holy cow

Remind me never to go to Germany to compete. What's with this course???

I think I'll have to try it....

Another crazy course!

And saving the best for last... (nice weave entry)

A weekend off

I had the weekend off from agility trials. The next weekend I have off is... uhm...

Probably May, the weekend after WT tryouts.

Next weekend I'll be in Dixon for an AKC trial and the weekend after I'll be back in Dixon for a 4 day USDAA trial. That trial has historically had crappy crappy weather, so we'll see what the weather man brings this year!

"So what did I do this weekend?," you ask? On Saturday I spent most of the day cleaning. I cleaned a bit of my guest room, a bit of the livingroom and a bit of the garage. The livingroom looks ok, but the rest of the house is still a mess. Oh well, it's a neverending battle.

Today I went to Shamrock and set up a savioja course. It took me about an hour to set the course. The first time I ran it, it went pretty well. My turns were a bit wide from 2-3 and 4-5, but I was able to rear cross the weaves and he got his entry. His teeter was OK, but his a-frame was awesome and dogwalk was good too.

After I ran it once Sandy came and she ran it with quill. Then we ran a modified course that had a threadle from 5-6 that we handled pretty well and then a 270 from 2-3 to the weaves (opposite end from the other course).

Next we ran the course backwards. The first time Icon popped out of the weaves as I tried to fc after. Then, when he was supposed to go 8-7-6 he actually went 8-7-5 because I was so far behind (because I was waiting for him to finish the weaves before I left him for the line 7-6). After that we were able to get it but turns were wide. I went over it a few more times and was able to tighten them, but I'm living in a land where I'll either indicate a turn too early and Icon will come off the jump or too late and he'll be too wide.

Naughty Polly

I had a really really fun time at the trial last weekend.  The weather was nice, the courses were nice, the people were nice.  

Q-rate wise, Icon did OK with 2 Q's.  Both NQ's were my fault.  On his Sat Std I didn't support him enough in the weaves and on Sun JWW I took my eyes off of him and he went OC into a tunnel.  

Polly had a pretty good weekend going 3/4.  For that 4th one Polly was the naughtiest he has EVER been on course, though! Not only did he go OFF COURSE after a tunnel, he didn't hold his a-frame contact! I know that Kay told me I didn't call him when he was in the tunnel, but I sure did. I can hear it on the video. Now I think he's even MORE naughty! I'm glad I didn't get whistled off when I touched him on the table.

Apparently Polly had lots of fun on this run!



Polly's other memorable run of the weekend was Sunday JWW. The course was described by one competitor as being set up by a drunken sailor wandering around the course and randomly dropping bars. With Polly I did NINE front crosses on the course! That has to be a record for us! He ended up 2nd for this run behind Nancy and Ace, which is pretty awesome IMHO. He only got 12 points for the run, but I'm pretty happy with that considering how twisty it was!

Polly's Sunday Std run was nice. I like how he drove down on his dogwalk contact. His contacts looked really nice in this run. I probably could have held them a smidgen longer though.


Polly's Sat JWW course was nice but uneventful.

Icon's Sat Std run had a really wide turn out of the tunnel to the teeter, and then he didn't drive very well on the teeter (since I wasn't able to get ahead of him with the 90 turn to the weaves). I didn't like either of the parts of that run. His turn out of the tunnel to the table was nice though, and the rest of the run went well. Icon was first or second dog for every run this weekend except for Sat Std, which was a bit of a disadvantage for us since we weren't able to see the hidden traps, but I guess I shouldn't complain.



Icon's Sat JWW course was nice, it was a nice course. He was the first run of the day and ran clean but the timers didn't go off so we ran again. He dropped a bar the 2nd time around. We placed first on that run.

(video to be added)

I was happy with the turns in Icon's Sun JWW run (except for the turn where he went off course). I really wish we had run clean on this one because I would have loved to see his time. Anyway, he went off-course when I looked away from him, but I think he was a bit naughty to go to the tunnel cause I sure wasn't heading towards it. But I think this is when the tunnel send can bite you in the butt. Quite often with our dogs we will verbally indicate the tunnel yet our motion will go another way so we can get into place. I wouldn't be surprised if that is what he thought I was doing. Ah well. He also missed the weave entry, but I was pushing him to see if he could get it without me hanging back. Apparently he can't!



