Cynosport Photo Festivus

I purchased the set of photos that were shot by Great Dane photos. They got quite a few of Rip and only a couple of Skye for some reason. I love outdoor agility pictures - the color and crispness are great and beat any indoor photos hands down.
Here are a few of my favorites.

USDAA Cynosport "Nationals" 2012

I'm a bit late in writing about my experience at this year's USDAA Cynosport event that took place a week ago. I am fortunate that the event was held just outside of Denver this year, which means I could commute in each day and got to sleep in my own bed. Last year we drove 3 days each way to Kentucky and back to attend our first Cynosport event.

Turns out, the downside to this plan was delivered in the form of nasty traffic and a trip that approached almost 2 hours each way - not something I would repeat! There were a couple days when we did not get home until after 8PM, but it could have been worse, as we had friends who were still running agility then!

The facility in Commerce City was really nice and the rings with the artificial turf surfaces were great. We did have some overnight rains that made the grass rings wet - so wet that ring 5 was never used at all, and the other two grass rings were not used the first day.

For the team events, Rip was teamed with my friend Julie with Rift, and my friend Dale with Chili Pepper. Skye was originally teamed with Sarah and Ayr, but a week before the event, Ayr had an equilibrium issue and ended up having to pull from the event. My wife was in the same situation with Ice, as her teammate's dog had a muscle pull and ended up not running either, so as fate would have it, Skye and Ice ended up on a team with each other again as we did a time or two this year.

When the team events were done, we unfortunately ended up in the middle of the pack with both teams. Rip's team had 3 "E"s, though none by Mr Rip. We had a decent Snooker run with 42 points, a so-so Gamblers run as we were less than a second over time in the close, and then we managed to get through very tough Jumpers and Standard courses, though not without some faults in each.

Rip's best run of the weekend came in the Grand Prix Quarterfinals, where he had a very nice clean run for 21st place, moving us into the Semifinals. In the Semi's, he did not read my signal for the threadle and we ended up with an offcourse, but other than that he really ran great. In the Steeplechase Quarterfinals, we had knocked a bar and then he sliced the broad jump so we did not make it to the next round.

On Skye's team, we ended up with an "E" in jumpers from Skye, and an "E" in Standard from Ice, which put us way out of the running. We did have great runs otherwise and had we not had the "E"s, our times would have put our team in 10th which would have made the finals, but alas that was not meant to be.

In Performance Grand Prix, Skye knocked the first bar. That really sucks to have your chances over on the first obstacle of Grand Prix. He followed that up with a "Skye special" maneuver, where he cuts me off to take the tunnel at the AFrame/Tunnel discrimination. We left the course after that.

Skye had a bye into the semifinal round of Perf. Steeplechase. I couldn't believe it - Skye again knocked the first bar for this run! Un-freakin-believeable. So since he is not blazing fast, that extra 5 penalty points put us out of the running to make finals. In reality, there are a number of dogs running in the P22" group that are very fast and even with our best effort, I don't think we could ever make the Perf. Steeplechase finals.

Skye is a great first agility dog and has accomplished a lot, but I am considering this being his last Cynosport event unless I elect to enter him in the Veterans Overall class next year as he will be 9yrs old then. I will have to evaluate this over the coming year, but I do expect to run him a lot less than Rip.

I have started putting together a "highlights" type video, but don't know when I will get to finish it, so for now, here are a few of our runs from the show:

MACH 2 Skye!

I've mostly ignored my blog for the summer as except for one two day trial in July, I basically took all of July and August off from competition. My dogs really do not enjoy running in the heat, and it's been such a hot and dry summer that it was just a good decision for me and them. We continued training, although for Skye, even that had to take a long hiatus, since at the end of July he broke his dewclaw off and that left him sore and limping for a week, followed by another two weeks of minimal activity. Just as we were about to return to our regular class, he tweaked his front right wrist chasing a rabbit. I am sure if you asked Skye though, he'd say it was worth it, as rabbit chasing is his favoritest game in the world.

So, Skye had one short practice session last week to make sure he'd be OK for the weekend trial and he did seem OK, and didn't limp, though he may not have been quite 100%.

This trial was held at the Lakewood indoor soccer facility that has the really awesome turf, and the really God-awful ventilation and heat retention problem. Some friends elected to not enter this trial because it gets so blasted hot in there, and with this summer being the hottest ever, they passed. As it turned out, we were back in the 90's again. They did decide to move the start time for this show up to 7:30am, which is fine if you don't live an hour and a half from the facility and have to drive back and forth each day, but we worked it out.

So, Skye was sitting at 19 Double Qs for his MACH 2, and I had really hoped we could finish that this weekend. If you recall, our last attempt at the MACH here resulted in the fluff incident, so this time as I walked the course, I picked up tufts of dog hair as I found them!
We started with JWW, with Skye running it before Rip. Both dogs had really awesome runs and both got a Q! I tried not to get too nervous for the Standard run that was a couple hours later. I felt pretty confident about the course, and though I did run Skye a little conservatively, and insisted that he hit his dogwalk contact, we ended up with a 15 point Q, earning that MACH 2!!

It was sweet to get that done on Saturday and then allow Sunday to be worry-free.

Rip had a few issues with that Standard course. First I pulled him off the Aframe, so we skipped it, and then he ended up knocking the panel jump and missing his dogwalk contact.

On Sunday, we started with Standard. Skye ran first again and had a very nice run for a 19 point Q. Rip then ran it and he bunny-hopped his teeter, which he was called for, and then he took a nasty looking spill coming out of the chute. He exited it on his shoulder sliding a couple feet. I purchased a couple pictures of this incident from the photographer that happened to choose the chute to photo that day. I should have those pics by Wednesday. Fortunately, Rip seemed fine and I didnt even realize how bad it looked until I watched the video. He never limped or showed any soreness fortunately.

We ended the day with JWW, and Skye ran very nicely for another Q - and a Double Q to start off his MACH 3! This was the last double Q we needed to qualify for next year's Nationals in Tulsa. We do still need some points, but we should be able to get those.

Rip then ran JWW and had an awesome run, two seconds faster than Skye and ended up in 4th place. So no double Q's this weekend for Rip, but he did have two great jumpers runs. I'm still looking for two more double Qs to get Rip qualified for Nationals, along with about the same number of points as Skye needs.

Here are a few of the videos:

First half of Skye's MACH2


Second half of Skye's MACH2


Rip's Saturday JWW


Rip's 'ouch' Standard from Sunday