The stuff of nightmares

I have looked through a lot of courses from the EO 2010 judges and they are tough.  Definitely tougher than the WC judges courses I have seen.  But there was always one judge who I couldn't find courses for, Mikhail Khirillow from Russia, AKA Кириллов Михаил.

This morning I had no 6am meetings (yay!  Actually my earliest meeting this week is 9am so I am loving life) so I was able to spend some time looking for courses before work.  Sadly, regrettably, I found some.

As they say, ignorance is bliss.  I think I would have been happier going to EO without seeing these.  Now all I can hope for is that Mr Михаил only designs courses for the small and medium dogs.....

WT practice #1

We had our first WT practice in San Jose last weekend and I had so much fun! It was held at Power Paws where I normally train so it wasn't an exotic trip like it was for most of the other WT members.  I'm not complaining though!  :)

Everyone looked great at practice, but the large dog team looked particularly good.   For one course we had a competition between jump heights where the team with the best overall time won (course faults then time) and of course the Large dogs CRUSHED the shelties in the Small and Medium heights! 

In August we head to Argus Ranch in Washington for our 2nd practice.  I feel sorry for the WT members on the east coast but I'm sure glad both of our practices are so close to me :).

All 4 of the large dog team.  Can you see Presto?  He's kind of hiding in back.

Happy birthday Apollo!

You're 8 today!


Oh! Is this for me? Why thank you!


Hey, what are you doing over here?


I know it looks good but you can't have any. (he did actually share with the other dogs and Pook)


Can I nom now?

Shaddy's back!

Shadow has come to stay with us while her mom is at a hunt test in Oregon with her awesome young lab, Nalu.

So I guess this means that Officer Icon has solved the case and Shadow has been found.  I think I'm feeing inspired to finish K9 Cops (the graphic novel).

A picture's worth...

I think Rampage is telling me I need to move a bit faster!

A judge's perspective

How cool, Lisa Selthofer wrote a blog about how to run one of her courses before the course was run but didn't post it until after the course was run (clear as mud?)

Lisa's blog

It is so nice to get a judge's thoughts about what they think is challenging about a course and how they expect people to handle it. And yes, Lisa, I really really wanted to front cross between 15 and 16 with Icon but your tunnel jump sequence from 12-13 just didn't let me get there. It was fun being able to pull and rear cross the poles, though. We got style points for that, right? :)

Here is Apollo running the course

Belgian Terv AKC - Apollo Sat Std from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

And Icon

Belgian Terv AKC - Icon Sat Std from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Rammy

I didn't get many runs on my camera this weekend due to the chaos of it all, but I did get Rammy's first and last run on Saturday.


His jumping looks funny in pairs!  Why was I so happy with it on the weekend?  I guess just because he kept all but one bar up.  I'm hoping that it wasn't this bad through all the runs.  This was his first time at 26"


NAF USDAA - Rampage Pairs from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Jumping was a bit better in our GP run, but he was obviously more tired.  We also got a gift on the dogwalk. ;)


NAF USDAA - Rampage GP from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

A successful weekend. Kind of...

On paper the boys and I had a successful weekend.  But I didn't come out of it feeling very successful.  I'm sure that most of it was due to the fact that it was SO HOT.  I made a  point of drinking lots of fluids but I just couldn't seem to find energy at some points.

Apollo was only entered in what he needs for his silver ADCH.  He got his Silver Gamblers title and a Q in relay.  He only needs 3 more pairs legs until his silver ADCH and he will essentially be 'retired' from USDAA agility.  I'll still enter him in a run or two each trial though so Polly will always feel like the special boy he is.  He also won me $6 in Steeplechase.  He finished third with a bar.  Actually, he took down the whole jump.  Poor guy.

Rampage showed some moments of brilliance this weekend but also moments of needing some more training (like staying in the weaves)!    I was EXTREMELY happy with how he handled the 26" jumps.  But I wasn't a fan of most of the starters courses.  For Gamblers and Snooker I really just wanted to create a flowing course for him but the obstacle layout didn't allow for that.  And I don't know why the judge had such a fetish with turning your dog to a tunnel underneath the dogwalk.  He qualified in 2 pairs runs (we got very lucky with our pairs partners!) and jumpers, gamblers and snooker.  BUT, we didn't qualify in any standard runs!  On Saturday we were called on the a-frame and on Sunday the run was essentially a mess :).  Oh!  And Rampage qualified in his first ever GP run!  Amazing!  And Rampage was official declared the most beautiful dog at the trial by the Starters/Advanced gate steward.  I couldn't help but agree :)

Icon qualified in everything this weekend.  BUT!  He missed 3 weave entries this weekend, which is not normal for him.  And we had 2 bars, also not normal.  One of them was the cause of our 8 point Team Snooker run.  Doh!  Luckily our team won anyway :).  He did win GP, Std and Team Standard though.  But missing all of those weave entries was odd.