Icon's Sat Std run was pretty nice. He came 2nd to Aiko but a very small amount. I didn't see Aiko's run, but I'm curious to know if she stopped him on contacts. I stopped Icon, but it was pretty brief (ok, the a-frame was very brief). I was pretty happy with his turns on this run, although the wrap around to the aframe could have been a bit nicer. I think I should have started running sooner.

Will you play with us? PLEEZE???

It was a beautiful March day this afternoon. The temperature was in the high 60's, there was a slight breeze and the sun was shining. I was all set to mow my lawn with nothing to do besides mow it or procrastinate by playing with the dogs.

When the dogs asked, I just couldn't resist! So I spent a goodly portion of the afternoon playing with them.

Foster showed his dorky side. Generally, Foster is suave and sophisticated but his dorky side comes out occasionally! He is, without a doubt, the George Clooney of dogs.


Icon decided he wanted to play with his toy that I won at the ACE Dogsports christmas party.



"How did I win it", you ask?

Because Sandy asked the group, "Who has the most dogs in the car, RIGHT NOW???" I won 'cause I had all three of my boys.

It was a group effort!

So Icon got to play with his ball for a while. But then, something unbelievable happened! The ball got stuck in the tree!



Now, let me pause for a minute and tell you that I am not the most coordinated thrower on the planet. In fact, I might be in the lower 20th percentile when it comes to throwing skill. However I somehow managed, with all of my lack of skill, to loop the handle of the toy around a branch so that it is sitting about 1/3 of the way down! Now that's some mad throwing skills! That toss alone must have brought me up into the 30th percentile!


But at least it gave me an opportunity to take a photo of him standing still! What a pretty boy



So I found him another toy. Oops, here I'm showing what a bad dog owner I am. Playing FRISBEE?? Oy Ve! I wouldn't have showed you this, but wait! What's that on the lawnmower in that frisbee photo? Is that the invisible man wearing gloves???



Yes! Procrastination DOES pay off! As I was playing with the dogs, the invisible man decided to do my yardwork for me! Who needs a husband when you have the invisible man?? Now I just need him to start paying the bills...

Shiatsu massage chair = bad idea

my back hurts more now! I think it's the chair's fault. Stupid chair.

OMG

I just remembered I have a homedics shiatsu massage chair thingy. I'm using it now and it's WONDERFUL

Sciatica is a pain in the ass

har har har. Anyway, my ass is still sore. It's sore in a ever-present, nagging way. I DO think it's feeling better now that that I'm aware of what it is (although this is still a self diagnosis) and I'm sitting straighter, taking more breaks and stretching more often. But the pain is still there. It has moved slightly to my lower back. I no longer have pain in my hamstrings unless I have been sitting for a while and then get up. I'm not sure what this indicates, but I'm hoping it's good.

It's been 2 days now that I've been exercising and stretching using 'recommended strengthening exercises'. This morning I started Yoga at Yoga Today. It's a free online Yoga website that has daily programs. The one I did this morning was a beginners program, but it lasted an hour. I only did 30 minutes because I didn't have time for the whole thing, but it was pretty good. I did breathing (I guess I'm an inverted breather because I had problems with this exercise). Then we moved on to loud breathing, which had Icon attacking me with his tongue every time I breathed loudly. After that I did forceful loud breathing, which totally drove Icon out of the room but got Apollo interested in me. Once I started the poses Polly tried to interfere. But it was really cute, the first time I did "downward dog" he did a big stretch right beside me. After that he laid down and just watched the rest of my Yoga. Foster was a good boy and laid down through the whole 30 minutes.

I'm hoping that I can keep this up, but one hour a day (or even 3-5x a week) is a big commitment for me. If I do manage to keep this up for a few weeks I will see about finding a class to join. It actually looks like I can go to free ones at the work gym. That would probably be good for me, but I'm so painfully unmotivated at times!

I came up with a bunch of sequences for the week.  It's fun to come up with courses.  If judging just involved developing courses, I would love to be a judge.  I just couldn't handle standing around all weekend watching agility runs.

This morning I did one of the sequences.  I started some more, but I fell while Icon was on the dogwalk because the grass was wet and my shoes had no traction.  I decided to stop there  before I killed myself.   Between my back/leg problems and falling in agility I need to be more careful!  I will do some more of the sequences tonight and wear cleats!

