Actual Agility Video Footage!

SUMMARY:

Last weekend I promised to post some videos. OK, here ya go. I take my camcorder to every trial with me, but almost never remember to ask anyone to tape us. Last weekend, I finally did--on 4 runs only.

When transferring from my camera to computer, there was this odd jumping thing it was doing, like it was skipping frames or something. Not sure whether camera, tape, recording, playback--and I didn't feel like futzing with it to figure it out.

Round 1 Steeplechase

Tika wins in Performance, Boost Qs in Championship even with a bar down, because she was plenty fast.

Boost's run: Note that, on the first A-frame, I release her quickly, and on the 2nd Aframe, she doesn't bother actually doing 2 on/2 off or waiting for a release. And at the very end, instead of running ahead of me over the last line of jumps, she's kind of waiting for me and looking back a bit.

Tika's Run: Note a huge wide turn after the first Aframe, because I'm trying to get in front of her to make sure she gets a foot in the yellow zone so she thinks we're going straight instead of turning left.

Boost's run:

Grand Prix

Tika takes 2nd place.

Masters Jumpers

Boost and I still have some issues. Like, I'm trying to give her plenty of room to take a jump right in front of her before rear crossing, but she just won't do it, backs around it, and backjumps it. Most of the run isn't awful; she sends out nicely to one jump but, near the end, comes in around a jump I was trying to send her out to. And a bar down. Ah, well. Mostly she's starting to run instead of looking at me all the time.

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From High to Low and In Between

SUMMARY: We won! We lost! We learned! We exhausted ourselves!

Tika won Steeplechase! Whooooey! We have never won Steeplechase. We've almost never even placed in Steeplechase. That's first of 8 dogs who made it to round 2 in Performance 22". Tika ran smoothly and got a solid foot into both Aframe down contacts. So--1st in Performance Steeplechase and 2nd in Performance Grand Prix in the same weekend! Excellent. (And her time would've been good enough for 3rd place at Championship 26".)

She also Qed in Masters Jumpers at 26" this morning, meaning we're down to 3 Jumpers and 1 Standard for our Silver ADCH (could not keep her bars up in EITHER standard today, dash it all) and placed 3rd of 15 dogs, to boot.

She had a nice opening score in gamblers, but I put her into the wrong end of my launching tunnel right before the first whistle blew, so we had to redo the tunnel to get the proper line to the gamble, and DID the gamble, but 1.02 seconds over time. That was still worth a 2nd place out of 10 dogs, because only one Performance 22" dog got that gamble.

Disappointing way to end the day--our two Standards at 26" looked pretty good except that she knocked one or two of the first bars in each run. I DID put her over the 26" practice jump several times before each run, but we had the same issue yesterday--knocking first or 2nd bar at 26". At least we got it over early in the run--beats getting all the way through and then knocking the last bar.

But she did, really, do reasonably well this weekend.


Boost followed up yesterday's credible runs and two Qs with a disastrous Jumpers--4 or 5 bars down, half a dozen or more "this jump?" refusals or runouts, ran past at least 2 jumps... Huh. In Gamblers, I followed through on my determination to get her contacts back to the reliable state they used to be in. I planned three contacts--two A-frames and a teeter. She came right off the end of the first Aframe, so I put her immediately into a down and made her wait a bit. We did the 2nd Aframe and she came right off, so I thanked the judge, picked Boost up (she hates that--so does Tika and that's how I finally mostly cured Tika's feet-grabbing issues), walked off the course, put her into her crate, and walked away.

So--in her next course, Standard, she stuck every one of her contacts.

In the following Standard course, she stuck every one of her contacts.

But we continued with the insane bouncing around in front of me and not going over jumps in front of her and making me want to tear out my hair and maybe hers, too. The second one was considerably better than the first one, but still not as nice as some of yesterday's runs.

Oh, well. At least we got to end on a reasonably high note for her--also she had issues with only the one weave pole yesterday all weekend--hit her entries fast, blazed through, completed them even as I went past her or veered away. So--for now anyway--her weaves seem pretty solid.

Boost's look-very-similar sister Bette won Round 1 of Steeplechase at 26"; I didn't notice how she did in Round 2 (and I was on score table! doh!). Boost's look-alike sister Gina was almost 2 seconds faster than any other dog in the entire Steeplechase finals--but had to knock 4 bars to do it. In my experience, the knocked bars slow the dogs down, not speed them up. So, as always, there is pressure (from inside my brain) to catch up to the littermates.

