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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

SoCal Disc Dog Challenge (UFO Major / Long Shot)

First I will start off with Sunday's long shot competition since it's quick and to the point. It's a long distance throwing competition. Enzo did agility for the day with Jenn. I offered Joel Zucker to compete with Tooney because his dog (Bailey) is out of commission right now. He agreed and did great with her. He won the A division with her!!! It was awesome and she was nearly flawless with every throw. Joel handled her perfectly and his throws were awesome. I competed in the long shot with my friend CJ's little Aussie, Sydney. Sydney isn't used to long throws, but at least she's cute as a button and has super high drive. She did great up to 35 meters, but I think she couldn't control her stride as well once she was up to that distance and speed and couldn't time the jump/catch. It was fun anyways! We made it about half way through the eliminations I think.

Tooney, Enzo and I competed in our UFO major on Saturday. This is one of the most important competitions for us this year because the UFO finals are in San Diego and we need to earn some points. Enzo is expected to earn sufficient points for the finals, so his goal is to place as high as possible (top 10 or even top 5). He was #1 before this competition, but now is #2 I think. Tooney has never qualified for the finals of any organization, but has been close. I'm really going to try my best to give her a chance to get the points to allow her to compete at the finals. Jenn didn't compete with the dogs so that they would be in tip top shape for me to earn some points!

Freestyle:
In our first round of freestyle, Enzo and Tooney both had awesome rounds. Enzo had 88% catch ratio and Tooney had 90% catch ratio. I think those are the highest catch ratio's we've had so far. A couple of people told me that Enzo doesn't seem to miss anything I throw. It's amazing how catching ability was a perceived weakness of Enzo and is now an apparent strength. That boy can catch! Tooney has always been a great catching dog as long as my throws are solid and there isn't a lot of wind. It's expected of her :) Enzo made the cut for the 2nd round and had a great 2nd round and scored a little higher than the first round. Tooney didn't make the cut, but as usual, was right on the edge. Videos will be up soon probably.

Toss & fetch:
Enzo did great and had one of the top scores for the first round and made the cut to the 2nd round. This was the first time we've made the cut in toss/fetch for UFO! In his 2nd round, he did almost as good and finished with a good score. Enzo has tied or beat Tooney every competition this year in t/f for me. He is averaging over 10 points a round so far! I threw poorly for Tooney. Even though she caught everything, I was short on most of the throws by about a yard, which made our total score very low. I was disappointed in how I threw because I knew Tooney could win that division, but I just didn't have "it" for whatever reason. One thing that makes me feel good is to look back and realize it was her FREESTYLE that bailed us out, not our toss and fetch. This has been a recurring theme lately. Jenn said I need to tighten up our toss/fetch again. It seems so strange to me that I could be struggling in t/f with Tooney, but apparently I am. We're doing average or even above average, but she should be in the top 10% every competition. She's doing fine, it's all my fault. Jenn said I need to throw an extra round of t/f with her every week. I normally just practice t/f with her about 3x/month on average.

At the end of the day, Enzo ended up 4th place overall behind 3 world champions. If he keeps this pace up, I'm going to start to expect him to win every competition! Tooney ended up 12 place, which is close to the target I was hoping for. Tooney now has 62 points, which is a record for her already. I really think she is going to make the finals!!! Enzo has well over 100 points now, so he's already qualified!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

AKC Nationals Continued





Saturday was the start of the Nationals runs which counted for getting into finals. Jeff helped a lot by bringing Enzo and Tooney back and forth from the trailer. They seem to get better rest in the trailer vs crated at the site. Standard was first. When Jeff brought Tooney, he said she pulled all the way to the barn like she knew exactly where she was going. She's such a smart girl. I could tell she was ready to go because she was actually excited about doing the practice jump and tugging. Normally she thinks the practice jump is pointless.

The standard course had some tricky spots but looked quite doable for me and my dogs.
Round 1 Standard Course Map

Tooney had the run of her life in this round! She ran her little fluffy butt off. Probably the fastest run she's ever had! She was awesome!

Enzo also had a really good run but unfortunately he crashed the double jump near the end of the run. It almost seemed like he didn't see the jump or didn't notice it was a double until the last second :( After his run I asked Jeff what his time was and Tooney actually beat his time by about .6 seconds! The fluffy girl really was fast! She's never beat Enzo by that much when he's had a smooth run. Tooney ended up placing 14th in Standard.

In round 2 JWW, there were some tricky spots. A weird push from jump 4 to 5, and then the ending had some difficult lines.
Round 2 JWW Course Map
Tooney ran clean and reasonably fast. With Enzo I was worried about getting the front cross between jumps 12 and 13 but I decided to go for it and at least try since this was his best chance at getting into challengers. Unfortunately I couldn't get there and aborted at the last second but not soon enough and he took the off course jump. Tooney placed a lot lower in this round but her cumulative score still had her in 14th place. Since they were taking 13 into the finals this was a pretty good place to be in after two rounds.

Sunday morning was the Hybrid round. It was an easier course than the previous days but it was a course that people handled in a lot of different ways which is always fun. I decided to wrap to the right on jump 3, rear crossed the triple, and then did a serp from 14-16 and wrapped around the outside of 16. I decided it would be better to let my dogs stay on the same lead instead of the shorter path of bringing them between 15 and 16. Not really sure which way is faster...
Hybrid Round 3 Course Map

Enzo ran first and was clean. He was amped up and it was a wild ride. He was really fast but was skidding out in some places and had a few wide turns. The worst was probably between jumps 2 and 3 and then going from the triple to the weave poles. He ended up placing 22nd. Placed above quite a few dogs that were in the finals. I think you can hear when he barks at me in the video too. He rarely does that.

Tooney ran towards the end and was clean. Watch her aframe in the video. Crazy, she landed way low in the yellow. After her run she was in 11th but we still had to wait for 40 or so more dogs to go. She dropped down to 13th and we just had to wait for the results to be finalized. Hung around for a while and then finally figured out where the finals running order was posted. Hooray Tooney was in!!! Couldn't believe that she actually made it. There was so much competition in the 16" class this year. She actually only beat the 14th place dog by 0.02 Seconds!

The whole getting our shirts for finals was an experience. They wanted to make sure that everyone got a shirt that they could fit into so they allocated a certain number of each size for all the jump heights. They brought each jump height into a room, lined everyone up and then told you what size you were getting and to try it on. Luckily I got a small. The whole thing was strange and elementary schoolish. and it took forever!

After getting my shirt I went back to the trailer to get something to eat. By the time I went back they were just starting the small dog walkthrough! Ack! I had already studied the course and had a plan luckily. The course was pretty straightforward and probably the easiest of the weekend. I just knew that I really had to watch Tooney in all of the front crosses to make sure she didn't run behind me to take an off course obstacle. I actually wasn't nervous and was just thrilled to make it there. Making finals at AKC nationals was the last goal that I had for Tooney that we hadn't achieved so it felt great.

Finals Course Map

She had a great run. Awesome contacts. Somewhere along the line she developed this great teeter and I never really noticed until this weekend! I did have to fight to get her in on the front crosses like I thought but we got through clean! Lost some time in the turn from 15 to 16 because she looked at the dogwalk. Probably my positioning could have been better too but I wanted to make sure I was in a place where I could get in her face. After everyone ran, we ended up in 7th place! Got a nice ribbon and a sash. Here's the picture that I had jeff take with my right right before we jumped in the truck and got on the road.


Here's her finals video: