USDAA at Loveland

We did a USDAA trial up in Loveland on the weekend of April 5/6

It was our 2nd ever USDAA trial and Skye and I had a great weekend, with 7 of 8 runs Q'd. We earned our PD1 title (performance dog 1) which means I move up to the PD2 level (think "Open") for the next USDAA trial. We missed having a perfect weekend because I didn't hold Skye's A frame contact on the Steeplechase run.

One funny moment was during our Snooker run. The tunnel was the 7pt obstacle, so I was trying to get 3 of those before the closing, and I mishandled it and found myself on the wrong side of the tunnel. The tunnel was stretched out straight, so when Skye came out the other end, I was trying to get over to the other side of it and called Skye to me - so he jumped OVER the tunnel and came to me... I was a little shocked and expected to hear the judge's whistle but it seems that is legal... so we kept going. I finished the Snooker run and duh.... didnt bother to cross the finish line to stop the clock so that cost me an extra 5 seconds, putting me in 3rd instead of 1st. Won't do that again!

A great success for us is that every weavepole entry was perfect. Some of you know that we've struggled with that and I've spent a lot of time working to fix it. We also had no trouble with the table which cost us 2 Q's the first time we tried USDAA.

Our ribbon cache was 2 Firsts, 2 Seconds and 2 Thirds

Skye's AKC weekend at Dougco fairgrounds

To start off, we got to play AKC's "FAST" game for the first time this weekend. It's interesting - a little Snookers meets Gamblers kind of game. Our first run on Saturday was FAST, and we managed the ugliest 1st & Q! As you are running, the judge is calling out the point value of the obstacle you just took, so our run started sounded something like "one.... two.... no two.... seven.... six.... no six.... four.... one..... no one...." So as Skye-boy was smacking down bar after bar, she'd announce the points, then take 'em away :-[ . It seems when he misjumped the second jump, he hurt himself a little bit which made him miss more jumps. Then he crept down the A-Frame real slow. We managed to get the distance challenge part... on the second try. I had at least planned for that ;-)

On Saturday we also had a nice Open STD Q & 1st. We NQ'd our first Excellent run ever, an Exc. A JWW run, by missing a pole entry. Well, we had been doing a lot weave entry training using just poles 1 & 2.... and apparently Skye thought we were just training entries again so he hit the entry and came out to me at pole 2. I had to remind him that if all the poles are there, he has to do all of them.

Sunday we did FAST again, and this time got a Q & 1st that was much more deserved. I got to experience a bit of a mad-scramble with my Open STD and EXC JWW runs, as the timing of them was to put me running both at the exact same time. I had to walk and remember 2 courses before I got to run either. This time I got to run my Exc A JWW first, and we had a nice run and Q'd with 2nd place (of 13 A dogs). Then just a few minutes later I was in the Open STD ring running. The first 2/3 of the run was nice, though it seemed a little slow. We got to the table, which was a down. When Skye laid down he then started licking the sore on the pad of his paw. I was feeling bad then, poor guy. After the table he did a jump and then knocked a bar or two on the triple jump, which probably was due to him being a little sore, so we just finished out the run with an NQ, but I was proud of him running for me when he was not 100%.

NADAC at Latigo

We had a great time at the cold Latigo NADAC trial this weekend.
We ended up Q'ing 9 of 13 runs. Skye had the best speed I have seen to date, with jumpers runs of 6.9 and 6.3 yards per second, and Open Standard runs of 5.35 and 5.55 yps. Tunnelers was really fast too. I am very happy with how our speed has picked up (of course, NADAC courses are more wide-open than AKC courses)

We Q'd 3/4 Open Standard runs, all 1st place (out of 6 dogs), which gives me my OAC title and lets me move up to Elite (yea!). We also earned our Novice Jumpers and Novice Tunnelers titles. 8-)

I was also pleased that Skye nailed almost every weave entry. In our NQ Standard run, he popped out at pole 10... twice! Add to that a knocked bar and a jumped contact, and that run was a mess, but at least we put all our bad elements into just 1 run and didnt spread them out over multiple runs.

The FAAD students had a great showing. Lots of accomplishments and nice handling out there. The red jacket gang should be proud!

Thanks to my wife & instructor for the videoing and reminder of possible beatings for sloppy handling... just keeping us honest out there :-D