AND there's been no bleeding on Boost's nose today, so I'm hopeful it was just a contusion of some sort.

Meanwhile, our leetle tiny playmate Sparkle the Pinchippet finished her ADCH this weekend. The ribbon was bigger than Sparkle. I'd love to get a ribbon someday that's proportionally as large on Tika! Would that be cool or what?

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Dang Jumpers Legs

SUMMARY: Comparing Boost's and Tika's Jumpers histories

I seem to have a bit of a challenge with my two current dogs and Jumpers legs. Tika has finally started getting them about as consistently as we get anything, but it wasn't always like that.

Tika took 20 months to earn her one required Starters Jumpers Q--earned TWO of them the same weekend--4 months later earned her one required Advanced Q, and I thought the curse was broken. But no; it was 13 months before she earned her first Masters Jumpers Q. So, from her first trial to that first masters Jumpers Q, 37 months.

Boost earned her one required Starters Jumpers Q at her second trial, took only 8 months to earn her one required Advanced Q, and then her first Masters Jumpers Q? Ha! 19 months later, still don't have one. But, over all, that's only been 27 months since her first trial.

So Tika missed 12 Masters Jumpers Qs before finally getting one, but Boost has missed 23 and counting. Someday we'll get one...I'm pretty sure...

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Haute TRACS Is Almost Done

SUMMARY: Some success. Some failure. Some high-tech fun. Some nifty colors.

Here's a brief wrap-up, in which we determine whether it's possible for me to actually be brief after 3 days of agility. (It's hot. Hot hot hot almost like summer. 90ish degrees. I am glad to be home, not doing more agility. A friend said it was weird that I would do three days and not all 4. This from someone who thinks that 4 days of agility in a row is a Good Thing. They are all still there, being normal and very hot and tired. I am home and clean and coolish and well-rested and typing in my blog and, apparently, weird. Who wins?)

It was largely a weekend of stupid handler tricks. Note to self: Need new brain. Details later maybe.

I thought I'd maybe get a chance to cruise around and take lots of photos, especially to help Team Small Dog's discussion of what makes cool agility fashion, but nooo, I was busy either being behind on my score table work or running my dogs or being exhausted.

I did, however, take the opportunity to photograph what really stylish agility handlers have: all agility gear in their favorite colors. Which is guess what for me.


Thursday was All Team, All Day, All Rings. Five runs each dog. Combine your scores with your 2 partners' and then if you're within 25% of the average of the top 3 teams--or within the top 50%, whichever is larger (see, USDAA wants to compete with CPE on the complexity of scoring, since they don't want ANYONE to be better than them at anything)--well, then you Qualify For Nationals. Five runs for one Q. Maybe.

OK, I have to be brief. OK. I can do this. Tika qualified. Boost didn't, capped by a memorable Jumpers run with about 4 bars down and half a dozen refusals, although the judge claimed it was only 30 faults.

But wait! All is not lost! I won two, count-them-2, things in the worker's raffle on Thursday! Vanna, would you sniff at what we won?



Thanks, Vanna! Yes, a free entry for another trial plus a big box of Guard-The-House Goodies! And a purple tug toy that I forgot to put into the picture!

Friday I started the day by earning 15 faults with Tika in Masters Standard, 15 faults with Boost in Masters Standard, 15 faults with Tika in Grand Prix, and messing up so badly in Grand Prix with Boost that halfway through I finally asked the judge "which way is out?" and he pointed and we went. Fortunately Tom Kula was laughing inside, not steaming with irritation. At least I hope so because he seems like that kind of guy.

Then Tika got a Jumpers Q, which is kind of a miracle because (A) it's Jumpers and (B) we'd not run well so far, and Boost kept it to a mere 10 faults.

Friday afternoon, Tika ran a nice pairs relay course but her partner had problems with the weaves and knocked a bar, so no Q; Boost's partner had a nice pairs relay course but Boost managed to earn 15 faults (this being my number for the weekend, I guess) in little figure 8 with only about 8 obstacles, so no Q.

And I mishandled both through the Snooker course, resulting in a Q (but not Super) for Tika and none for Boost.