So the purpose of this sequence was to see if we could go from a straight line (1-3) and get a tight turn from 3-4 and and nice wrap from 4-5.  And he did an awesome job at it.  He turned so nicely for me, I was a bit shocked.  Although admittedly, my backyard isn't THAT big so we couldn't get so much momentum going, but I was still pleased.  You can see in the video that he turned very nicely in the air over the jumps.   I rewarded after his first try because it was so nice.  The 2nd time was just as nice.

My cat, Litter, was standing at the tunnel exit when Icon came out. That's him running towards the house!

Oh, and I'm wearing my PJs so excuse my outfit

Ouch

Ever since FC in AZ (and maybe even a bit before) I've been having some minor problems with my right hamstring.  Since then it's only been getting worse and worse.  I'm sure part of the reason we didn't do so well last weekend was because by that point I thought I had a torn hamstring, and BOTH sides hurt.   After looking into it a bit more and coming up with my own 'self diagnosis' I have decided that I have sciatica pain.  I'm not sure if this is worse or better.  Last night I started doing some recommended exercises and I'm starting to feel SLIGHTLY better already.  I'm also trying to sit less and with better posture and take more breaks where I stretch out.  If it doesn't get better within a week or so I'll go to a doctor.  Bah.  

The Dixon curse

My weekend sucked. I never seem to do well in Dixon.

The courses were awful. Unfair to large dogs and unsafe. On Saturday in JWW the weave entry was ridiculously close to the jump before, it was a 90 turn into a depressed entry. Only one dog Q'd in 24" and it was a s-l-o-w dog. Both my guys missed the entry. I guess I should have overhandled it (some might say handle it correctly), but I wanted to see if they'd get it, which they didn't. In Std, Polly Q'd and came 2nd, but he only got 13 points THIRTEEN for 2nd place! So he was 9 seconds under time. He is normally 15-18 seconds under time for std. The judge wheeled tight AND she had the weirdest table count. When Polly was on the table she kept stopping her count. Polly was down. I kept saying DOWN DOWN DOWN but he was as down as he could get! I almost just told her off right there, but she FINALLY said "go". It was really annoying. A lot of other people were complaining about her table count as well.

On Sunday it was really windy out and the courses were really nasty. Both dogs dropped the triple (2nd jump) in JWW. I'm not sure Icon actually hit the bar, a wind gust came up (it was very windy) and blew down about 3 or 4 bars at the same time the triple came down. I asked the judge to remove the call, but she said no. You gotta try, I guess... They rubber banded the jumps after Icon's run. And later I saw a dog drop a bar that was rubber banded (so it fell out of the cup, but not do the ground) and the judge didn't call it, but she RESET it. That kinda pissed me off.  Polly dropped the triple as well, but he really hit it. I'm not surprised because he was totally full of himself for that run and running extended. I had a hard time getting him to stay at the start line! He was raring to go, I think the wind had him feeling good. After the run about 5 people came up and told me how great he is. "He's as fast as a border collie!" Well, he's not but that's fun to hear ;) It made the NQ a bit less sad.

In Std there were really nasty approaches to tee teeter and dogwalk. I misjudged my distance crossing to the teeter for Apollo and he had a bad approach and came off the side and the judge called a flyoff. I don't think it WAS a flyoff because the teeter was on the ground and he was in the yellow before he came off, but he came off the side and she called it. The rest of the run was really nice though and he had really nice contacts so that was good, I guess.

I'm back in Dixon next weekend and my goal is to BREAK the curse! We'll see how that goes. I know one judge, Dan Selothfer, and like his courses so we should hopefully not have nasty, dangerous courses at least! Terry Culley is the other judge. I think I've heard the name, but I don't remember the judge.

Ok

I found a few runs where the handler didn't rush into the tunnel.  In general these are the runs where the handlers rear crossed the jump before the tunnel entrance instead of serping the line.  The dogs pretty much all still turned wide out of the tunnel.  I guess there's just too much eye candy.

And an interesting note on the winners.  There was a tie for 1st place.  When I watch ZenF's video I though it might be the winning run so I checked and was right.  AngieS also tied him.  Both handlers rear crossed from the DW to the tunnel and hovered by the tunnel exit (didn't RUSH, just stood still) to grab the dogs head as they exited.  AngieS actually did a bit of a face plant, but still got a really nice turn which was way faster than most dogs.

