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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Progress!

Well, I read Rachael Sander's contact article in Clean Run last month and she mentioned that one of the reasons dogs will be good in practice and then miss contacts in competition is when you reward contacts too much in practice. So the past few weeks I've been having Enzo practice contacts without rewarding him with food at the bottom. I had thought about doing this before but was worried it might actually degrade his contact performance. It does cause him to run off in practice on occasion now, but that gives me the opportunity to mark it and have him try again. I'm also starting to mix in some early releases in practice.

Overall it seems to be working. Saturday he ran off through dogwalk contact without any thought of stopping so I marked it with a hey and had him wait for a second. I think that got him a little worried because he ended creeping down the aframe while looking back at the judge. The judge was raising his arms for a knocked bar so that may have been part of his worries. He actually came to a full 2on/2off stop though! I praised him really excitedly. Maybe he was worried the judge was going to get him if he didn't do what he was supposed to like he used to do with the instructor in herding.

Sunday, he was still a little slower on the contacts than normal but not anywhere near as bad as the aframe on Saturday. He didn't quite stop but he was at least coming all the way down.

Both Tooney and Enzo were 3 for 4 this past weekend which is great. Enzo got 3rd in JWW on Saturday, 1st in JWW on Sunday, 2nd in standard. Tooney got 1st in Standard! She is really rocking standard courses lately with her running dogwalk. Enzo fell out of the top 5 for the invitational this past week so hopefully we have gotten to the point where we can start Qing in Standard consistently again. Hopefully by AKC nationals we will have figured it all out to get his speed is up to where it should be while still running clean! We were there back in June and July of this year!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Pictures from USDAA Nationals


I love the wild look in Enzo's eyes in this pic. He looks too cute in most of his agility pictures. This one captures how I feel he must look like when he's running!




I also got a beautiful watercolor print of Enzo in the weaves from Doghouse Arts but it's too big for our scanner!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Contacts!

I've been struggling a bit with Enzo's contacts lately, especially the aframe. At the three day trial last weekend he missed all 3 aframes plus 1 dogwalk and 1 teeter. On the second day and third day I made sure to mark his missed contacts.

After reading the Rachael Sanders article about contacts in this months Clean Run, I realized that I fall into the category of rewarding too much in practice. So all last week I stopped giving treats for his 2on-2off. Once I stopped giving him treats, then sometimes he would either not stop or stop and releases himself which he was never doing in practice before. This gave me the opportunity to mark the wrong behavior in practice.

I think this new strategy may be helping... at least for now. Even though he didn't come to a complete stop, Enzo put three strides on the downside of the aframe both days this past weekend which he hasn't done in competition since before USDAA nationals. He did get called on his teeter on Saturday because his front feet left before the board hit the ground and his back feet pushed the teeter down. It was a borderline performance that sometimes gets called and sometimes doesn't. Sunday he got all of his contacts but slid off the table. He tried really hard to hang on but ended up tipping over the edge. So still no standard Q's but at least I feel a lot better about his contacts now. Tooney had a good weekend with 3 out of 4 Q's. She may pass up Enzo in points soon if I don't turn things around soon.

My next step is to practice quick/early releases from contacts in practice. I will try mixing it up with having him hold them longer.

I'm also doing the ground work for using the PVC box to train running aframe. Not sure that I will actually use it on the aframe with Enzo but I'll see how the ground work goes.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

USDAA Nationals

I finallly got videos posted from USDAA Nationals. I haven't really been as into posting lately for whatever reason. I was happy with how both dogs ran at Nationals. Tooney did the best that she could. She was less than a second out from making it to the finals for Performance Speed Jumping and her team did pretty well but needed better snookers runs to make it into the finals. Enzo was fast and intense and really paying attention but had aframe contact and bar issues. Here's video from some of our best runs from the weekend.

Enzo:


Tooney:

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Mental Management

So I've determined that I need to brush up on my mental management. Going for the invitational has put me in a state of mind where I'm too worried about whether or not enzo Q's in each run and I've psyched myself out in standard runs with him for no good reason. He's been good on his contacts and I should trust him and focus on what I need to do to get him through the courses and stop worrying about the results. I also need to stop rushing and make sure that I stay in contact with him. I'm re-listening to my Lanny Basham CD's now and hopefully I've be able to get it together by USDAA nationals! Oddly enough I actually feel a lot less pressure about that than a local AKC trial at this point. I guess that's a good thing but that might change as it gets closer. Mentally I need to focus stop thinking and talking about what we did wrong and focus on how to do things right. So as part of that I'm only going to write about the good things here.

Tooney did really well at the 4 day trial in Northern CA. She got one double Q and 1 Q each of the other 3 days, she placed 1st in all of the runs that she Q'd in except 1. Enzo had one really awesome JWW run where he got 1st and 46 points which is definitely the most he's ever gotten for a jumpers run. I haven't gotten around to posting most of the video but I put that one up.



Last weekend Enzo got first in JWW on Saturday on a really tough course and Tooney Q'd in JWW on Sunday. Oh and Enzo hit all of his contacts :-)

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Enzo is 2009 D2iSC Champion!

Enzo has just been named the 2009 D2iSC (Disc Dogs in Southern California) Champion! It's an annual award given to the disc dog team that earns the most points based on your finishes in your best 3 out of the 4 major competitions hosted here in southern California. Enzo and I beat out over 80 other teams to get this award! It will be presented at our holiday get-together.

Enzo also finished in 5th place with Jenn due to their great toss and fetch finishes this year. That's impressive considering they don't do freestyle. Freestyle teams earn more points.

Tooney and I finished in 12th place!

Here's a couple pics from this year of my bestest buddy in the whole world. And yes, I love him so much, I bring myself to say "bestest". I can't help it:

PhotobucketPhotobucket

Friday, October 9, 2009

UFO Major / Crusty Classic Weekend part 1!!!

What a fun but exhausting weekend. It was the windiest competition of the year, so some of the rounds weren't as good as maybe they could have been. Jenn was also recovering from the flu. It was the biggest UFO and Crusty Classic in California history! Both days ran really late. This was the last disc competition for a long time for me, so I had to make the best of it!

Saturday was the UFO major. In intermediate division, Jenn got 3rd with Enzo with I think only 6 points. Yeah... the wind was THAT bad. There were probably more scores of 0 than not. Tooney didn't compete with Jenn because she's at the age we need to start resting her a bit. For my first round of freestyle with Enzo, the wind was really, really, really strong. He did great and after the 1st round, he ended up in 5th place. His toss/fetch was very solid at 7.5, but I only got 3 throws off - it was my fault, sorry Ebby! He missed the t/f top 10 cut by only 0.5 point. For the 2nd round of freestyle, Enzo was AWESOME! I knew since he had a solid t/f score that our placement should move up. They announced the awards for the top 3 freestyle - I figured we had a REALLY good chance of being in the top 3 - no mention of Enzo. Wow, that's odd..... Then, announcing the open overall top 4 (t/f + both rounds freestyle) and Enzo was also nowhere to be found... I thought that was strange, but that's the way it goes sometimes. No big deal!

SCORING ERROR!?!?! Yes, on Sunday, they found 2 major errors in the scoring calculations on the spreadsheet. After the new calculations, Enzo was 2nd in freestyle and 4th in the overall! Then, after yet ANOTHER mistake, Enzo moved to 3rd in the freestyle... whatever the placements are, he did good!

Enzo's 1st round freestyle UFO Major. Notice at the beginning, the disc almost blew off my finger and I started laughing since I recovered! That's a very risky and difficult move to do, especially with the wind, but I don't back down from a challenge. After my round, friends surprised me by running out and throwing stuffed bananas at me because I dress up in yellow. We didn't get it on video, though.



Enzo kicking butt for his 2nd round:



Little Tooney had 2 decent rounds in freestyle. It was really windy and she struggles more than Enzo in the wind. She doesn't have the quick reactions that he does to recover when the disc moves with the wind. As expected, she didn't make the cut. However, in toss/fetch, nothing can stop her, even with the brutal wind... at least I thought... In the 1st round of t/f, she was great. She ended up in 1st place overall with 12 points. I was stoked, and I figured we'd probably win it because she's so good. For our 2nd round of t/f, the event was running really late and I was the last person to go since she was in first place (they run last to first). I had my sun glasses on because I didn't think I'd need to bring my regular glasses with me. I couldn't see a thing and as each competitor went, it was darker and darker out. Unfortunately, for our second round, we were only average, and yes, I blame it on the fact it was nearly pitch black out. I don't normally make excuses, but it was a huge disadvantage. She got 9 points in the second round. It caused me more of a problem than her probably. I couldn't see the lines on the field at all. I think we ended up in 5th place in t/f. I think she ended up 13th overall in the open division, which is actually really good considering how big the competition was!!!