In the evening, I had a lovely potluck with some friends and also briefly engaged in a conversation with two of the judges, Tom Kula and Karen Gloor, about how USDAA really should move the Nationals around to other places in the country, and I'm tired of going (but I HAVE to because it's LOCAL, you know) and the people in Arizona are tired of doing all that work (while at the same time enjoying having it there--I am paraphrasing all of this), and how People Think That USDAA Nationals Should Be About USDAA Not A Hundred Other Agility Sports (which I am fairly confident that most of the U.S. bloggers in my list (to the right) have had something to say about although I cannot now find any of those specific posts--perhaps you'll tell me where yours are and I can link to them here).

Saturday continued with non-Qing Standard for both, but I got a boost with Boost's first-ever Masters Gamblers Q (woohoo!), although Tika was over time on the gamble due to (once again) stupid handler tricks.

Steeplechase was depressing--with Boost, I forgot which loop I was on and did the second loop first, although she was clean to that point (although wasted time on a missed weave entry). And Tika knocked the next-to-the-last bar on a badly done rear cross (I was trying to push a bit more speed there). She'd have qualified (as usual) without that dang bar--but, jeeper creeper, her time was only .05 seconds under! That was almost 8 seconds slower than the fastest dog! Still, I'd have loved to get that Q, no matter how squeaky it was.

In Masters Snooker, I mishandled both dogs dramatically again, resulting in a Barely Q for Tika and a Barely Not Q for Boost. Sighhhhhhh--

But things picked up with our final run of the weekend, Jumpers, where Tika again ran clean and Boost ALMOST ran clean.

With Tika's two Jumpers Qs for the weekend, that finished her ADCH-Bronze (like a triple ADCH). I am all, like, happy happy joy joy and Tika is all, like, where's the food?

And Boost's Jumpersrun--no refusals, no spins, no runouts, and only one knocked bar, --was SUCH a joy to finally run a nice fast smooth run with her! She had a couple of hesitations that might have knocked a couple of seconds off our time, but even so her time was more than 3 seconds faster than Tika and barely 2 seconds under the fastest time, and there were some super dogs running this weekend. I am all, like, wow, bouncing around with delight and Boost is all, like, wow, Mom has energy to play way crazy tug of war after the run, not just before it!

So Tika came home with 5 Qs out of 11 possible and her ADCH-Bronze; Boost with 1 Q out of 11 possible which is one leg closer to her MAD.

And furthermore, I got to take my first ride on a Segway! Which one of my high-tech friends (Apache's dad) was tootling around on all weekend. And which was really VERY cool and I would love to ride some more! And which I asked a complete stranger to take a photo of me on it, and I said, "let's move over here so I have just grass behind me, not cars," and he moved, too, so that the cars were still behind me. I would not make a very good even-more-amateur-photographer-than-me instructor.


In other high-tech news, we demonstrate that even major canopy tears can be repaired--at least temporarily--with stylish matching duct tape, as indicated by my stylish popular agility noncompeting slip-on shoe. I don't even know what they call these. But hundreds of people wear them. Horse people too I think. Maybe even normal people, because Big 5 has sales on them all the time and there are about 270 different brands that are all basically exactly the same, just some fit and some don't.


But wait! There's more, to distract us from sad disintegrating canopy covers! We won AGAIN in Saturday's raffle!

Yes, it's another free entry, plus a Costco Samoyed-in-a-bag! No, just kidding, ha ha, I already have one dog with too much undercoat. Really it's a throw for the dogs themselves to sleep on, and we'll try it on our bed and see whether they like that better than they like curling up and shedding directly on my pillow.

However, despite all the raffle-winning excitement, the dogs are ready for me to get the danged van loaded and head for home. I did not put them in the van. They loaded themselves and gave me impatient looks while I rearranged stylish blue and purple agility gear for informative and educational photography.


And now, as this blog sinks slowly and not so briefly into the west, we leave you with one last gratuitous cute photo from this very moment:

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Comparing Jumpers and Coming Weekend

SUMMARY: Four agility dogs, different results.

My first two agility dogs, Remington and Jake, hardly ever knocked bars. It just wasn't something we ever worried about. Tika knocks bars. Looks like Boost is a bar knocker, too.

