put him over that jump, and then we had a nice clean run though with a very slow sit on the table.. In JWW everything was great but I crowded Skye at the weaves and he entered on the left side of the poles instead of on the right.
Sunday was much better with our second double-Q! Standard went well with again a bit of a delay requesting a sit on the table, but I managed to be almost 18 seconds under coursetime. JWW was a very flowing course and went fine. Almost 50% of the 20" Exc B dogs qualified in JWW. We placed 11th I believe, out of the 24 qualifiers.
Looks like I need to do some table work with Sits. Before my run on Sunday, while warming up I must have had him sit on command 10 times, and every time was fast, but add in a table, and its a different story. There's always something to train isnt there?!? Saturday's sit was probably 5 seconds wasted. Sunday's wasnt quite as bad, but I bet it was 3 seconds. I have Sundays run on tape so I will check this out when I pull the runs off it.
Sidenote: This was my first trial held indoors at the Adams County fairgrounds site. I had been to two outdoor trials there on grass which were nice, but indoors with 2 rings is very crammed with crating everywhere, people jamming the aisles everywhere and generally not such a good experience. Not enough room to take Rip along with me. This place goes to the bottom of my list of enjoyable facilities. At least there are a few good places there to throw a frisbee with the Skyeboy
Greg & Skye
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Rip's 1st birthday!
Rip was born 1 year ago today, on Oct. 11 2007. Happy Birthday Rip boy!
I tried to take some pictures to show how similar he looks to Joey but he kept giving me the "slinky" look with ears tucked down and wanting to leave, so the pics arent so good, but they are all I have.
When I weighed him last week, he's mostly maintaining at around 40.8lbs. He needs to fill out more but I dont want him fat, so we'll see how he progresses.
He's moved on to Level 2 agility now and had his first class yesterday - he did really well and his confidence has increased tremendously.
I tried to take some pictures to show how similar he looks to Joey but he kept giving me the "slinky" look with ears tucked down and wanting to leave, so the pics arent so good, but they are all I have.
When I weighed him last week, he's mostly maintaining at around 40.8lbs. He needs to fill out more but I dont want him fat, so we'll see how he progresses.
He's moved on to Level 2 agility now and had his first class yesterday - he did really well and his confidence has increased tremendously.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Offtopic thoughs from the DOCNA Champs
Just some thoughts I had about the DOCNA champs and getting to/from there.
- Why select a facility to host an agility trial that doesn't have any grass available for the dogs to use? Even wild field grass would be nice. There was a grassy area next to the arena that we were told to keep off of, as it was a kids play area. There were no kids there for the 4 days we attended, and its just an empty grassy area, no playground equipment, nothing. I think having grass available somewhere other than tiny patches growing wild next to the building should be a primary concern.
- Arizona & New Mexico seem to be full of these nasty plant "spikes" that get stabbed into a dogs foot rather easily. These spike plants seem strategically placed around rest areas and other logical potty spots for the dogs as you travel. I'm not talking about cactus, just some kind of crazy spike plant.
- Jeeze the FLIES! We must have had 50 flies come into the camper trailer at the site in Arizona, and another 30 in the truck. Holy moly that would make me insane having to live near there with that many flies.
- Doesn't anyone fly the American Flag anymore? Driving along, I was looking for flags to see what direction the wind was blowing, and NOBODY IS FLYING THE FLAG. Lets go back to the post 9/11 days when everyone got all patriotic.
- Agility has now become a "Star Spangled Banner" sport, where we got to hear our anthem before starting each day. Why is it we only hear the anthem before sporting events? Is that what our founding fathers envisioned?
- DOCNA needs fewer divisions or more attendees at their Championships. I know its a new venue and is growing, but there sure were a lot of divisions with 1 dog entered, and many more with 3 or less dogs entered. I know everyone does agility for different reasons, but isn't there a little bit of competitiveness in all of us? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take that 1st place ribbon by running better than another team? At least for me, there are tons of dogs in the 20" competition division.
- Gas price gouging is alive and well. Many of the stations that are just off the freeway were charging up to 50/cents a gallon more for diesel than another station a mile or two away, closer to "town". Go where the bigrigs go and you will be way better off.
Ok, thats all for now. See ya!
- Why select a facility to host an agility trial that doesn't have any grass available for the dogs to use? Even wild field grass would be nice. There was a grassy area next to the arena that we were told to keep off of, as it was a kids play area. There were no kids there for the 4 days we attended, and its just an empty grassy area, no playground equipment, nothing. I think having grass available somewhere other than tiny patches growing wild next to the building should be a primary concern.