Tooney's round of freestyle:

UFO Major / Crusty Classic Weekend part 2!!!

On Sunday, the wind was still blowing hard and it was COLD! Jenn and I were freezing with lots of layers on. Jenn didn't feel all that great and couldn't finish her rounds, but had a really good toss/fetch with Enzo considering the wind (12 points). The Crusty classic is in memory of Steve "Crusty" Walsh who passed away 9 years ago. It's also a celebration and show of appreciation to all the disc doggers and their k9 athletes not with us anymore. Since it's a special occasion and Halloween is coming up, I felt I should do something special. I did - and everybody loved it!!!

For Enzo's freestyle, we went out as Skeletor and Mr. Bones. I think you'll like this. I visually lost Enzo on a couple of moves/throws, but it was still worth it! My absolute favorite part is when we're walking onto the field, Enzo is herding me... SO CUTE!



Tooney and I went out as Hannibal and Officer Tooney. For the first half of the routine, she was on fire. I noticed a lot of blood coming out of her mouth and knew she cut her mouth. This isn't unusual for her, and I knew she'd be ok to play through it. If she stopped running around or anything, I would have stopped. Unfortunately, she was hesitant when catching discs for a while after that. She didn't even open her mouth on some of them, but she still did great. She had fun and we looked very cool I must say. The song choice is a classic, so turn it up!



The next round was bullseye, which is a toss and fetch type of event with 2 discs. I always do really well with both Enzo and Tooney, so I was excited about this. It requires a lot of running around for both the dog and handler. Since I'm in good shape, it always works out well for me. I was testing out an idea with Enzo off to the side before my round and OUCH! WTF??? Something popped in my leg, just above my knee. It was horrible pain and couldn't stand at all. Well, to make a long story short, when I went out with Enzo, I could only barely walk. I usually get 8-9 throws off with him, but I only got 5 off. He caught all 5 for the maximum # of points, so we still had a good round. Because of the wind, most people were getting really low scores, so I think he had one of the best of the day.

When Tooney went, I was feeling somewhat better and I got the usual 8-9 throws off with her. Unfortunately, when I was throwing discs the 1 direction, she kept missing them and she NEVER MISSES! My throws were perfect and she'd tip them. We figured out later it was probably because she was going from a sunny area to shade. Oh well, she still did pretty good by catching about 5 or 6 I think.

Jenn was sick so we had to leave early and we didn't get to hear the placements. It turns out Enzo ended up in 3rd overall! If I knew that we scored that good in freestyle, I could have pushed myself during our bullseye round and we could have placed higher. It doesn't really matter, I was just happy to put on a good show.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

from the vegas competition. one of my favorite pics ever!



I must say... I look GOOD. Wow, Jenn's a lucky girl.


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Vegas Disc Dog Competition

We went to Vegas for a UFO Local last weekend. Small competition but well run and the Vegas people are great. The weather was not so great though. It was 108 degrees when we left the field on Saturday! Tooney and Enzo did great in the heat. They didn't seem to mind. Tooney had a great freestyle round, she had tons of energy. Enzo was also awesome. He didn't have any drops until about 2/3's into the routine. Ended up with 3 drops total. Tooney rocked Toss and Catch. Not sure what the total was but she had 5 catches and 3 or 4 were in the zone. Enzo had a good T&C round too but Jeff didn't quite have enough time to get the 5th throw out. Tooney had pretty decent rounds with me in intermediate too but I messed up Enzo's 2nd round.

Tooney ended up 3rd with me in intermediate and won the Open divsion with Jeff! Enzo got second in intermediate. The little girl is still improving and really suprising everyone! That had really factored into our decision to put off getting another dog for a while. We'll re-evaluate in another year.

Sunday I went to an AKC trial but didn't Q in anything. Tooney was off in her JWW run and ended up throwing up afterwards so I scratched her for standard. Enzo knocked 1 bar in JWW when I was too far behind and late on a rear cross. I crossed behind him when he was over the bar. I probably should have just let him jump long on that jump and crossed after he landed. In standard, Enzo had another nice run but missed the aframe contact. I think he's taking little steps instead of striding down the aframe which is causing problems because he's not patient enough to take enough little steps. I'm going to try putting a stride regulator back on top of my aframe and see what that does. I think ee did his aframe the way I want him to do it in class tonight. Hard to see exactly what he's doing sometimes.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

USDAA SW Regional

Had a great time at the Bay Team Regional in Prundale, CA. Great location, great weather, really well organized trial. Saturday was the DAM Team/PVP and Grand Prix round 1. Tooney was paired up with a young Pyr Shep named Gator with the team name Gator's Wild Ride in ToonTown and Enzo was teamed up with Pixel and Sparks with the team name of ESP.

Unfortunately our first run of the weekend was Grand Prix Round 1 and it was a really tough course. Both Tooney and Enzo were wired and the course started with the dogwalk and an off course tunnel right in front of the dogwalk. Tooney ran straight into the tunnel and Enzo leapt off from halfway down the down ramp and almost went into the tunnel so they were both NQ'd right off the bat. The course had two places where you had to send to the backside of a jump and both dogs did it right the first time but went around it the second time. Need to practice that some.

Next was Team standard. Tooney and her partner both went off course in this. Enzo had a pretty good run but missed the aframe contact and then crashed the last bar. Tooney had also crashed into the last bar and I thought that was strange so I turned around and saw that there was a gopher hole right before the jump! I pointed it out to the jump setter and they filled it. Luckily no dogs were hurt.

In team jumpers, Enzo had a really nice run with just one bar down when I mis-timed my rear cross on a tight wrap. Tooney had an ok run, I got a little lost and front crossed a little too soon and pulled her off a jumped and got a refusal and then she missed the weave entry and got another refusal.

Team Gamblers was pretty straightforward. I got a little messed up with my opening plans but both dogs did a bunch of stuff and got some points.

In Team Snookers Enzo had a decent run and got through number 3 in the closing when he shot out of the straight tunnel and went over the wrong jump. Tooney had a really good snookers run got throught the closing and ended up in 6th place.

Both Tooney and Enzo's teams weren't doing very good going into the relay. Both teams did pretty good in relay and that brought us up but not quite enough. Tooney's team ended up one placement below the cutoff in PVP and Enzo's team ended up two placements below the cutoff in DAM team. Everyone in Enzo's team was already qualified so we were just playing for fun, but we were hoping to get Tooney's teammate qualified. It was kind of a weekend of a lot of almosts for me!

Sunday started with Tooney's P3 Standard and Tooney did great in this run but the judge got in my way when he was judging the aframe and when I was trying to avoid running into him, Tooney ran off course. The judge apologized but we were still eliminated :(

Then Tooney and Enzo both ran in P3/Masters Gamblers. The gamble was a tunnel/aframe discrimination and they had to take the tunnel on the other side of the aframe. Both of my dogs took the aframe. They're pretty much trained to take the obstacle closest to me unless I'm pushing into their path so that was expected. My opening plan was a little messed up because I couldn't decide what I wanted to do. I also forgot that I was running Enzo in this when I walked it and then decided that I wanted to practice his dogwalk without ever walking that plan.

Next was Enzo's Advanced Standard run. He did really good and got a Q and 2nd place. That was his 3rd advanced standard Q so he can move up to masters now in standard.

Then we had to go right over to the Steeplechase ring. He was a little slower than normal since he ran back to back and he was a little confused about where to go in the opening. He ended up knocking a bar anyways because I didn't get ahead enough for a serpentine move. I wanted to make sure that I supported the triple enough before that but I needed to get ahead sooner. He wasn't fast enough to make the cutoff with the bar. without the bar he would have just made it. Tooney had a really good PSJ run and made it into the second round. I layered a jump in the opening which I didn't do with enzo and that made a big difference in the part where he was confused. I don't really like layering if I can avoid it. I didn't have a choice with Tooney because she wouldn't let me lead out far enough but that actually worked out better.

Last run for Sunday was Advanced Snookers for Enzo. I had to improvise a little when I didn't get ahead enough to push him off of a number 3 jump that I wanted him to run by. I kind of forgot what I was doing there. He got the Q though! That was his first Advanced Snooker Q so he needed that one.

Monday was a little lighter on runs. Thank goodness because my feet were trashed at this point. I have flat feet and they hurt a lot when I'm on them a lot. Enzo only had Advanced Standard and Advanced Jumpers. He didn't need the standard leg so I tried to work his contacts a little. Then advanced jumpers was pretty tight and a tricky for an Advanced Course. At one point I had to run around a jump and that caused Enzo to knock a bar. Hoping to get that Q so he could move up to Masters for everything. Oh Well.