Obsessions

With WT Tryouts coming up I'm really starting to obsess over it.  I really have no expectations going there aside from doing our best, however I think I have a lot of practicing to do in order to do our best!  My main goals at WT tryouts are to get through all 5 rounds without an off-course (clean would be ideal, obviously) and to keep within the top 10 of the large dogs.  Last year there were 42 dogs entered.  In general, 10 out of 42 dogs doesn't sound like it should be that hard to do but of course these are some of the best 42 dogs in the country who are not only fast but consistent and probably waaaay more experienced than Icon and me.

There are a lot of elements seen on european courses that are either seen here infrequently or never seen on our courses.  For example the combination jumps.  There are also a lot of serpentines and 270's (seen here as well, but not quite as much), threadles (not allowed in courses here) and more pulls.  Way more pulls.  Tight turns out of tunnels are frequent.  Also some really ugly weave entries.  These are all things I need to perfect by May.  Or at least be able to look at a course with these elements and not freak out over how I will handle it.

One other thing I've noticed about looking at the courses from one of the 2008 WT judges is that she seems to like funky tunnel shapes.  I'm not sure what Icon would do in a funky shaped tunnel, but I think I've got to try that out to see.  I expect it will slow him down a bit and allow me to get into position, but it won't hurt to try it out.

As part of my obsessing I've been watching (ok, re-watching) a lot of videos from the 2007 Worlds.  I've tried a couple of the courses when Sandy or I set them up, but I've never tried the Large Team Std course and there are some interesting elements in there that I would like to try.  One is the weave entry that I think can be added to pretty much any course.  When watching the videos I was surprised at how much people shaped that entry.  I would definitely agree that it's nasty enough to warrant some shaping, but some people actually brought them around in an arc wide enough to give them about a body lengths worth of a head on approach. 

The above portion of the Lrg Team Std course looks like a sequence where the men were separated from the boys, and I from the videos I watched, not many were even passed puberty!  Not that I could have done it any better, to be honest.  But I want to try!  A lot of dogs managed to make it through this section, but not many made it through PRETTY.  The hardest part seems to be the turn from the 

tunnel and from what I see the main reason that the dogs are going wide is that after depositing the dog in the tunnel after the serpentine, the handlers rush in to pick up their dog at the tunnel exit to try to get a tight turn.  However, that running towards them (even when the dogs are in the tunnel and they can only hear, not see) appears to make the dogs think that the will be going forward out of the tunnel, not turning.  I haven't been able to find a run where the handler doesn't do the 'rush in' move and i haven't been able to find a run where the dog turns nicely out of that tunnel.  Coincidence???? Perhaps... but perhaps NOT!

The full course is below:

Oops, keep forgetting things

Another thing that Jen said Icon needs to work on is getting more weight in his back end on the teeter. To do this she suggested feeding into him (so he shifts his weight back to get the cookie) and ocassionally having someone bounce the up end of the teeter once he's in 2o/2o.

More on the seminar

I had forgotten two other things that Jen pointed out we needed to work on.  The first jump and the last jump.  She didn't say anything about the first jump specifically, however quite frequently she pointed out that Icon took the first jump oddly.  The last jump he takes too big with his head up.  My though on the reason for this is that he has too much handler focus at that point.  I'm not sure what to do about the first jump, but for the last jump I need to either place a toy or throw a toy, but either way I need to reward close to the ground to get him dropping his head a bit more.

I've always avoided him going to a toy/leash after the last jump because I've seen a lot of dogs go around the last jump for just such a reason.  But I guess it's just one of those things you have to balance.

Anyway, on to the videos from the weekend.  I'm working backwards here (I always tend to work backwards.  What does that say about me?) and have edited and uploaded my runs from Sunday.  I still need to get my runs from Saturday up.  I've cut out the Jen talking part and will try to type out what I gathered from her in my runs.

The first run of the day for us on Sunday was a bit of a disaster with me falling twice at a-frame and teeter and almost a third time at the dogwalk when running into the tunnel.  At the end of the dogwalk you might hear me say "this is ridiculous".  And it was.

When Icon takes the first two jumps you can see he does look a bit 'off' for them.  This brings into play the 'too much handler focus' issue that we seem to have.  His second time on the sequence is much better.  

I thought the line from the tunnel to the teeter was pretty good, but with all dogs Jen spent a lot of time talking about how you don't want the dog coming too far out of the tunnel before turning towards the jump.  Ideally he should make a bee-line from the tunnel exit to the teeter.  I think people who kept their dogs on their left out of the tunnel and rear-crossed to the teeter got a better line.  Jen said that dogs tended to go wide out of the teeter because most people came in too close to the tunnel (passed the jump) and then had to run back, showing the dog momentum in the wrong direction, to get around the wing in order to cross.  And since there was also a nice pretty double in their line of sight coming out of the tunnel, this caused them to make a really wide turn.

