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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

2012 Ashley Whippet Invitational World Championship

Enzo and Slayte both qualified for the AWI finals this year. Jenn had plans of going to the USDAA Nationals the same weekend in Denver, but told me we should do AWI. The way she said it, she was hinting that it was because she thought we were going to have a good shot at placing high.

We left Wednesday night and I started feeling a cold come on and on Saturday it was at its worst. I was friggin' sick. Saturday was the AWI Championship. You have a round of freestyle and a round of toss/fetch. The top 15 combined scores make it to the finals for another round of freestyle. There were 45 teams and they were all awesome. You need a great round of freestyle and a great round of toss/fetch to have any hope at all of making it.

Enzo was virtually flawless. Our first round of freestyle was great and we had a very solid score. I knew it all came down to the toss/fetch round and if he caught all my throws, we'd make it to the finals. For toss/fetch we had another perfect round! He nearly got 5 throws off, which has never happened before. Our score was high. High enough for 7th place going to the finals!

In the final round, Enzo was EVEN BETTER with one of the best rounds we've ever had. The final scores came out and as they counted off the top 10, we were in 6th place! I can't be more happy with the result and love my Enzo beyond belief.


Here are his two freestyle rounds:




Little Slayte was very concerned during his freestyle round. He had a really hard time focusing or putting much effort into it. He still managed to catch 81%, which is really high, even at the championship level. However, his lack of interest resulted in very low scores. His toss/fetch round was significantly better and ended up putting him at 30th out of about 45 teams. I am still proud of how he did, especially coming back strong in toss/fetch.



Sunday was another competition with several games. Toss/fetch, 4-20 freestyle and timed course. For toss/fetch, they took the top 15 to the finals. Enzo, Slayte and Tooney all made it to the finals and had great rounds in the finals, too! They all finished very high with Tooney the highest, then Slayte, then Enzo. Jenn played toss/fetch in the intermediate division and placed 2nd and 3rd with Slayte and Enzo.

4-20 is a freestyle event with 4 discs and 20 seconds. The only rule is you can't pick discs up off the ground. The dog can give you a disc, though. It's very fast-paced and exciting. I wasn't even sure if I should enter the competition, but figured I'd try it. They took a cut for the top 10. Both Slayte and Enzo made the cut! Enzo had an awesome final round and secured the 2nd place trophy! It is the coolest trophy ever!


Timed course is 4 discs and you need to get a catch at 10 yards, 20 yards and a catch in a zone at 20 yards. Fastest time wins. All the dogs did very well both rounds for me, but not high enough to place. In the novice division, Jenn won it with Slayte and got 2nd with Enzo!

Slayte made a remarkable turnaround from his confused state of mind on Saturday to a rabid disc obsessive maniac on Sunday (ie, his normal self). He had 10 rounds of disc play on Sunday and was AWESOME all 10 rounds. We just need to give him more time and we believe the problem could be related to the first day of competition being uncomfortable by his surroundings.

One final note. I feel blessed to have these awesome dogs and a wife that supports and helps us along the way. It's awesome!