Tooney had Masters Snookers, Jumpers and Standard. In snookers I didn't walk my plan enough and ended up sending her over the wrong jump. She did well in Standard and got 4th. Jumpers was a mess. I had trouble remember the course for some reason. Then at the end of the day Tooney ran in the second round of Performance Speed Jumping. Finally a nice course! She had a really awesome run and ended up in 6th place. Only around 1 second out of 3rd place. Nice to end the weekend with a smooth run!

Jeff took a lot of video so I'll be posting some later!

Monday, August 31, 2009

Hot Hot weekend!

It was a very hot weekend for SoCal. Saturday we had an FDDO frisbee competition in Long Beach. It was probably mid 90's or so there so hot but bearable. No freestyle at this competition so we just had the games: Obstacle course where you throw the disc through obstacles and hope the dog can catch it, Speed disc where you get 3 discs and try to hit a box at 15 yds, get a 20 yd throw, and get a 30 yd throw in under 60 seconds, and the final event was distance pyramid where you get 3 throws but only your last throw counts. The FDDO games are a lot of fun.

I only played with Enzo and Jeff played with Tooney and Enzo. I did pretty bad with Enzo in the obstacle course, my timing with him on shorter throws is not there. We finished speed disc and got 3rd in intermediate in that event and I got a big zero in the distance pyramid. Jeff did ok with Tooney and awesome with Enzo. They got 3rd in the obstacle course and 2nd overall!

Sunday we went to an AKC trial in Van Nuys. It ended being over 100 degrees. Way too hot! Jeff ended up coming along so I got some video this time. Not the greatest day to watch agility but it's nice when he goes with me. In JWW, Tooney broke her start and went straight into the wrong end of the tunnel so I just pulled her. It wasn't worth going on and I really needed to do that for a while anyways just didn't want to. Enzo had a really nice run and got 1st place. Here's the video:



It was even hotter when we ran standard. It wasn't too horrible in the shade but in the sun it felt like you were baking. Tooney had a nice run and we got through that difficult line in the back from the dogwalk to the not obvious side of the tunnel. Right before the teeter I took my eye off of her and she didn't come in to the teeter.


Then in Enzo's run I got behind at the chute and he curled in towards me and didn't see the jump. He had already knocked the jump before the chute anyways. I think I said go chute when he was over the jump. At the end I cut the rear cross too tight and he ended up missing the last jump. Unusual for him to not go on but I can see that I got too far ahead before the rear cross and I needed to hang back a little and done a more gradual rear cross. At least his contacts are back to where they were before...Not stopping but going all the way to the bottom.



So the past few weekends haven't been great for Q's but we're still at 608 points for the invitational so far. Still meeting my goal of averaging 300 points/month.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Argh! contacts!

So last weekend Enzo started missing his contacts. We had a run last Saturday where I did a hard push off the aframe and I don't think he liked that. He growled at me and left the aframe a little early. So then the next day he missed his dogwalk contact, flew off the teeter, and took a flying leap off the aframe. So we worked contacts a lot this past week and I was hoping that would help. Nope, yesterday he missed the dogwalk contact and did another flying leap off the side of the aframe. After the aframe I kind of yelled at him like "hey! what are you doing?" and paused for a few seconds. It seems like that may have made an impression as he was really careful on his contacts today and hit all of them. Unfortunately he knocked the triple so no standard Q but I was really happy about his contacts. Last weekend, he only got 1 JWW Q but first place for 40 points. This weekend again only 1 JWW Q for 28 points. Hopefully that doesn't put us too far behind for invitational points. Especially since Labor day weekend we'll be going to the USDAA SW Regional.

Tooney did a flying leap off the dogwalk yesterday so she got a scolding too and made her contact today.

Oh and last weekend Tooney got her 6th double Q for AKC nationals so she's qualified now too!

Monday, August 3, 2009

AKC - Van Nuys 8/1-8/2/2009

So Enzo had another pretty good weekend and got about 100 more points. Enzo got first in Saturday's JWW. Really nice run and nice turns which he ended up running in 6.2 YPS. Tooney knocked the first bar and another one later on. The first bar was because she broke her start. Not sure why the other one did except that I went pretty far lateral to get a front cross in.

Standard was pretty tricky with a zig zag sequence that presented a lot of off course possibilities if you zagged when you should zig. Pretty much had to handle it with a double rear cross which is tough with Enzo because I usually can't get around the jump in time for the second rear. Tooney with her left and right commands got through it smoothly. Enzo on the other hand was really wide on all the turns. At one point he was headed off course and when I called he just stopped for a split second and looked at me like huh? where do I go? He came off the off course chute and finished the course clean. Tooney actually won the class and Enzo came in 3rd place! Tooney hasn't beat Enzo in a while so he really wasted a lot of time there. This really reminds me that I should work on his lefts and rights.

Sunday's JWW, Tooney ended up knocking a bar because I decelerated too much before a wrap and she just landed on top of it. Enzo did the wrap nicely but ended up stumbling in the weaves and skipped a pole. These weaves have a little higher base and he's tripped on them before.

Standard had a pretty tough opening but we had actually practiced almost the exact same thing in class on wednesday. It was two jumps to an 180 turn and then you could either post turn and then push between the two jumps or front cross on the other side of the 180 and wrap to the outside. We timed this in class and enzo did better with the wrap to the outside where he stayed on the same lead so that's what I did. He was a little wider than when we did it in practice but it was smooth. With Tooney I was going to do it the other way because I didn't think she'd let me lead out far enough but she ended up staying long enough and I could do the front cross. Enzo ended up getting 2nd place and Tooney got 3rd. So far Enzo's quick (er..self) release contacts are working. Tooney is doing a running dogwalk in competition now and hitting them most of the time but she may miss them a lot more in USDAA with the shorter contact zone. I prefer that to the really slow dogwalk though.

So another really good weekend for Enzo and Tooney but I really wish I could get Tooney's double Q's for nationals.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Another Disc and Agility weekend!

Saturday was a Skyhoundz local. No freestyle, just 4 different events, Spot Landing, Bullseye, Speed Disc and TimeTrial. It's fun playing some different games once in a while. Tooney and I got first overall in the Intermediate division even though we ended up with a zero in speed disc! I did pretty bad with Enzo on everything with the short throws but it was fun anyways. Jeff did well with both dogs and ended up getting 3rd place with Enzo in the Open Division! Enzo did really awesome with Jeff and they finished Speed Disc for the first time ever!

Sunday I went to an AKC trial in San Diego. Enzo got 1st in JWW and Tooney got 2nd! In standard, Enzo knocked a bar towards the end. I think I crowded him a little on a rear cross since I was a little more ahead than I thought I would be. Tooney was clean in standard and got 1st place so that was a double Q for her! Now she just needs two more for nationals. I also think Enzo wears himself out screaming and clawing and biting at the crate when I run Tooney first. When I switch them out he's usually panting pretty hard.

Enzo's point count so far for July is 326. My high target is 300 points a month so we exceeded that. Right now he's showing up in the top 5 aussies for next year's Invitational. They only have results through July 11 though.

Monday, July 20, 2009

AKC Trial in Ventura

Went to an AKC trial this weekend. The courses were pretty nice and open and nothing too evil. Even with that though Saturday didn't go so well for me. In JWW, the opening started with a 180 type thing and I led out and Enzo almost blew by the first jump and came straight towards me. I got him over it but didn't know if that had been called as a refusal or not but turns out he didn't call it. That was a little distracting and then later one he knocked a bar and then went off course. There were two jumps next to each other and I didn't pull enough and he took the one in his path. Tooney ran the jww course clean until almost the end and took a bar when I said come over the bar. Enzo had a really nice run on Saturday's standard course but left the teeter a little early and got called for it. Tooney ran clean and got 1st place!

Sunday's JWW was almost the same as Saturday's! It had the same sort of jump discrimination that I messed up the day before. I handled it better this time and both dogs went clean in this run. Enzo got 2nd and Tooney got 3rd. In standard this time I yelled wait at Enzo as soon as he got in the yellow and he stopped a little early but he held on long enough this time. Enzo wasted a little bit of time on the table as he took a couple seconds to lay down and then he got up partway through the count but he still got 2nd place. I thought Tooney was clean too but turns out she got called for something. I couldn't see if she hit the dogwalk contact so that's probably what it was.

Oh and that was Enzo's 10th double Q!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

AKC Trial before Wags

Friday before going down to San Diego, we went to an AKC trial. The JWW course was really nice just with a tunnel entrace discrimination at the very end that was a little worrisome. Enzo had a great round but knocked a bar towards the end. Tooney was clean and placed 2nd.

In standard, Enzo was just flying. He almost pulled off the jump after the chute because I was behind and then we almost collided when he came out of the tunnel at the end. I needed to get to the other side of the tunnel to get the turn but couldn't. He almost took the tire but pulled off at the last possible moment. What a good boy! He's really a lot more responsive than Tooney is which makes him more consistent even though he's faster. Tooney knocked a bar in standard she didn't realize we were turning until she was over the bar. She also flew by the teeter at the end which is something she's been doing if I'm not really clear that she's supposed to take the teeter. It's only with that obstacle.