- Arizona & New Mexico seem to be full of these nasty plant "spikes" that get stabbed into a dogs foot rather easily. These spike plants seem strategically placed around rest areas and other logical potty spots for the dogs as you travel. I'm not talking about cactus, just some kind of crazy spike plant.
- Jeeze the FLIES! We must have had 50 flies come into the camper trailer at the site in Arizona, and another 30 in the truck. Holy moly that would make me insane having to live near there with that many flies.
- Doesn't anyone fly the American Flag anymore? Driving along, I was looking for flags to see what direction the wind was blowing, and NOBODY IS FLYING THE FLAG. Lets go back to the post 9/11 days when everyone got all patriotic.
- Agility has now become a "Star Spangled Banner" sport, where we got to hear our anthem before starting each day. Why is it we only hear the anthem before sporting events? Is that what our founding fathers envisioned?
- DOCNA needs fewer divisions or more attendees at their Championships. I know its a new venue and is growing, but there sure were a lot of divisions with 1 dog entered, and many more with 3 or less dogs entered. I know everyone does agility for different reasons, but isn't there a little bit of competitiveness in all of us? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take that 1st place ribbon by running better than another team? At least for me, there are tons of dogs in the 20" competition division.
- Gas price gouging is alive and well. Many of the stations that are just off the freeway were charging up to 50/cents a gallon more for diesel than another station a mile or two away, closer to "town". Go where the bigrigs go and you will be way better off.
Ok, thats all for now. See ya!
DOCNA Championships Report
The DOCNA championships was our first "championship" type event that we've attended since we started competing about 16 months ago. This was a great experience and one I am glad I did.
The "warm up" two run trial that was held on Thursday was a nice benefit, letting you get in a couple runs to get familiar with the facility, equipment and the surface. It also showed that there was going to be some good competition. We had a good run in Jumpers yet only placed 4th. Our Standard run was good and our time was good enough for 2nd, but we dropped a bar so we were out of the placements.
Since we had to get our Championships entries in before the trial that we held in September, most of my runs were done at the Intern level. Had they allowed move-ups, we would have been running at Specialist level, though the competition in the 20" comp group was just as tough in Intern as it was in Specialist.
So how did we do?? In summary, the best thing I can say is that we have the speed and skills to place in the top 3 for all the events.
So, we started the event on Friday doing Traditional Gamblers and we managed to get 2nd place! We ran round 1 of Standard and Jumpers on Friday too, and at the end of the day we did Snakes and Ladders. I had small but costly errors in both Standard and Jumpers - 1 bar down in Standard, and some time wasted in Jumpers where I didnt support a jump and had to go back to it, thus I was in 6th place after the first round for each. In Snakes and Ladders, somehow I was judged as having only done 5 of the 6 contacts/weaves possibilities. I didnt know this until I checked scores later, and on film it appears I got everything right (If we had a missed weave and didnt fix it, I wouldnt get credit for the weave set). At best, though, even if I was given credit for all 6, it would have been out of placements with a 4th so I let it go.
On Saturday, we played the darn Strategic Time Gamble. I've yet to figure out how to be real successful with this game! We did a great job racking up points in the opening, but ended up beyond where we planned for the closing, so I ended up crossing the line a bit earlier than we wanted and didnt place very well.
It was then time for the big event, the North American Challenge, which is the only event where the scores from the West Championships is combined with the East Championships to determine an overall winner. Fortunately, it was during the NAC that we put together a great, almost flawless run, and managed to get 3rd place Nationally! So cool to get in the big 20" dog group.
We also did round 2 of Standard and Jumpers, and I needed perfect runs to move up to at least 4th place as the top 4 dogs in 20" were going to move on to the finals. In Jumpers, I caused a knocked bar on the 3rd jump and then after a FC got momentarily lost, so jumpers was toast. We ended up 9th overall in Jumpers. Then in Standard the run was going along great until Skye decided to pop out of the weaves at the 10th pole (his only missed weave all weekend), so redoing the weaves cost us too much time, even though the rest of the run was nice, and we ended up 6th overall in Standard.
Sunday was only Trigility for us since we didnt make the finals. I was teamed with Katelyn & Flicka, and we took a random draw on our 3rd partner, which, OK lets be honest here, really sucked. Our partner was the definite weak link on this team. Katelyn & Flicka ran a nice Jumpers portion of the course, then our partner missed a contact in his Standard portion, then forgot to finish the course and the judge reminded him that he should finish, so finally he got his dog to jump the last jump and then Skye & I had a good gamblers portion. Somehow we managed a 3rd place with this, so I have no doubt we could have had 1st with a better teammate.
I'll post some video after I get a chance to pull it off the camera.
Greg & Skyeboy
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