Some numbers: Remington's USDAA Starters/Novice record is vague; Jumpers didn't count for anything back then, so all that mattered was placement, which was time plus faults. I didn't track the faults. He placed anywhere from 1st of 13 to 3rd of 5 before he moved up to Advanced, where he quickly Qed in 2 of 4 Jumpers to move up to Masters (things wuz different then).

Then, he often didn't make time. (This was the long period when I was discovering that he slowed down in reaction to my stress.) When I finally figured that out--and how to deal with it--well, he Qed his last four Masters Jumpers in a row after Qing only 2 of the previous 17.

In all those Advanced and Masters runs, he knocked a bar only once, and he was running with someone else at the time.

Jake didn't come to live with me until he already had his novice AD title. With him, so much faster than Remington at the time, my problems were all learning to handle all over again; lots of runouts and refusals. In the 56 Masters and P3 Jumpers that we did, the only knocked bar I have recorded was after he had already run past a jump and then knocked the bar backjumping.

Tika. Well. 21 starters/novice Jumpers before she got a clean one--actually got TWO that same weekend. Then, in advanced, she Qed her second one, and I thought I was on a roll. ...I was, and it was all rapidly downhill. 13 Masters Jumpers until our first clean one, and that's what had held us back from our MAD forever. Then another 7 until our next clean one. Then the legs are sporadic--10 of the next 24. This spring, we got five--FIVE!--in a row, and I thought I was on a roll! Well... you know what happens... downhill again.

The Booster isn't as bad as Tika, but probably only because I'm not making as many handling errors (I hope). She got 1 out of 4 Startes Jumpers; knocked bars (and other problems) in the others.

Has earned only one Advanced Jumpers Q out of 11 tries. That's enough to get us into Masters if we can get that third Standard leg! (2 out of 16 tries so far) ...Two more chances this weekend at TRACS in Woodland.

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Team Jumpers Videos

SUMMARY: Bette, Boost, and Tika videos

Here's videos of Boost's sister dog (Bette), then me running Boost, then Tika, in Team Jumpers (about 2.6 MB).

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Videos from the Weekend

SUMMARY: Qualifying runs from both Boost and Tika. They're not necessarily our best runs, but they're all that I remembered to have someone tape, out of 18 runs.

Tika's Sunday Jumpers

On this one, I had to run as fast as I could because of the straight tunnels and the distance covered. Watching myself, I look flat-footed the whole way. I need remedial lessons in how to run fast, obviously. In the far corner, you'll see me signaling Tika to turn away from me by raising my off arm. I don't do this. I have never been trained to do this. This is not in my repertoire. I'm not exactly sure where that comes from. The "right!" should do it. Then, as we come in for the closing, where I start yelling "left" and "go go go!" is because I was trying to get myself past the next-to-last jump to serpentine it before she arrived, and I didn't make it--that's because I waited (as usual) way too long on the preceding serp "to be sure she made it" instead of trusting her training and hauling butt a second or two earlier. That missed serp is where she turns in to me a bit and hesitates.

Boost's Sunday Standard

Demonstrating a lovely start-line stay. Video's zoomed out too much most of the time for this small screen, so you really can't see her start to rise while in a down on the table, or run past the weaves (except that she has to come back to me to make a second approach, which she makes nicely). After she leaves the teeter before I give the "break" command, I make her lie down, and then I do the next two down contacts deliberately slowly and controlled.

On this video, you'll hear a lot of voice that sounds like it could be me, but it's not. The only things you'll actually hear from me are "break" from the start line, "Boost boost" and "Come!" on a couple of hard pulls, and then a "woohoo" when she completes the weaves. All the other stuff is going on in the ring behind the videographer.

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Weekend Results

SUMMARY: A smallish USDAA trial. Boost still can't do weaves. But does earn two Advanced Qs. Tika still can't get a 1st. But does get two Super-Qs.

This was definitely a down-sized USDAA trial for around here. Probably because there were no Nationals Tournament events. Tika's group, 26" Masters, had only 10 to 12 dogs competing. Boost's group, 22" Advanced, had only 7 to 11. Rings were torn down Sunday by 3:00, a nice change, although we at the score table were finishing Masters Gamblers until at least that long and then still had to tear down our own set-ups, so I didn't hit the road until after 4--but still much better than many weekends, when I'm driving home in the dark.