Here's the videos:









USDDN Qualifer

This weekend was the USDDN West Coast Qualifier in San Diego. It's supposed to be part of Wags for Wishes, a big charity event for Make A Wish but they had the frisbee at a separate location for the past two years and they do NADAC instead of AKC agility so we just go to the frisbee.

Saturday was the freestyle day with the Super Open divsion so two rounds of freestyle, and one round of T&F. Jeff and Enzo had a pretty solid first round for freestyle but definitely not the best they've had. Tooney also has a good first round with a couple of landings that we didn't really like. Of course she doesn't really catch that much air so it's not that scary. Here's the first round videos: (YouTube is squishing up my videos a little not sure why yet)





Then they did Toss and Fetch. Enzo had a pretty bad round. He started out kind of confused and just started running out instead of going around. I think that kind of threw things off for the rest of the round. Enzo ended up only catching 2 discs for 7 points. Tooney had a pretty decent round with 12.5 points but that's not really great for her either.

Going into the second round a freestyle, Jeff and Enzo were in 8th place which was actually a lot better position than we thought they'd be in. They really rocked their routine and moved up to 3rd place! Tooney's second freestyle routine was also better than her first. No icky landings this time. Here's the second round videos:





Sunday was the Toss and Fetch day for the Super Pro division qualifier. Jeff played with both dogs in Super Pro and I played with both in the Pro division. Enzo did really well with both of us. His first round with Jeff he scored 19.5 points! Tooney also did really well in her first rounds with us. Her second round with me, she started out good then I threw a couple bad throws and she started walking back on her returns. It was pretty hot and she looked really hot so I stopped our round early. Enzo's second round was not quite as good as the first but still really good. I think he caught 4. Then Tooney's round with Jeff, she was doing pretty good but then she pooped on the field. She has never done that in all her years of competition. ever. So that ruined her chances of placing in the top 5. It might be possible that she made it as a alternate but they didn't announce those positions. It just occured to me now that maybe since she had her anal surgery she might not have as good control as she did before. We'll have to be more careful about that in the future.

Oh and some good pictures that a photographer took:

http://vader1000.zenfolio.com/p248454665/h2cc4831f#h35334603

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

3 day AKC trial, Walnut, CA

Went to a 3 day AKC trial last weekend. Enzo had a really awesome weekend. The first run of the weekend was a pretty tough JWW course. Tough if you have dogs that are faster than you anyway. It had two long straight lines that put the dogs straight towards an off course tunnel. I ran Tooney first and she actually faulted in the opening Lead out pivot where I turned a little soon and she decided to bypass the second jump and go into the tunnel which was the third obstacle. Partially my fault but she really should have known better too! Then she went right into the first tunnel option. Enzo was heading towards that same tunnel but he called off and ended up placing 1st! Standard was a pretty straightforward course. Tooney had a good run but leapt over the dogwalk contact. Enzo was clean and placed 2nd so Double Q! He's doing self-quick releases on the contacts but he seems to be pretty consistent about it so I'm just going to go with that for now.

Saturday's JWW was a pretty nice course with a couple tight spots. Tooney and Enzo both Q'd and Enzo got 3rd place. I was really proud of Enzo for actually collecting for some of the turns! He definitely seemed to be more thoughtful this weekend. Not running quite as fast as normal but I like that he's thinking about what he's doing a little more instead of blasting over everything. Once he gets a little more confident about collection, hopefully he'll learn to accelerate into and out of the turns a little better and also when to extend and when to collect his stride. I'll take slightly slower for now and if he can get the hang of it then his times will be way better than before.

Saturday's standard had a pretty nasty herky jerky ending. Both dog's Q'd and got doubles though. Enzo had a lot of wasted yardage at the end because he almost pulled off a jump when I decelerated too much before a tight rear cross and the rest of the run was me trying to just get through it all. He still got 2nd place though and Tooney got 3rd so they both got double Q's!

Sunday's jumpers was another kind of tough course with some really speedy sections into some tight turns but it was better than Friday's. Enzo ended up getting 1st and Tooney got 2nd!

Sunday's standard had a tough opening where you had to run through a box where they had to run past a tunnel on one side of them and the jump on the other side. Some people front crossed to get on the tunnel side to block but I decided to stay on the other side and pull since it was the inside of the curve. Tooney looked at the tunnel but called off. We ended up going off course to the dogwalk instead of the aframe which were next to each other. I did a front cross before the aframe and lost my bearings and ended up in front of the dogwalk. Enzo was awesome in the opening and drove right down the middle of the box at a speed that was a little frightening but he never looked at the off course opportunities. I decided to pull to the aframe with him instead of doing a front cross and that worked nicely. He ended getting called for a teeter flyoff though. I front crossed at the ended of the teeter and he growled at me and jumped off the side away from me. He did the exact same thing at the last trial too. Jeff thinks it's because he thinks I'm going to step on his feet. Jeff says that enzo growls and barks at him when he thinks Jeff is going to step on his feet and he's been doing that to get his to back away from the door. I guess I'll have to avoid doing that for a while until we can work through it. I'd better work on my rear crosses at contacts!

Anyways, with the two double Q's he got this weekend Enzo now has his 6 that he needs for AKC nationals. Tooney needs 3 more for nationals. I'm going to be doing a lot of AKC in the next several months so she should be able to do it.

I'm still considering trying for the invitational for next year with Enzo. I don't want to make a big deal out of it so I'm just going to do a lot of AKC for the rest of this year (except for USDAA regionals and Nationals and any frisbee weekends) and then see where we end up. If we're in good shape at the end of the year then I'll keep doing mainly AKC, if not then I'll go back to doing USDAA too. Enzo got 170 points towards the invitational this past weekend.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Enzo and Jeff's IDC qualifier routine

I've been working a lot so haven't had much time for blogging in the past month. Things should be getting back to normal now. This was from June 13 when Jeff and Enzo competed in the qualifer for the Incredible Dog Challenge. They had an awesome routine with only 3 drops but missed qualifying by 1.5 points.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Falling into obscurity

I think Jenn has lost interest in blogging. Let's see how long until she notices this.

Monday, June 8, 2009

USDAA trial - Chula Vista

Enzo's foot seems to be 100% now so that's good. Tooney and Enzo both ran in a USDAA trial this weekend. On Saturday, Tooney and her partner both went off course in Pairs, Tooney missed the weave entry in Standard, went off course right before the closing in snookers, then in P3 jumpers she Q'd and got 2nd place. Sunday she only ran in gamblers and jumpers. The gamble was not one that I expected either dog to get, but she still got 2nd place because only 1 dog Q'd. Jumpers she Q'd but I didn't see how she placed.

Enzo ran Advanced snookers first and knocked the first bar. I managed to stop him and tried to bring him around to a red but I turned around and put him over the wrong jump. oops! In advanced standard he had an awesome run, Q'd and got 1st! He had a good run in steeplechase but I got behind (because I ran the wrong line) in one part and had to push out to a jump and that caused him to turn the wrong way and then backjump. Enzo and his partner Lucky Q'd in Advanced pairs too. I entered as a draw and ended being paired with someone from his one class.

Sunday, Enzo ran in Grand Prix first. It was a pretty tough course. I was very proud of him getting the opening tunnel/dogwalk discrimination and the threadle. He knocked a bar and then went off course later on too but it was a pretty difficult spot where the dogs saw the tunnel and then a jump before they could see the weaves where they were supposed to go. I got him off the tunnel with a RFP and then turned back and moved too soon and he took the jump. Then his next run was Masters Gamblers. His first Masters run ever! It was kind of a disaster. He was wild and did his own thing. A rarity for him. He completely leapt the aframe contact and went off to do something else I should have made him do it again but I was a little flustered. He ran Advanced Standard right after that but knocked the first bar right off the bat. Then going to the table, there was an off course jump possibility so I pulled pretty hard and almost pulled him past the table. I stopped next to the table and gestured toward the table and somehow he though I wanted him to jump up into my arms (we were close to the exit)! He boinged and I caught him! I was completed suprised and started laughing. Everyone was laughing! It was really funny. Too bad there's no video! Oh and then I waited around until almost 6pm to run advanced jumpers. Enzo had a beautiful fast run but he took down a bar because I said go tunnel and threw out my arm when he was over the bar. Oh well!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Skyhoundz SW Regionals

I had big hopes for the SW regionals this year, with intentions of going to Tennessee with Enzo and Tooney if they were able to get qualified. Unfortunately, any hope of qualifying was gone before the competition even started. On Friday night, Enzo started limping. We think he got some sort of paw injury.

