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.

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!

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

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.

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.