Tika's Weekend

Despite the small number of competitors, and despite Tika running very well Sunday and fairly well Saturday (she seemed slow all day), and Qing 5 for 9, we still couldn't pull out a 1st place. (I know, I know: don't get greedy--wasn't that long ago I was complaining about not being able to place--) She did earn two 2nds, two 3rds, and three 4ths.

Our only bad offcourse for the weekend was in Pairs, where I simply forgot the course--but I didn't feel too badly because our partner had already gone offcourse.

(Note that I distinguish bad offcourses as being those that result in an Elimination, versus, say, merely annoying things in a Gambler's opening where they might cost us a placement.)

We had nice Standard runs both days that I thought were clean, but was told after the fact that we had a bar down on Saturday and missed the dogwalk up contact on Sunday, so those were disappointments. Tika surprised me by keeping her bars up in both Jumpers runs for two Qs, and Sunday's was just about perfect except for a failed serpentine attempt near the end that caused her to turn a bit towards me for the loss of at least half a second, which dropped us to 3rd instead of 1st, the times were so tight. And Saturday's was a 4th.

It was a funny Snooker weekend for us. It took us two and a half years to earn our first three Super-Qs (top 15% of dogs in our class), and then we earned two this weekend. But I can't say they were stellar Super-Qs. Saturday's opening was a nicely done 4-red opening, although (as I mentioned earlier) she was a bit slow, and so I was really driving her through the close. I thought she was going past the first jump on #7 and called her hard, which pulled her on MY side of the jump--but when I looked at the score, she hadn't gotten credit for #6 in the closing. I had to ask around before someone could tell me that in fact I completely ignored #6 and went straight from 5 to 7. Huh. Another fine brainular failure. In looking at her time, we wouldn't have made it through both 6 and 7 anyway. But--huh--with a mere 42 total points, we still snagged one of the two Super-Qs. That's not a common occurrence by any means. And Sunday's we bobbled so many obstacles in our four-red opening (two fives and two sevens) that I was sure we weren't going to make time, but we did get all the way through--barely. But most people didn't get through, and we were beaten by one point by only one person who did a five and a six with two sevens in the opening. But still good enough to snag the 2nd Super-Q.

In a normal weekend, those failures and bobbles would have left us out in the cold. But I'll take the Super-Qs and 2nd places. (grin)

Our Gamblers on Saturday was slowish, but no problem with the gamble, so we Qed and took third. On Sunday she was fast and driven but I had a couple of bobbles in the opening so didn't quite finish the last set of poles I had planned before the whistle blew, leaving us with 3rd-highest opening points of all masters instead of 1st-highest. But the gamble was a doozy. Only 7 of 61 Masters dogs got it. It's one of those super-challenging gambles where every step presents its own challenge and where you wish that you'd get partial credit for each step, because so many dogs failed along the way that each part you got was an achievement. Tika got 3 of the 4 obstacles but I couldn't figure out how to get her over the last one.

Here's the gamble: (1) Can your dog weave forward away from you? (2) Can you push them out of the weaves ahead of you over a jump straight ahead? (3) Can you turn them right over a jump angled to the left? (4) Can you get them past the dogwalk and into the far end of the tunnel? (5) With the dog blasting almost straight at you, can you turn them directly away from you and back out 15 feet over a jump?

Boost gets excited when dogs within her sight are playing intensely or doing fast agility, and throws herself against the crate walls. Usually she knocks over the water bucket and leaves the crate upright. This time--well--she just wanted to do something different.

Boost's Weekend

Another entertaining riot of weave pole failures. In Sunday's gamble, she popped out at the end after a spectacular high-point opening. In Pairs she popped out at the end and we had to go back to the beginning and start over. I tried working them in gamblers and openings and we had to make multiple tries. She did them nicely in Standard on saturday but that's because I sent her offcourse right before them (not intentionally, really) and then was able to line her up perfectly. And in Sunday's Standard she actually did them and we managed a Q, although it wasn't a smooth run at all.

Snookers were both handling disasters. She knocked the first bar on Saturday and while I sat there with glazed eyes and brain, she took the next obstacle, so we were whistled off immediately. And on Sunday I tried a front-cross wrap (U-turn) after an opening straight line of 4 jumps, and she didn't turn at all, kept right on going over an offcourse jump. More to practice--

In Saturday's Jumpers, we knocked three (!) bars and went past a couple of jumps that I swung around and retried. In Sunday's, she kept all her bars up, came past a serpentine jump so I just backed up, holding the serpentine arm and shoulder position, so that she had to go back around the jump and finally took it--yay--and that was our only bobble, so she Qed.

