Kaylen moves to level 2

My little "crazy pup" Kaylen has moved to Level 2 agility. She is doing really well, especially in comparison to the last couple times I tried to teach her agility.
On her first level 2 class, she was volunteering the teeter, which is a big accomplishment because in the past, the teeter bang would send her looking for the nearest exit.
She also decided that the dogwalk was lots of fun - she went up and over on her own without me asking for it. She had never done a DW before!
We sequenced 5 or 6 jumps and she is starting to have some good speed where I am having trouble keeping up.
We are using weave-a-matics and she is doing nicely with a fairly shallow V angle. I need to work more entries with her so she gets more comfortable hitting them.

USDAA in Pueblo, May 17&18 2008

It was a hot windy ( ez-up killing windy) day on Saturday, and hotter but mostly wind-free day on Sunday in Pueblo.
When things don't go as planned, it's easy to focus on the negatives, so instead I will focus first on what went well this weekend for me & Skyeboy.
We got a Q/2nd in Standard, a Q/1st in Jumpers and a Q/2nd in Snooker. We had great start-lines when needed and not a single bar came down the entire weekend. The Jumpers run was the last, and, I felt, the best of our weekend (one badly placed FC slowed us down a bit) - we ran fast and I felt connected.

So most of what didn't go right this weekend took place around the stinking weave poles. The ring that I ran almost all my runs in had poles that were plain white - no stripes of any kind. Skye felt they were possessed and didn't want any part of them. He missed EVERY stinking entry this weekend. He often missed the re-try entries. For the first time ever, I downed Skye during the run (Performance Steeplechase) and left without finishing. That came following 7 straight missed weaves over 2 runs. Possessed he still says.

We ran 2 gamblers courses this weekend. The first time, on Saturday, we got the gamble but didnt have enough points in the opening to qualify because I wasted too much time trying to get him to weave. On Sunday's gamblers, we were running great and all was going as planned when Skye slipped on the teeter and smacked his front left leg into the teeter support and came up limping. Fortunately he was Ok shortly after, and the judge let us redo the teeter before we left, but the run was over at that point.
My Pairs relay run was 0.39 seconds over time because both Skye and my relay partner's dog had to redo the weaves, and somewhere a 5pt fault was called.

It was not our best work, but every trial is a learning experience, and this was no exception.

USDAA at Brighton

We did the Brighton USDAA trial on Sunday only.

There were three runs and though we only Q'd 1/3, I was very happy with the runs. The day started cold with the grass soaked from the sprinklers having been run overnight. There was even a 1/4" of ice on the tarps. My first run was Standard, and we had a nice run with 1 dropped bar, so NQ, but our time was good (2nd fastest of all Advanced & P2 dogs).

We then did Snooker, and I ran that conservatively in regards to points because Skye was the only 22" P2 dog. We got the Q.

Last for the day was Jumpers and that run went great, though a bar came down on this run too, so NQ. I even got a comment from my instructor that I handled it nicely. I would like to blame the bars on the fact that it was our first trial on grass since last fall, that the grass was thick, that we have to jump 22", and that the moon was out in the middle of the day.

The other highlight of the day was that I got to run Lorrie's Storm in the same three runs, as Storm runs in Advanced at 22". Stormy Q'd in Standard, and I think in Jumpers. We missed the Snooker Q as I ran off too fast and she went behind me for an offcourse jump.

Greg & Skyeboy