Category: Dogs

USDAA Brownsville, OR 2018-08-10

I took Vader and Twitch to the USDAA trial in Brownsville hosted by WAG on the 10th, 11th and 12th of August.

Vader was entered in 15 runs, 5 each day. We did Team on Friday and then regular titling classes on Sat and Sun with Steeplechase and Grand Prix thrown in. We did not place in Team but not for lack of trying!

Vader ran really well this weekend. His weaves were great and even sent out to a gamble weave for a Q on Sat! We got a super Q on Sat in Snooker as well. Our Pairs partner had an off course but Vader was clean. Standard was amazing as well! This dog is all heart and go! Love him!

On Sunday we had two knocked bars but I am sure he was tired! I was! I was having trouble remembering the courses and one of those bars was my fault for sure.

Twitch was entered in Standard on Sat and Sun. I only ran him Sat and he stopped at the second jump to chase a perceived bug. So refusal but he ran well after that! Was even under time! I decided to leave him home on Sun and I am glad I did. I was tired and a long day.

I was a chief course builder for the weekend so in addition to the 16 runs, I built every course in one ring Sat and Sun, and both rings on Friday. I am still tired and sore. Now I am going to sleep!

Those People

Those people that let their child harass a dog until the dog feels it has no choice but to use its mouth to put distance between it and the child, those people would say something like, “but the dog never growled before” or “the bite came out of nowhere”.

No it didn’t. That dog gave plenty of warnings but the people weren’t listening. Well I am listening to my dogs. But apparently my husband would end up as one of those people. He told me tonight that he was more annoyed listening to me protect my dog from the overly hyper and aggressive kid than the kid.

I don’t know what to do with that but be angry. Angry that he thinks “Vader will just walk away” forever and ever. When Vader only has so much room to move around in. When the kid is constantly following V around as V keeps walking away over and over again until I tell the kid to leave him alone. DH doesn’t see. He doesn’t get it. He would be one of those people to be surprised when V is finally cornered with no one to protect him, so he protects himself. Who will suffer the most in that scenario?

Making Choices

I am trying to make different choices this year.

First I started with a lot less drinking and snacking. I am down 10 pounds and seem to be stabilizing there which is ok by me!

Next is to do more fun things with the dogs and less long trial days. This one is harder.

I start looking at the trials coming up and want to enter both days. Or enter two trials in a row. Because despite not enjoying the early mornings that much, I do enjoy the thrill of stepping to the line to tackle a new course. The accumulation of titles and seeing what kinds of times we can lay down. I don’t really enjoy having to cheerlead Twitch around the course though.

So I am trying to choose other activities for the summer. I am committing to two trials in July and August. Both USDAA and both outside. Otherwise I want to go camping and hiking. I want to go to new trails and get up early-ish on a weekend morning and go some place new at least twice in July and August.

May is already full though we could plan a hike on one weekend.

June I am currently planning one trial and one conformation show.

See? Not enough weekends for all the fun things!

AKC Ridgefield, WA 2018-03-18

Vader and I headed up to Ridgefield to attend the PAC AKC agility trial. We were entered in Open Fast, Open Jumpers with Weaves and Novice Standard.

FAST went well despite me completely changing my plans after walking. The line other folks were setting off the aframe was way better than what I was going to attempt. It all went just fine until near the end when I turned him the wrong way and we bobbled the teeter approach. He did fine and we Qd anyway. 🙂

JWW was a disaster. I got him out way too early and he did 1-2-4 instead of 1-2-3-4. I had much too much collection and pull off cues and that is exactly what he did. Then he took the tunnel. From there we just hit the finish jump and left. NQ.

Novice Standard was 4 hours later and went just fine. He took all the things I told him too and in the order I showed him. Q! Now we are out of Novice and won’t have to do that stay stupid late bit again.

Good boy Vader!!

CAT CPE Longview, WA 2018-03-17

Today Twitch, Vader and I trekked up to Longview, WA for a CPE games only trial put on by the Columbia Agility Team. I signed Twitch up for 4 runs out of 5 and Vader for all 5.

Twitch ran really well for me. I am pleased with how he did. He managed a couple firsts and seconds with Qs in all runs. We did Jumpers, Colors, Snooker and Wildcard, all Level 5 as a Veteran. I ran the same way with him as I did with Vader in all runs and he had tighter turns than Vader on some courses but was overall a few seconds slower every time. It was neat to be able to compare some of the times with each other since I was running the same course in the same way for each dog.

Jumpers was first and the only difference is I didn’t trust Vader for the second jump as much and ended up rear crossing the serpentine versus a blind like with Twitch. I ran the same course in Snooker for both dogs and neither dog heeded my “push” cue for the backside of the 7b jump. Both started towards the table. I managed to get their attentions and we did fine after that. No video of any runs which is a bummer.

Vader also ran Fullhouse at the end of the day. I planned a super fast flowing circle of fun for us. We needed 25 points to Q and we had 30 seconds to do it in. We got 47 points in 27 seconds. 🙂 It was a lot of fun and we flew! I ran as fast as I could and I’m sure it would not have looked that fast on video. 🙂 I was really puffing after that run. But man it was fun. He read my decel in the two places I put it and got every obstacle we ran past. It was so awesome!

Vader’s Snooker Q was Level 3 so we are finished with all Level 3 now!

Tomorrow we do AKC in Ridgefield!