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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Smart puppy

Sometimes Slayte does some things that are kind of scary smart for a little pup that is not quite 4 months old. Yesterday we took him by himself to the school that is in our neighborhood to play. He pulled the whole way there like he knew where he was going but that is pretty straightforward. On the way home, he was pulling again and passed up the first street and then turned right up our street. Once he got on our street he started scanning, looking to the side and sniffing the ground on occasion but still pulling forward. Once he got to our house he pulled hard and right up the driveway with no hestation at all. He's only been over to the school maybe 4 or 5 times total and always with another dog before!

He weighed around 22 lbs yesterday and roughly 15.5"; tall at 16.5 weeks. Enzo was 16 lbs at 17 weeks according to the vet reciept that I found yesterday so Slayte is definitely bigger.

Oh and here's a video from last weekend. Enzo really rocked the dogwalk contact. He's been leaping a lot when I practice in the backyard but does good in competition and mostly good in class. Right now he seeems to do better if I hang back a bit. Before he did better if I ran hard and ahead. Go figure.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Skyhoundz Regionals and Quad Pawed event

This weekend was one of our biggest competitions of the year. Saturday was the qualifier and Sunday was a disc dogathon equivalent competition with 4 different events (without freestyle).

The best news is that Tooney had 2 rounds of toss/fetch, 1 round each of freestyle, time trial, spot landing and bullseye and did great and seems to be showing no problems from all of the work and was running strong to the very end. Her injury seems to be cured and her stamina is almost 100%.

Saturday started with Tooney freestyle. She did good and I felt fine (at the time). Enzo did really good all weekend for both Jenn and I. Saturday he did very good in his freestyle round and only had 1 drop... HOWEVER I dropped 2 discs during my 2 most difficult throws. I didn't think much of it but I came off the field thinking it must have been because my hand was cold (it was windy and cold all weekend). I normally never fumble those moves. I had my toss/fetch round with Tooney next and I threw discs all over the place with most being out of bounds. It was strange. Things were getting worse with my coordination. I haven't thrown a disc out of bounds in several years. Then I went out with Enzo's toss and fetch and I shanked a disc waaaaay out of bounds. I never do that!!! I came off the field and at that time I knew there was something wrong with me but I wasn't sure what it was. Adrenaline may have been masking the real problem... Enzo had made the cut in freestyle, but I was starting to feel progressively worse. Very tired, almost sleepy, with no energy and super weak. My stomach wasn't feeling very good. I wasn't really hungry all day and just had some snacks. The night before, I wasn't very hungry and had only a yogurt and banana for dinner. I did not feel like going out for my 2nd round of freestyle, but I fought through it, then I was just completely toast. We went home and I forced down some dinner despite not being hungry at all. Me not being hungry at any time for any reason is usually a bad sign. Now it's been 2 days of no appetite. Honestly, I have no idea what the problem was, but I felt really horrible. I didn't sleep very good that night, either, but Sunday morning I woke up and felt GREAT. The mysterious illness was gone. (FYI, Sunday night I ate like a pig)

On Sunday, the wind was WAAAAAY worse and probably 70+ competitors. However, I felt normal and was able to throw like I should. For Enzo's toss/fetch round he had cross-wind that was absolutely ferocious (30mph?). I knew there was a chance for 0 points. Wind never intimidates me - I throw for 40 yards and don't care about throwing everything out of bounds. Never will anybody see me throw 20's or 30's just to get some points and be conservative. Fuck that, I'm not a ho. The dogs and I have fun with the long throws, so that's what I do. I was in some kind of "zone" because I threw all 4 discs right in the 5 point zone (40+ yards) and Enzo blew away the competition with 21.5 points. It was some of the loudest cheering I've ever heard, I couldn't believe it. That was his best Skyhoundz toss/fetch score ever. He did good in the time trial event also, but as usual struggled in the spot-landing as I simply have not figured out a strategy with him yet despite doing it quite a few times over the years. This year they changed the rules slightly so it made things nearly impossible for Enzo's jumping style to get points.