Tooney was my last hope. They take the top 6 (out of 39 competitors!) to the final round. I knew she had to do really well to make the cut. Tooney had an awesome 3-drop round. Unfortunately, 1 of those drops I wish I had back. It was a bad throw on my part. I thought it might come back to bite me - it did. They ended up taking the top 7 teams because there was a tie for 6th. Well, guess what? Tooney ended up in 8th place in freestyle. Yeah. That sucks - she missed by 1 spot. If she had 1 less drop, she would have been pushed up to about 4th place I think. That's the way it goes.

I tried throwing right handed for the first time this year in toss/fetch. It worked out OK, but I suffered some numbness/tingling afterwards. I out-threw Tooney on my first throw and that was enough to eliminate me from possibly making the cut. I can only get 4 throws off with her, so with the 1st throw a miss, she was done. She ended up in 9th place, not good enough for the cut. Not bad, considering there were 71 entries in the t/f division.

On Sunday, we had a disc dogathon, which had 4 different games. Jenn and I both entered it with Tooney (Enzo resting at home). She should be considered a favorite to win the event because she is really good at the toss/fetch type of games. In my first round (regular toss/fetch), Tooney got stung by a bee. She limped around and was pretty upset. Well, how nice. Our day was basically done... she struggled to compete in most of the events until the end. By the time the last event rolled around, she was feeling better. It was bull's eye, and I had a strategy going into it. Tooney ended up with 15 points with me. That was really good. Jenn went out a bit later, using the same strategy, and she scored a 19! That was enough for 3rd place in the event (winner had 21). Congrats to my girls! The good news is that Tooney was back and showed she would have done some serious damage if she was healthy the whole day!

Overall, it was mixed emotions for me. Tooney did really good and beat out some amazing freestyle teams, which is nice. She also fought through a nasty bee sting and finished Sunday with her head held high. However, the entire weekend I was extremely depressed due to Enzo's foot problem. I was calling it the 'saddest day in the history of Enzo'. It was unfortunate that he didn't have a chance to qualify, but the real sadness was because we're not used to having any of our dogs limping around and Enzo doesn't deserve it. He seems a lot better now and I guess we have no choice but to go and win the IDC qualifier in a few weeks.

Last note - GO PENS!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Poor Enzo!

We went to an AKC trial this weekend. Saturday went ok. Both Tooney and Enzo went off course in JWW. Same mistake in different parts of the course. I guess we need practice on long runs through jump boxes. They both went out away from me to take an off course jump. They just weren't sure where to go. Both had really nice runs in standard. Enzo got 2nd in standard just a few tenths of a second behind 1st. He beat Dash the aussie for the first time (by 0.1 secs). Dash is a really awesome fast aussie. Of course Enzo is pretty much running all his contacts right now. Well, I'm calling it a 2on/2off self release! lol. He's doing the striding for a stopped contact, just not stopping.



On Sunday, we were supposed to run JWW first. After I finished my walkthrough I went back to the crates and got Enzo out and there was blood all over his crate mat. Didn't take long for me to see that his one foot was covered in blood. I carried him into the bathroom to wash his foot off. His outside toe got a deep cut on the edge. No idea how it happened, he never limped or yelped so don't even know when it happened but I assume it was when I was walking them around in the morning. A friend located a first aid kit for me and I used the antibiotic ointment, gauze and vetwrap. My shorts were covered in blood from carrying him around but it was time to run Tooney so I ran over to the ring and we somehow ran clean and she got 2nd place. Standard didn't go so well, I front crossed at the end of the weaves and ended up completely out of position and put her over the back side of the jump.



After we got home, I checked out Enzo's foot and it actually doesn't look too bad for how much it was bleeding. As long as it doesn't get infected or anything he should be fine for our Skyhoundz Regional this weekend. We might just have to wrap it. He doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with him.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Super Double Q Weekend!!

Enzo actually double double Q'd last weekend and Tooney got a double Q on Sunday! Enzo's standard run was really nice without any bobbles or really wide turns and he placed first! He beat a really fast BC and ACD. In each of his other runs we had a call off in each one but we managed to save them and get through clean. His jumpers on Sunday was also pretty smooth with just a small look at an off course tunnel and got 2nd place behind the BC. Tooney Q'd in JWW on Saturday but left the table early in standard. Also had an off course later on. Sunday Tooney had a really nice standard run and was pretty close to Enzo's time with his almost off course to a tunnel. In JWW, she seemed tired and was over jumping a little which I've never really seen her do before but she got through clean and got the double. She was 3 seconds behind Enzo and she's usually not more than 2 seconds slower.

That's 4 double Q's in the past 3 weeks for Enzo! He's just doing really awesome lately.

Monday, May 4, 2009

AKC trial - Lakeview Terrace 5/2 -5/3/2009

Starting to get back into AKC mode now. Enzo doesn't seem to run quite as hard at 16" but that probably just feels that way since he doesn't have to put much effort into jumping since his YPS are good. Saturday JWW, Enzo Q'd and got 4th place. He had one really wide turn where he was going towards an off course jump and he slowed down a bit when I called him off but still was 5.8 YPS. There was only a few tenths of a second between him and 2nd place and less than a second from first. Tooney went off course in the place where Enzo went wide. In standard, Enzo and Tooney both had awesome runs and placed 1st and 2nd. Enzo beat Tooney by about 1 second. Enzo was 4.2 YPS in his standard run. He stopped short on the dogwalk and I didn't make him come all the way down. I should have. His aframe he left a little high. So that is double Q #5 for Enzo and 2nd of the year. Only need 4 more for nationals.

Sunday wasn't as good of a day. JWW was a pretty challenging course. Tooney went off course because she didn't hold her stay and Enzo popped out of the weaves. The ground was pretty uneven and the base was not level on the ground so I think he tripped on them and I was leaving laterally so he just came out. In standard, we had to run on the backside of a tunnel and call them towards us. Enzo didn't quite get that. He came out of the tunnel going the wrong way and then went back in when I called him. The rest of the run was really nice and he actually stopped on the dogwalk at the bottom and not short of the bottom! He of course didn't stop on the aframe but did come down farther. Tooney had a really nice run and placed 1st! 4.3 YPS! Her second fastest YPS in standard that I have recorded (I know there are some that are missing, I'm trying to be better at this!).

Monday, April 27, 2009

ASCA and AKC this weekend

Saturday, I took Enzo to an ASCA trial. They had two gamblers and two standard or I guess regular is what they call it. Can't really get used to that. Enzo is in open for everything. The first gamble was doable but Enzo shot out of the tunnel so fast that I couldn't redirect him before he took the wrong jump. The second gamble had a aframe /tunnel discrimination. They were supposed to do the aframe but the tunnel was closer. Really similar to the Masters Gamblers that I had a couple weeks ago. In the first round of Open Regular, Enzo took the wrong end of a tunnel. The second round he was clean so that was his second Open Regular Q. Hoped that I could finish his title but I guess I'll have to wait until next time. There won't be another ASCA that I'll be able to go to for a while.

Sunday, I went to an AKC trial. The JWW has really nice and flowing. Enzo and Tooney both Q'd and placed 2nd and 3rd respectively. Standard was was fast flowing course but pretty trappy. Tooney went off course in two places but I managed to get Enzo through it clean with a couple of call offs. So Double Q for Enzo! This was his 4th DQ but his 1st for qualifying for next year's Nationals.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Pics from Dixon

Enzo broad jump:
http://www.mgeventphotos.com/gallery/7905569_QKsqx#513238729_HDr6K-L-LB

Enzo barking at me:
http://www.mgeventphotos.com/gallery/7894956_bxyrz#512323995_8QKno-L-LB

cool sequence:
http://www.mgeventphotos.com/gallery/7914057_YphkZ#513375812_wtY5f-L-LB
http://www.mgeventphotos.com/gallery/7914057_YphkZ#513376481_3ertw-L-LB

Tooney broad jump:
http://www.mgeventphotos.com/gallery/7905595_PgbTX#513244835_8R25T-L-LB

All Q'd for USDAA Nationals!

We had an all tounament USDAA trial this weekend. Even though it was a 4-star event, it wasn't a very big trial. About 60 championship dogs and 60 performance dogs. It was hot too! Saturday was in the high 80's which is not that bad but Sunday was mid 90's. Way hotter than it's supposed to be in April here. At last weekend's trial, I was wearing 3-4 layers in the morning!

Tooney needed her Performance Versatility Pairs Q and Enzo needed one more Grand Prix Q to be done with Nationals stuff. Enzo had his DAM team Q but one of our teammates needed a Q so we wanted to help her get it.

Tooney ran clean in both Perf Speed Jumping and Perf Natl Std on Saturday and won the second round of PSJ on Sunday! She won $28! lol. Tooney had pretty solid runs in the Team events but nothing spectacular as she had faults in most runs. Her teammate Wicket the Corgi also had really solid runs so we ended up in 4th place in PVP! Tooney needs to brush up on her weave entrances again.

In Steeplechase, Enzo knocked 2 or 3 bars so I decided to really make him stop on the second aframe. I said go spot, wait! and he stopped! amazing. Wait is not his contact command but he knows it means to stop moving.

Enzo's Grand Prix run was a little exciting for my tastes but we somehow managed to get the Q. First his teeter was a little borderline, one of those teeters where he was leaving as it hit the ground but he didn't get called. One of my friends told me later that the judge was looking at the teeter and thinking about it for a little while. Then after the aframe there was a jump that we had to wrap. You could wrap in either direction to make it work. I decided to wrap to the right since that didn't require me to leave the teeter to get a front cross in before the aframe even though it was going to be harder to get the turn in that direction. Enzo ended up going straight over the jump and almost took an off course jump kind of off to the left. I had to call him off of that jump, then step over to the left side of the jump he was supposed to wrap and somehow I got him back and around that jump. I'm not even sure how I did it. So more excitement than I needed but we got lucky and got through clean.

Enzo's team was Ready S.E.T. Go! again but with a different S dog, same T dog. This time we had Savvy the Sheltie instead of Sparks the BC. Our team had some issues. Enzo E'd jumpers, and my two teammate both had really low snookers rounds but nobody E'd standard, which was the course from hell (enzo had 3 bars and a missed aframe and I was pretty happy with that) or relay. Relay got a little exciting too as enzo ran past a jump I tried to serp and almost took an off course tunnel. He was really good and called off of it. We ended just making the cutoff as our team was 13th and 14 teams made it! I was really happy that we helped our teammate get a Q!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Dixon, CA USDAA trial

3 days and 26 runs! Big thank you to Jeff for helping me take the dogs back and forth. He really makes thing a lot easier and less stressful for me when I have ring conflicts to keep track of. By the end of the weekend, I couldn't even keep track of what I'd Q'd or placed in and had to look it up. Here's a link to results and course maps if interested:

http://www.hautedawgs.org/events.html

On Friday, Tooney had an awesome P3 Snookers run for 58 points and 3rd place. She also got 4th in standard, 3rd in jumpers and 6th in PNS. In Relay, she went off course. Enzo Q'd and got 1st (even with a little slip) in Starters Jumpers (6.2 YPS) which finished his AD and allows him to move up to Advanced in everything now. He also got his 1st Grand Prix Q for the season! That was a big relief! Just need one more and he'll be done for nationals. He was pretty fast and ran it in 5.2 YPS but still about 3 seconds short of the fastest BC's. His time was right in the mix of a bunch of fast BC's though. In Advanced Standard he knocked a bar and called on the teeter and in starters snookers the judge got in my way and that got me a little messed up and he missed a weave entry ( actually he entered then came out) and then backjumped one of the reds. Didn't really matter since he had finished his AD earlier. Oh and he also Q'd and placed 4th in Starters Relay which was his 3rd so that was his SR title.

Here's Friday's videos.

Tooney:


Enzo:


On Saturday, Tooney Q'd in P3 jumpers and P3 snookers but no placements. The gamble wasn't something I expected her to get and in standard, she jumped off the table early and we got a little messed up at the end. Enzo got 1st in Advanced Gamblers (who knew that he understands "right!"), 4th in Advanced standard (good boy calling off the tunnel!) and 2nd in starters snookers. In starters jumpers, he went off course but totally my fault for not cueing a tight turn. Neither dog Q'd in Steeplchase/PSJ. Enzo knocked a bar and missed his aframe contact when I tried to front cross the base. He also ran behind me off the side of the aframe which was a little freaky. In Tooney's PSJ run she missed the weave entry and then started sniffing! Don't know if it was stress or if she smelled something good. Very unusual for her though. usually redoing the weave entrance isn't a big deal to her.



Toooney Saturday:



Enzo Saturday:




For Sunday, I only had 3 runs per dog instead of 5. light day! ha! So I started out the day with a conflict. I ended up running Tooney in P3 relay while Jeff held Enzo. That was probably a mistake since that made him completely wild for his advanced standard run. He leapt off the aframe (not sure if he hit it or not since I was behind him) and went around the next jump and then backjumped it when I tried to bring him around. Jeff missed part of this video since he hit pause accidentally but in the part he missed Enzo pulled off a jump that I didn't support enough. His teeter was a little iffy too. So Sunday's tally ended up with Tooney getting 2nd in P3 Gamblers, 3rd in P3 Relay. The P3 gamblers Q finished her PD3! In standard she ran past the teeter at the end. Enzo Q'd and got 3rd in Advanced Gamblers which finished his AG so he can move up to Masters Gamblers! I never thought that Gamblers would be the event that I would ever move up in first since I don't train for it! He also got a Q in Advanced Relay. Both he and his partner knocked a bar and I almost lost Enzo to a tunnel. My first instinct was to run on the other side of the aframe instead of front crossing before it but it made the baton exchange harder.

Here's Sunday's videos

Tooney:



Enzo:



Overall a really good weekend with both dogs getting 8 out of 13 Q's. Tooney did the best the first day and then maybe got a little tired because it didn't seem like she was paying attention quite as well the next two days. Enzo seemed to pick up some speed and intensity about midway through the first day which made things pretty exciting. I was glad to have gotten the jumpers and Grand Prix Q before that happened since those were the 2 Q's that I really wanted this weekend. His dogwalk contacts were really good all weekend, his aframe kind of so-so but at least he was getting most of them and they didn't completely fall apart. I tried to work the aframe in both gamblers runs. He didn't knock any first bars and all of the bars that did come down were probably caused by me.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

FDDO 2009 Championships (Desert Disc Funktion)

This is a long post, but it was crazy and intense weekend out in the desert, so please read on. First, I need to thank Jenn for all of her help. I was having all kinds of physical problems and she managed to do most of the heavy lifting and leg work the whole weekend.

FDDO is a really great competition because it really tests the disc dog handler to the full extent. We were out on a MLB spring training field, which was absolutely the most amazing field I've ever seen in my life. The first event was an obstacle course where you throw discs through hoops, tunnels, around vertical poles, skipping, etc. The 2nd event on Saturday was distance pyramid. It's a field 60 yards long that gets more and more narrow towards the 60 yards. Sunday started with speed disc where you have to get catches into a box at 15 yards, 20 yards and 30 yards and you're timed (up to 60 seconds). The last event on Sunday was a 2 minute freestyle routine with music. They combine all 4 events for the overall FDDO champion. The competition was solid, with several past FDDO/Cynosports champions attending.

Jenn competed in the Advanced Division, which is mostly people who don't do freestyle. She did really good in the obstacle course and got a 3rd place with Tooney. She was only 1 point behind with Enzo. On distance pyramid, she (and Enzo) had problems with the wind and didn't get many points with either dog. On the speed disc, everybody struggled because the wind was just nasty, especially for the 15 yard box (head wind kept taking the disc out of the box). Despite that, Jenn managed to get a 2nd place with Enzo and a 3rd place with Tooney!

I entered the pro division with both Tooney and Enzo. For the obstacle course, I always get good scores. It's because I am pretty good at throwing and I'm accurate. I managed to get high scores for both Tooney and Enzo, and Enzo was only 1 point out of 1st place with his score.

Next was distance pyramid. I have been throwing left handed for anything requiring distance this year because my right arm is not 100% (though it's doing better). I was throwing into a head wind, which made things really tough. I went out with Tooney and because the wind was also blowing left-to-right and in practice my discs were being blown out of bounds, I put myself on the far left side of the pyramid and threw the disc with absolutely no hyzer (completely flat). I let it rip and the instant it left my hand, I knew the throw was going to be something special. It went so straight I was getting concerned it would roll over to the left a bit and go out of bounds. It kept going straight... past 40 yards. Then I was concerned it was going to go out of bounds due to being thrown too far! Luckily, Tooney snagged it about 1 foot from being out of bounds. It was clocked at 47 yards. It was good enough for 2nd place (short by about a foot). Enzo ended up with a solid catch after missing my first 2 attempts and having to go a bit conservative on the last chance throw.

I entered speed disc on Sunday knowing that I was probably in 2nd place overall with Tooney and possibly as high as 3rd place overall with Enzo for the championship. I kept it cool. Enzo went out in speed disc and unfortunately, struggled with the 15 yard box because he likes to jump out of it. He landed outside the box on about 3-4 throws. I ran out of time and had a low score. I knew that could have removed him from the running. Tooney finished with a high score, and got 2nd place! At the end of the round only 4 people finished within 60 seconds I think. That means Enzo was still in the running! I knew Tooney had to still be 2nd overall, with Enzo still possibly 3rd. After a bit, we would be doing our freestyle. I ended up finding out Enzo was tied for 3rd place overall and Tooney was in sole posession of 2nd overall. I was pretty excited.