Making good use of my time in a meeting

I'm not used to sitting in meetings at work where I don't play a large part.  It's pretty boring.  So I'm making good use of my time by posting photos!

Rammy is such a poser!


Kahve is such a boxer!


Molly looks pissed.


Icon's hard at work.  "You shall not pass!"


Dog or stuffed animal?


Handsome Pook.  He's the only cat I've ever met that is going grey in his old age.

ISC Courses

ISC Std

I loved this course!  It was so much fun to run.  I think Marq does a great job as commentator for AgilityVision, but I also think AKC should bring him back as a judge for tryouts.  Or MAYBE he should design the course and then someone else can judge it.  And then he can do a commentary and it would be like an 'inside' commentary because he designed the course.  Brilliant!  I think this is the way AKC should go :)

Icon was the only large dog to go clean and under time on this course.  A few dogs went clean except for 1 or 2 bars.  The other challenges were coming inside the 270 on 4-5.  At least one dog went from 7-16 (I was worried about that!)  EVERYONE was worried about the 7-12 sequence but putting a front cross in before 11 was easy-peasy.

No one chose to take the outside from 15-16.  That's good because I swore to smack anyone who would :)

One person chose to take her dog to the outside of 12, but IMHO the inside of 12 was the better path.  I might have reconsidered this with rubber contacts because you could maintain speed and not worry about the approach, but in this case the approach to the dogwalk was definitely better on the inside of 12

A few dogs took the 20 tunnel after the chute at 17 and at least one dog sliced through the standards on the broadjump on the tight turn at 18.  A note for anyone interested in international agility.  Practice severe turns on the broadjump!!!

 ISC JWW

It was mostly bars that got the large dogs in this class.  The irregular spacing on the line from 15-20 resulted in a lot of bars down and a few off-courses to the #7 tunnel after 16. 

The weave entry at 4 claimed a few dogs, but most people (including me) overhandled with a front cross. 

The sequence at 9-12  was the only one where handlers really chose to handle differently, and there was one clear winner amongst the choices.  Some people chose to rear cross 10 but that either resulted in a refusal at 10 or the dog coming through the gap between 10 and 11.  One person chose to serpentine 10-11 but that didn't work (I can't remember exactly what her dog did, but it didn't work).  At least one dog took the off-course jump #17 in this sequence (impressive!)  A few handlers chose to front cross after 9 and after 11 and that either worked fine or caused the bar at 11 to come down.  The most successful way of handling this sequence was to double front cross after 9 and then go into the 270 and front cross again before 11 and send to 12.  This also put the handler in a good position to front cross between 13 and 14.

Fun weekend!

We had a fun weekend at the Memorial Day AKC trial.  It was a 4 day trial but I had to work Friday so I only went 3 days.  In retrospect I should have signed up for only 2 of them because I was pretty much done and ready to go home by Sunday night.  Now that my birthday has passed I'm not the spry young chick I used to be.  Two days of agility is certainly enough for me.

Rampage and I had a fun time.  It was his first trial jumping 24" and I was happy with how he did with the height.  He had one bar in his first run, but kept them up the rest of the weekend (although on a few jumps he had some odd take-off spots).  I was NOT happy with any of his contacts.  He didn't get called on any of them but I'm not sure he was actually in on any dogwalks and while he was in for all of his a-frames I didn't like the performance on any of them.  I also learned that when it comes to handling we're not quite ready for Open yet!  Novice was so easy!  And we miss it! :)

Apollo did awesome!  Not one bar all weekend and only one Channan mess-up away from 3 double q's.  He seemed extra slow on Sunday but that could be because while I was walking courses first thing in the morning he found and ate the dinner I had out to thaw for all 4 dogs (another Channan mess-up).  I'm not sure that he got all of it, but he probably go the lion's share.  Rawr. 

Icon was perfect, as always!  On Friday after his root canal he was tired and grumpy but by Saturday morning he was raring to go.  Neither one of us was pleased that we couldn't tug but we lived through it.  Again Icon was just one Channan mess-up from 3 double q's but he did get his MACH 3 on Sunday and won both ISC rounds and the ISC combined (admittedly, Icon was the only dog to run clean in both).  All of the courses were incredibly fun this weekend, the European flavor lasted throughout all of the courses.  Straight tunnels abounded!  The judges were Marq Cheek, Dan Dege and Lori Sage.  I will post the ISC courses at minimum since I always appreciate it when other people post them.