2011 Las Vegas UFO

The disc dog season is continuing with Enzo on a roll! He won the 2011 Las Vegas UFO competition and should also be at the top of the UFO standings for a while now, with a perfect score of 40 so far. We drove there early in the morning, competed, then drove back late after the competition. Long day, but it was worth it. Tooney got to play again and had fun. Jenn got to play with Enzo again and it was pretty funny in their first round. The disc was going all over the place because Jenn didn't warm up, but Enzo gladly caught them all and paused to peer into the audience to look at all of the people dressed in yellow (that looked like me)! He was completely confused. Yellow is my color of course, but it also the Las Vegas group's color (Atomic Dogs). See their club photo:



Enzo had a great toss/fetch round and was PERFECT. He is making toss/fetch look EASY. I think he had the highest toss/fetch score of the day around 15.5 probably. He also had the highest freestyle score of the day.

Jenn and I have made a general decision with all of the dogs that it will always be in the best interest of the dog's development to do things that will give them a chance to learn and be their best, whether it's disc, agility or anything else they do. For disc, this means to throw in such a way that would give them the best opportunity for the most possible points. I prefer to throw nice floaters at 40 yards that any dog should be able to catch. With some wind conditions, this type of throw is impossible. Based on wind conditions, don't throw the conservative method where your best chances are 10 points if you are perfect, throw so that your best chances are 20 if you are perfect. It may be a higher risk situation because we are likely throwing in such a way that is more challenging for the dog to catch. Whether or not they are successful in terms of catching, they are successful in terms of experience and the dogs always enjoy a challenge.

With that said, wind during the toss/fetch round was not very good for Enzo, being a left-to-right wind. Strong left-to-right or strong tail winds are were his nemesis, which happens to be the preferred way to throw for a right-handed thrower such as myself. It pushes the disc down making it fly like a line-drive instead of a nice floating throw. I could have potentially thrown from the opposite side, but then there are a whole host of problems from the thrower's standpoint - mainly with the disc being pulled way off course to the left if putting too much hyzer on the disc or by doing a nose dive into the ground if putting too much anhyzer on the disc. Basically, I would need to throw much better if I throw from the right-to-left cross wind side. I CAN throw good in those conditions, but if I throw from the left-to-right cross wind side, I WILL throw good and Enzo will have a chance for a big score.

When the disc is at 4-6' in the air at 40 yards, Enzo has a tendancy to blow past the disc by running right under it without any reaction or he will mis-time his jump. We've seen this over and over again. I have had so many 0's in toss/fetch because of this I can't even tell you. However, I keep going out and giving him the chance to learn. It has turned out to be a great decision because I rarely ever see him make these mistakes. He is adjusting his stride and has great timing with almost every throw, even in practice.

Agility Videos from last weekend

Here's videos of our runs from last weekend. Enzo got a Double Q on Friday. He almost ran past a jump at the end in JWW but I saved it at the last moment. The tunnel was calling his name. lol.



He had a nice run in standard. I was worried about the turn to the tunnel under the dogwalk but we got it! The rest of the course was pretty straighforward.



Then Sunday's JWW, I decided to try for a front cross that I knew was borderline for whether or not I could get there. It was close but I was late which caused him to knock the triple.




Another nice standard Sunday afternoon. He was a little short on his DW contact but didn't get called. It wasn't a very nice approach up the dogwalk but I didn't want to hang back to manage it because that would put me too far behind.

2011 start of frisbee season videos

Here's Enzo's video. Near perfect routine. At 55 seconds into the video, I attempt to throw a disc under my leg and the disc hits my KNEE on the way under and knocks it out of my hand. It wasn't even where I attempted to throw it... Is it a perfect routine? Maybe not. Is it a 0-drop routine? I would argue yes! Oh, and the reason it happened is because that small sequence is completely freestyle. I don't have anything set that I do there, and that is the only part of my routine that is like that, except for the very end if I have extra time. This "drop" is probably going to haunt me for a long time. There is one thing I have really wanted to achieve with each dog and that's a perfect routine. Stupid, stupid, stupid.



Here's Tooney's routine and we got her toss/fetch on film also! She is one of the most amazing toss/fetch dogs EVER and her freestyle is good, too. She has a "big" frisbee routine where she covers lots of ground and lots of medium to long throws.

First disc dog competition of 2011

2011 disc dog season started off for us with a UFO local championship.

First off, the most important announcement. Tooney was back competing at full strength! She did great. As usual, in toss/fetch she didn't drop a disc (14.5 points) and for the first time in about 9 months, she had her first freestyle round! About 3 weeks ago we did a 1 minute freestyle round in practice, but that was literally the only time we did any freestyle at all since last year! She did great and finished in 5th place!

Next, and a close 2nd, Enzo had his first sort of perfect round! He had 0 drops, I had 1. I actually fumbled a disc and it snagged my shorts when I tried to throw it and it fell about 2' in front of me. It appears to have been counted as a throw as they had Enzo with 96% catch ratio. Jenn will post a video. Enzo was perfect in toss/fetch although I couldn't hit the bonus zone and got 13.5 points. I threw everything either to the sides of the bonus zone or past it.

Oh yeah, Enzo won the competition :)