After doing some math in my head, I figured out that Tooney had to be 4.5 points in front of Enzo. A 4.5 point lead going into freestyle is HUGE. As long as Tooney had a solid freestyle round, she'd get a placement. I told Jenn "I'm going to score a 39 in my freestyle with Enzo and finish ahead of Tooney for 2nd place". She thought I was nuts... We dressed Tooney up as a bumble bee and ended up having a really solid round with only 4 drops (about 85% catch ratio). It was really fun. Here's her round. Because she covers so much area, Joel (thanks!) ended up having to zoom out a lot to get the video (click HQ to watch in high quality):



I came off the field with Tooney and knew she had a really good score - better than I could have dreamed. I felt I had to absolutely rock the house with Enzo to catch her, and more importantly to keep him in position for 3rd place at least (keep in mind, he was tied for 3rd overall at this point). We dressed up as skeletons and put on some cool creepy music. Enzo and I clicked on virtually every single throw and it was a thing of beauty. The crowd and Judges loved his routine and more importantly, Enzo, myself and Jenn loved it. I left the field knowing he only had 3 drops in a difficult, innovative routine. I felt I did as good as I could have hoped. Here's his video (click HQ to watch in high quality):



They did the placements for freestyle and said there was a tie for 1st place. Enzo tied Bella, and after all the tie breakers, they were still tied! Bill said it was the toughest decision he's ever made as a judge and after almost an hour of discussion, 1st was given to Bella. We both scored a 38.5 (out of 40). I guess Jenn was right - my prediction of 39.0 was too high :) We haven't seen the final resutls yet, but I think we both scored a perfect 10 in all the judged categories and then had an 8.5 in the catch ratio (objective category). If that turns out to be the case, I consider it a huge compliment from the judges and the crowd who helped cheer us on. Bella's routine is big with air and lots of linear movement. Enzo's routine is complex with close work with unique / difficult throws and moves. It's nice to see judges appreciate both styles.

Then they did the most important results of the day... overall FDDO champions. For 3rd place, they called out Enzo and I was really happy with that. They said 2nd place was separated by just a half point. They called Tooney's name. I cried like a baby - I couldn't help it. This little girl has come so far, I can't even put into words how much work and effort we have devoted to her disc dog play. From a cute little fluffy dog that for several years wouldn't even look at the disc unless we gave her treats to 2nd place in the FDDO championships - it was special. I also have to thank Jenn because 6 months ago, she decided that I should take over Tooney's disc training and take her to the next level. It has been an absolute blast playing with Tooney since that time.

Tooney has proven to Jenn and I that she is truly the best k9 athlete in our house - sorry Enzo. She can't jump as high or run as fast as him, but at this point, she has proven herself to be good at everything she does. Agility, frisbee, herding, course-a-lure - you name it, she will do it and do it at a high level.

Final picture - this is another good reason to love Tooney so much. It doesn't get cuter than this:

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Busy Weekend

New one for me this weekend. Saturday I went to an AKC trial in the morning and then after it was done I went to an USDAA trial to do Steeplechase with Enzo! Only big drawback was that the USDAA trial was pretty slow running so I got there at noon and had to wait until 6pm to run Steeplechase. If I had known it was going to be that slow then I would have entered at least one Masters something run with Tooney. Sunday, I just went to USDAA and only entered a few runs in the morning so I could try for a Grand Prix Q with Enzo. It was a Masters only trial and Enzo would have real issues if Tooney got to run a bunch and he only got to do one run each day.

So at the AKC trial Tooney did well and got a double Q. She wasn't really running that fast for her but she ended up with two 2nd places. She at least seems to be listening and paying attention lately. Enzo had a nice run in JWW but knocked the triple and then Standard was not so great. He leapt over the aframe contact and didn't want to sit on the table. Also had a refusal later on in the run when I pulled away from a jump too soon. The leaping on the aframe didn't bode well for Steeplechase either so I practiced a lot of nose touches with him on all kinds of stuff.

So I got to the trial and they had only run two classes out of 6 so I knew I had a while to go. I looked at the course map and the Steeplechase only had one aframe and it was a very nice course so I decided it was worth waiting around for. Enzo did really well on the course and didn't knock any bars but did leap the aframe again. He ended up just making the cutoff by 1 second with the 5 faults added to his time. Whew! Glad to at least have him qualified in two of the three events for USDAA nationals.

Sunday, was just USDAA and Jeff came along since he was getting a private lesson with Benny Wong afterwards to see if Benny had some ideas of things to do with Tooney since Jeff is out of them. Tooney ran first in P3 standard and ended up with first place.




Then Enzo ran in round 2 of steeplechase. There wasn't much room at the start line so I set him up as far back as I could but then he ended up creeping up on the first jump so he knocked that one and the next one. He's way too ballistic off the start to make it over the jump when he's too close. That's a skill that I'd like to work on with him. I also caused him to run past a jump by not supporting it enough. The first aframe he hit the yellow but definitely leapt off so I marked it by stopping him but he still leapt off the second one. Definitely not a good sign for GP.





Tooney ran clean in PNS and got 2nd. Enzo ran nice but knocked a bar on a wrap. I can tell from the video that he didn't realize that it was a wrap until he was over the bar so he tried to turn in the air. He also leapt the darn aframe contact again. The next two weeks we're doing major aframe refresher training going back to lowered aframe and backchaining and lots of rewards. Hopefully this gets him thinking about what he's doing on the aframe. We have FDDO in Phoenix this weekend so that gives him a weekend off from agility competition. Next weekend is our trip to Dixon for a 3 day USDAA trial!







The lesson with Benny went well and Jeff got a few ideas to try with her. He kind of agreed that we're kind of limited with what she can do though.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Skyhoundz Local- Huntington Beach

Went to our first frisbee competition of the season here on Saturday. I threw for Tooney and Enzo in Intermediate and Jeff competed with both of them in Open.

Jeff and Tooney had an really awesome round with only three 3 drops. She got scored a lot lower than we thought she would, only 28. That routine was about as good as she can do! Here's the video:






Enzo and Jeff weren't quite clicking in their rountine and ended up with 7 drops but the new routine seems to flow pretty nicely compared to before. Enzo was tipping a lot of them off his teeth.





Jeff threw left handed for them in Toss and Fetch since he's still having numbness problems in his right arm. He did well with Tooney with 9.5 but got zero with Enzo. There was one bad throw into the tents but the other 3 Enzo should have been able to catch but maybe he's just not quite used to the lefty throws.


Oh and I ended up with 2nd place with Enzo in Intermediate T&F! I had 10 points the first round and 11.5 the second round. I had 7 points in each round with Tooney.

Sunday I went to an AKC trial and got ripped off! lol. I thought I had a double Q with Enzo but when I went to look at the results, it turns out that he had a fault in Standard. I asked a bunch of people who watch my runs and the first couple said they though I was clean too but then I found someone who saw that the judge called Enzo's teeter. Grr. Not something that we normally have problems with. I front crossed the end of it and Enzo left before I released him but I thought he was still on when it hit the ground. Anyways, he placed 4th in jumpers with a nice run. He was about 2 seconds behind the first place dog who was the 2007 22" Grand Prix champ so not too bad.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Jeff's Tooth

Jeff got his cracked tooth repaired today. We figured out that he probably got his tooth cracked when he was practicing overs with Tooney quite a few months back. She jumped and collided with his face and the side the cracked tooth is on is the side that she hit. Now we think that was probably when she cracked her tooth that was pulled in December. So basically after that incident Jeff had decided not to do overs with her anymore.

USDAA Trial - DART, Irwindale

Went to an USDAA trial this weekend. This one is relatively close (30 minutes away) compared to most of them (90 minutes away + traffic in the afternoon). It was nice to be able to get up at a more reasonable hour. Still haven't managed to get Enzo any more Q's for nationals, unfortunately. His contacts were decent he stoped on about half of his aframes for the weekend and only leapt one. Still stopping short on all but one dogwalk. I think he does that because he thinks if he stops sooner then that means he can leave sooner. I try to make him come all the way down most of the time but sometimes I'm bad and sometimes he's bad and self releases.

Saturday, Tooney ran first in P3 Standard. She had a good run but she was pretty amped up and left the table when the judge said go. Then Enzo ran in Starters Standard. His contacts were kind of eh, fast and almost maintained criteria but not quite. His dogwalk he hestitated in the spot where's he's been stopping early and then took off and for his aframe he had nice striding down into the yellow but didn't actually stop. On the table he laid down right way but he got up halfway through the count and wanted to jump off the table. It took several seconds and some body blocking but I eventually got him back down. So we managed to Q that run and that finished his Starters Standard title so now he can move up to Advanced in Standard.