The people who kept their dogs on their left had momentum in the correct direction even when the dog is in the tunnel (where they can often even HEAR where you're going).  I wish I had tried it that way as well for comparison. 

The fall at the teeter was because apparently my momentum was still brining me forward as I was trying to move laterally.

On the very last part of the video I got in trouble for my quick release on the dogwalk.  It was the only quick release I did all weekend!  Apparently he hadn't fully stopped, but my criteria for a quick release isn't for him to stop, it's for him to have his front feet on the ground.  I didn't argue with her though.

The second run on Sunday started out with a really nasty straight line jump/jump/triple then a 90 degree turn to the dogwalk. Everyone was moaning and groaning about how their dogs would fall off and die (including me).   Jen had us handle this with a lateral motion cue before they took off for the triple.  There was a bit of maneuvering to get between a jump and tunnel for the lateral motion, but it was doable.  All of the dogs read it beautifully. I think Shadow went a bit wide on her first try but it wasn't unsafe-wide.  

On our first run Icon had a nice turn to the dogwalk and had a straight approach.  I ran too fast, however, and was stopped at the end of the dogwalk before he even got to the down ramp.  A major problem I have is going fast for the sake of going fast and getting ahead of Icon even if it doesn't do me any good.  This is a good example of that!

I stopped this sequence early because I thought that he had a really wide turn from the pinwheel but it turned out he was really nice and tight.  However since I (again) got really far ahead of him it just looked wide to me.  I should have kept going at that point.

When I started again from the beginning I had a better speed along the dogwalk and ended at a better time.  We were pretty good until we got into the box area at the end of the a-frame.  He was supposed to do a 270, but I pulled away and dropped my arm too quickly and he came in between the two jumps!  Had I wanted to do that move,  I couldn't have gotten that if I had tried!

This was another sequence where she said he took the first jump in a weird way. You can kind of see it on the video. Again, my personal opinion is that we have too much handler focus going on and not enough obstacle focus.  This sequence went pretty well for us aside from the rear cross to the teeter, which the first time around was waaaaay wide.  He turned when I called his name and he landed, he didn't read my rear cross at all.  This was because I didn't decelerate at all to indicate that there would be a hard turn coming up.  

The 2nd time through he had a REALLY tight turn however I think he probably slowed down a bit too much.   The third time through was nice, I thought.

The 4th sequence was pretty good.   I didn't give him enough lateral motion going towards the weaves so he was a bit surprised when he was over the jump after the aframe and the weaves were suddenly there.  Its hard to see in the video, but he slipped going into the weaves.

He also had a wide turn in a 270 near the end.  The 270 was towards the weaves and he drifted a bit because I didn't give him enough lateral motion to know he wasn't supposed to go to the weaves.

The 5th sequence had a bit of a bad angle over the triple.  Most people stayed beside their dog and pulled to the teeter, performing a "twizzle" after it.  I decided to work laterally and make Icon take the triple at the bad angle.  I didn't think it looked all that bad, actually.  He made it but the first time he looked a bit scared going over it.  I think that again this was due to too much handler focus.  I fed him (badly - the cookie missed his mouth, bounced and went way off to the side so I had to come into him) and I think that again, it switched him to too much handler focus so he was surprised by the triple.  The front cross to the teeter felt really smooth though.  The first time around the circle after the teeter he went wide on the jump going back towards the triple.  Jen said it was because I threw my hand out forward in a 'go on' motion (I meant to just move laterally, but apparently that didn't work!)

The 2nd time through the sequence the lateral dogwalk to the triple was much better.   I didn't feed and therefor didn't switch him to 'handler focus'.  Well either that or he remembered that it was a triple next.  We also had a much nicer turn towards the tunnel at the end.

Last sequence of the seminar.  I tried it first with 2 fronts and then 2 rears.  The first time through with 2 rear crosses he didn't read well and back-jumped.  I didn't move across his line fast enough.  When I got the 2 rears correct they looked smoother than the 2 fronts, but when I compare the 2 runs side by side they are pretty much even.  With the FCs I think he lost a bit of time on the 2nd front cross into the 270 but had a nicer turn out of the 270.  With the RCs he had a nicer turn into the 270 but went wide after.