With what is becoming a habit, Enzo's toss/fetch was truly amazing to watch. So exciting! Work on your weaknesses. With time and dedication, they can become a strength. I never imagined Enzo would be one of the top toss/fetch dogs around, but I am loving it now!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

A little Slayte update and videos from AWI Qualifier



Slayte is growing some legs!   He's a little high in the rear right now.  Still crazy and quite a handful.  He's definitely not as biddable as Tooney and Enzo as puppies but has way more drive than they did at this age.  Some things he picks up amazingly fast and other things he's just not that interested in doing.  He's doing well in puppy agility with the foundation stuff.  Still not super food motivated so I have to try lots of different kinds of treats.  He tugs really well though so that's good.   He's also finally starting to retrieve a little.  Funny that when we tested the puppies he was the only one to retrieve to hand but then when we got him home he just wanted to run off with the toys.   He loves doing restrained recall to a toy.  Well the recall part anyways.  He's not so big on the restraint part.  barks and bites at us.  lemme go lemme go.  lol.  He likes chasing rollers now but we really need to work the retrieve more.   So far he's really friendly with people and seems to like most dogs.

Here's the videos from the AWI qualifier that Enzo won! Finally! Tooney did pretty good too. oh and Jeff too!

Enzo's Round 1 Freestyle


Tooney's Freestyle


Enzo's Round 2 Freestyle



Tooney's Toss and Fetch

Monday, May 16, 2011

Managing canine athletes

If you do sports on a regular basis with your dogs, it's very important to regulate their activity levels during training and competitions. Know their limits and be smart about what you let them do. A perfect example is Tooney at our AWI qualifier this year. She had a good freestyle round and a great toss/fetch. It put her around 7th place overall and in the top 10 for toss/fetch, too... She made the cut for 2nd round in both freestyle and toss/fetch. That is all well and good, but I know that after Tooney's injury last year and her physical abilities that doing 2 more rounds would be too much. Could she do it? Yes. Would it be risky? In my mind it was. Even if she didn't get hurt, it would very likely wear her down a lot and she would then end up running her last round probably feeling like I was forcing or pushing her to. Unfortunately, at every competition I see people who should make this same decision but they don't. They go out there and in the last round, the dog doesn't want to compete, walks off the field, etc. It's supposed to be fun. If your dog is leaving the field or showing ANY indication they don't want to play, then you aren't listening to them and you're forcing them to do something they don't want to do. How do you think that will pan out in the long run?

Jenn and I asked if we could see the scores in the freestyle to see how far from making the top 5 qualifying spots she was. We decided if we felt she could move up a couple of spots that it would be worth it to do the freestyle and scratch the toss/fetch round. She had to pass 2 dogs that would certainly get much higher freestyle scores than her. She was close to them only on the strength of her toss/fetch round. We scratched her from freestyle and continued with her in the toss/fetch round. It was a pretty smart decision because she was only 1 point out of making the top 3 in the toss/fetch. She ended up 4th place, so that was great!

By doing this and making the decision ahead of time, it allowed the organizers to have the next highest scoring team that didn't make the cut originally to make the cut after our decision.

I am super proud of her as she had a great day. It's not very often you will see a competitor scratch a dog from the freestyle round simply because they felt it would be too much for their dog, but it goes to show how much we love the little T-bean and we try to do what is best for her.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Enzo wins AWI SoCal

Enzo won the 2011 AWI Southern California qualifier! Very proud of him! Tooney was probably near placing in the toss/fetch portion of the event, but I didn't see the final placements yet.

We also competed in a UFO major 2 weeks ago and did OK. We didn't place, but Enzo and Tooney had lots of fun.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Sydney

11/23/1997 - 5/3/2011

We already miss you, Beeb.