Next was PNS/GP. In Tooney's PNS run, she leapt over the dogwalk contact and then I pushed her off of a jump when I wanted to rear cross. It was a tricky spot where they were coming down with a lot of speed and there was a tunnel ahead but they had to turn 180 to the teeter. You had to pull a little to the jump and then rear cross. I think I got in her path a little. I probably should have tried a front cross there but there wasn't much of a curve so I wasn't sure about getting there in time and then I was afraid of flinging them over the next jump even if I did get there. Unfortunatly I made the same mistake in Enzo's run, even though I did better at staying out of his space I was still putting too much pressure on. At least he had already knocked a bar before that or I would have really been mad at myself for making the same mistake twice. It still kind of annoys me though.

Then we ran in relay. Tooney missed her dogwalk contact but did well otherwise. Tooney's partner decided he didn't want to go up the teeter so no Q there. Enzo's relay partner was Sam a big Golden with an awesome attitude and Enzo's puppy class classmate. Enzo knocked a bar but we still ended up with first place.

Next was Enzo's Starters Snookers run where he knocked the first bar and then took the next obstacle since I led out kind of far so we got whistled off right away. I need to have a contingency plan for that situation or my brain doesn't react fast enough.

Then Tooney ran in P3 snookers and got 53 points for 3rd place and a super Q. That was her 3rd Super Q in Performance and I think that finished her PK3.

Then we ran PSJ/Steeplechase. The opening of the course was one where you'd really like to have a 3 jump lead out but I knew that neither of my dogs would stay. It was 3 jumps very slightly offset to a 90 degree turn to the weaves and there was a straight tunnel parallel to the weaves about 10-15 ft back. With Tooney, I tried running on the right side of the jumps and rear crossed the third jump but she just went right into the tunnel. With Enzo I led out on the other side hoping to at least get far enough out to do a moving front cross before the weaves. I couldn't get there for that so I RFP'd before the last jump but I did that a little late and he knocked the bar but did get the weaves instead of the tunnel. Unfortunately, he knocked another bar so we didn't Q. This time he would have made the cutoff with only one bar. He really doesn't knock a lot of bars in practice but we seem to be getting a lot in competitions.

Sunday, Tooney actually Q'd in 3 out of 4 runs. She didn't get gamblers but she placed 2nd in Snookers, 2nd in standard and 3rd in jumpers.

Enzo got his first Advanced Gamblers Q. the gamble was Aframe turn away into the tunnel under the aframe and then 2 jumps out. Enzo did it perfectly, he stopped at the bottom of the aframe and I said left tunnel and pointed towards the tunnel and he turned his head and went right in. I don't really use directionals normally but he does know left and right turns on the ground. Don't know if the drectional helped or if he just followed my body language.

We ran Starters Standard for fun since he already got his title the day before. It was good that we didn't need this one because he leapt over the aframe contact. he did one stride over the top and leapt. I marked it and stopped him this time. His dogwalk ended up being really awesome this time, he ran all the way to the bottom.

Enzo needed the Starters Jumpers Q to get his AD and move up in everything but unfortunately he knocked two bars. Really fast time and decent turns though, second fastest time and only 0.1 seconds behind the fastest time and 6.2 yds/s.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

New MX title

Overall, not a very successful weekend, as I only got 1 Q out of 8 runs between the two dogs but at least Enzo got his 10th Excellent B Standard Q for his MX title. Tooney was having weave entry problems all weekend except for her last run where she took the wrong end of a tunnel. I'm going to have to do a little weave refresher training with her. Other than that she was running pretty good.

Enzo's standard run on Saturday had an off course. I made a poor handing choice. It was table jump teeter in a pinwheel shape with the aframe about 10-15ft from the teeter. I did a front cross between the jump and teeter and Enzo ran behind me and took the aframe. Since I can't lead out at the table I probably should have pulled to the teeter and front crossed at the end. In JWW, he got the wrong end of the tunnel. I didn't get his head in time. Sunday's standard Enzo ran clean and actually stuck his aframe contact! woohoo! Still a little sticky on the dogwalk stopping just short of the ground. Table was good both days. In JWW, he knocked the first bar and also missed the weave entrance, he bounced off the poles somehow but I was pushing him and got a little ahead of the weaves before he got there.

2 days of USDAA next weekend. Hopefully we will have a better Q rate!

Monday, March 2, 2009

USDAA and AKC weekend

Saturday I went to the USDAA trial in Fillmore. I had entered 12 runs for this day! Didn't really think about how many that was until after I entered. Of course I probably would have done it anyways. Started out the day running Tooney in P3 Gamblers. She came really close to getting it but ran by the teeter. She was right there but didn't take it. She avoided the teeter once at our last fun match so don't know if there is something going on there or it was just the distance this time.

Next Enzo ran in Starters Gamblers and Q'd in that. Worked his contacts some. He ran off the first aframe and then stopped on the ground on the second aframe, then on the dogwalk he stopped just short of the ground so I took the time to make him come all the way down and then the buzzer went off. He got the gamble so that was his 3rd starters gamblers Q and he can move up to advanced in that now.

Tooney did really well in the Performace National Standard. I had a couple close calls that we managed to save which made it pretty exciting and she ended up with 3rd place. Then Enzo ran in the Grand Prix which didn't really go that well. There was a 180 turn away from me after the dogwalk so I front crossed the end of the dogwalk and that pulled enzo in too tight and he ran past the next jump. I didn't really step in to send him so that was my fault. Then the jump after the tunnel I sent him over and ran to get a front cross in further down the line. That launched him over the jump so far that he actually went out of the ring and back just barely getting the next jump. The the closing line had another one of those run like heck straight lines which went aframe chute and then 3 jumps. Since I can't really leave him on the aframe yet that put me behind and he ended up pulling in to the offcourse teeter. He did actually stop on the aframe this time though!

Next, Enzo ran in Starters Standard and Q'd. He was a little sticky on the table and the end of the dogwalk again and didn't stop on his aframe but other than that he did good.

Then Tooney ran in P3 standard and missed the weave entry and also bypassed the teeter again towards the end of the run. She flew by it and took the next jump which was pretty far away.

Next was Performance Speed Jumping for Tooney which she just rocked! I wish I had video of that run. She got first in that and she actually beat a lot of really fast Border collies in that class. Of course the running aframe helps a lot. Too bad that wasn't in round 2 where we can get money!

Enzo also had a nice fast steeplechase run but he hit the broad jump. I think I started decelerating before he cleared it. He should be able to handle that but we need to train more on it. Unfortunatly the 5 faults put us out of Q range by about 1 second. The first place dog was 3 seconds faster than everyone else and that kind of wrecked the curve!

Next I ran Tooney in P3 snookers. I planned a pretty conservative course since I was tired and didn't want to run too much, a 7 and two 5's. She knocked the bar in the number 7 combo in the opening but so ended up with 40 points for a Q. She did the teeter twice in this run so maybe the run bys were just flukes. I don't think she's ever had teeter issues since she was ready to start competing.

I also planned a conservative course for Enzo in starters snookers a 3, 7 and 5. He really flew through the whole thing and the only mistake was missing the weave entry in the closing but that is ok in starters. It was starting to get dark at this point.

I ran Tooney is P3 jumpers right after that. She started out really well but went off course towards the end. After that I decided to skip starters jumpers with Enzo because it was going to be really late and completly dark by the time they got to that. They hadn't even started walking advanced jumpers at that point.

So Tooney is Q'd for USDAA nationals in PSJ and PNS now and just needs a team Q. Enzo still needs 2 Grand Prixs and 1 steeplechase. Enzo just needs one more Starters Standard and one Starters Jumpers before he can move to advanced.

The AKC trial on Sunday felt like a very easy day after all that! Tooney ran in JWW first and ran clean and placed 2nd. Enzo had a really fast JWW run (5.9 yds/s) that was 2 seconds faster than Tooney's time even jumping 20" vs 16". He had one wide turn and unfortunately he also knocked a bar so didn't Q. His time was good enough for 3rd. He was about 2 seconds slower than 1st place and 1 second slower than the 2nd place dog. Both are super fast BC's. I hope that one day I can get him up to that level but we'll see.

In standard Tooney missed her weave entry. I forget that she need just a tad more help than Enzo sometimes. Enzo knocked the second jump in standard. I should've led out past the second jump and then that might have helped. We'd been doing so many long lead outs that I wanted to give him a break since I didn't really need it to keep up in this case. Then when we got to the table, he laid down fairly quickly for him but when she got to the count of 3, he just jumped off the table. Then when I tried to get him to go back on, he started barking at me and wouldn't stop. I had yell at him hey! stop it! before he would settle and get back on the table. I had to resist laughing because it's really kind of funny but I don't want to encourage it for sure!