Jen Pinder seminar

Last weekend I went to a 2 day Jen Pinder seminar. It was surprisingly good and I'm glad I went. My main reason for going was because I heard that the surface at Placer Dog Training is the same as the surface at WT tryouts, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I think they're both a type of astroturf, but the astroturf at Placer Dog is amazing.  It's the best surface I've ever been on and I'm sure Icon agrees!  He didn't slip at all.  I was told it's also grossly expensive, so I'm sure that WT tryout surface is a lesser quality.

I have videos from the seminar that I will post later and Kathie is supposed to send out the course maps, which I will post.  

But the main points I got from the seminar were:

The difference between collection and relative collection.

1.  Collection is a tight turn where the dog needs to significantly reduce his speed and add strides in order to make the turn.  A wrap is an example of a collected turn.

2.  Relative collection is a turn where you want the dog to maintain speed during the turn, however he knows that he is turning before he leaves the ground.

Jen uses lateral motion to get relative collection and generally she uses deceleration to get collection.

Some things Icon and I need to work on...

Lateral Motion Response:  The first day Jen said that Icon doesn't respond well to lateral motion and I need to go back and retrain that.  But he seemed to be ok after that one time.  I still would like to do a bit of training on this.  Nancy G also suggested training lateral motion in our first private, but I had forgotten until this seminar.

Turns out of tunnels:  Again this is something that I was working on with Nancy, but I think I like the way that Jen broke it down a bit more.  With Nancy I was just throwing the toy on the ground beside the tunnel to have Icon turn tight when I call him.  Instead of him depending on me to call his name, he should automatically look for me when he comes out of the tunnel and use my motion to decide where we're going next.  For example, if I'm moving towards the next obstacle he can continue and take it.  If I'm not moving at all he should come to my side.  She trains this with a c-shape tunnel and starts with no motion and having the dog come in to heel position on the same side that you sent him on.  This can start to add movement once he understands the initial motion.

Triple Performance:  Apparently we're not strong on our triple performance.  I should train this obstacle on it's own more.  I do have a triple at home that I can set up, but it's PVC.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Screw christmas, it's SPRING! I just love spring when the sun starts to shine again, the grass starts growing and trees start to bloom. Starting November I start getting depressed and it just gets worse and worse until it gets to the point that I think I'm just a miserable, bitch person in general. And then one morning I wake up and hear birds singing and my wisteria is in bloom and I'm HAPPY again! It's like I'm a new person! I can take the dogs to the park in the morning and it's warm and smells like wet grass. Nothing is better!

And to make me even HAPPIER, this weekend is daylight savings so it will be lighter later. Currently it's dark by about 6:30, which is when I roll in the driveway. By this time next week I'll have light until at least 7:30! Now I can sit outside and work on my yard during the week. Ah. Life is good.

Back from Arizona

Well, lots has happened since I last wrote, but I don't want to bore everyone.

Just two days before I made the 12 hour trip down to the Fiesta Cluster my car decided to die on me. Thanks to AAA plus I had it towed 30 miles from my work to my home. Thanks to Ford, I spent 1.5k fixing it. I wanted to leave by 6am on Thursday morning, but the car wasn't ready until 10:30. I didn't get it back and packed and on the road until noon. It was a looooong drive to arizona, but I made it and I am sooooo soso so thankful that my car died BEFORE my trip and not during!

We didn't have our best trial ever, but both Apollo and Icon did well going 6/8 and getting 2 QQ's. Apollo even came first in Standard one day for 36 points! Woot!! He managed to get 124 invitationals points over the course of the trial. I think he ended up with one 1st and 3 2nd places. Icon was a good boy during the ISC classes. He went 3/4 and missed the Sunday Std one thanks to a bad bad bad handler. Oh well.

I'm really liking my new video camera. I think the quality is really nice, it's even acceptable when uploaded on photobucket!

The weather was generally very good, except on Monday it was very very windy (and cold!). During Polly's JWW run two ez-ups blew over (thank god he didn't freak out!) and the wind blew down the double and another bar. That's ok, 2 less for him to knock down! ;) Here's the video:



And here is Icon's Sun ISC Std run. You can see that after the tunnel he goes towards the dogwalk and I get discombobluated and cause him to miss the threadle. Doh!




More videos of my wonderful boys can be viewed here!