Saturday's gamble was a serpentine and I was afraid she wouldn't handle it--actually she did, finally, too late, but it took about 5 tries to get her to go over the first jump. I've never seen a dog move so fast towards a jump and stop so abruptly, so many times, looking back to see whether I really meant *that* jump!

So, overall, a Standard and a Jumpers Q, which means we're only one Standard and one Pairs away from our AAD and moving up to Masters. And we are still sooooo not ready to be in Masters. Next trial--three weeks in Turlock, then not again until August, so we've got of time to work on the lots of things we have to work on.

Miscellaneous

I spent the night at a friend's house in Vallejo. A very pleasant evening and a comfortable night in a dog-friendly house and yard before we both returned to competition on Sunday morning. It was half an hour from the site, but it was a beautiful drive through pastureland and wetlands, relaxing and scenic and so different from the usual interstates that make up most of my agility commutes.

On the way home, I decided to brave the 80/880/580 interchange where a tanker truck exploded last weekend and melted part of on overpass. How bad could it be, said I to myself, the detour is all freeway and it's just a bloop east and then bloop back south again. Ho ho. It was half an hour bad, is what it was. Took 30 minutes to go less than 3 miles. Sure, lots of lanes merging down to two to get onto 580, and it went right past the missing chunk of freeway. But, surprise, it picked up to full speed the instant it passed the bad part. I think that other people--like me, with my camera held against the steering wheel so I didn't have to take my eyes off the car in front of me, felt that if they'd been sitting in stop & go (mostly stop) traffic for half an hour, they deserved a 3-second look at the mess. It wasn't much of a look, either. We could only see the missing part of the upper deck; the lower deck was out of sight and anyway is so completely repaired already that it was scheduled to be open in time for this morning's commute. If only it had been one day sooner!

Freeway mess. Although it's not really a mess. You can just see the missing segment of roadway above the cars. Doesn't look much different from an incomplete freeway interchange.

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CPE Day 2

SUMMARY: Tika Qed 8 of 10; Boost 4 of 10; some interesting results.

I'd love to have, just once, a perfect weekend or high in trial! We've come so close so many times with all my assorted dogs. Oddly enough for Tika, this weekend we completely muffed Saturday's Snooker and Sunday's Jackpot but managed to keep all our bars up for TWO Qualifying runs in Jumpers and also Colors and Wildcard, which we often have problems with because of the bars. Why I can't get it all together in the same weekend just once--

Boost surprised me this morning in her first run of the day, a Standard course, by entering and completing the weave poles at full speed with no hesitation or bobbles. Surprised me enough that I let her drift off course on the next obstacle and had to bring her back around for the correct one. Fortunately at CPE Level 3 that's still a Qualifying score, just not a placement. Shame, because even with that, she was the fastest of all 27 Level 3 dogs. She's a fast girlie.

Which brings us back to trying to compare Tika's and Boost's speeds. At different levels, they seldom have the same course, and even when they do, they don't always run equally well. Take today's Jumper's, for example, where they ran the same course: Boost made two huge, wide turns, wasting considerable time for the carryout, slow down, and swing back in to me. Then on a serpentine, which we're weak on, she turned the wrong way before the last jump, for a big spin, before finally taking it correctly. She ended up clean for a Q.

Tika's run, by comparison, was professional, smooth, without any major flaws. She turned exactly on cue, kept her bars up, flowed around the course. She was clean with a time of 23.72, using electronic timing so we know the times are accurate and equitable, which was beaten by only five of 100 dogs on the same course...one of whom, of all things, was Boost, at 23.64 even with all those wide runouts and spins! So maybe Boost IS the faster dog. This astonished me. If only we can get our stuff together--

And speaking of getting our stuff together, as in weaving--Boost never came close to doing a correct set of weaves the rest of the day, and our handling and teamwork left much to be desired, although we did somehow squeak out a sloppy Jumpers Q with one bar down.

Overall, 7 of Tika's 8 Qs put her in the top 3-6 of 70 to 100 (or more) dogs on the same course; always a nice thing although would've been nice to be THE #1 dog once out of all those. But I'm not complaining (much); they were all firsts in her own division.

And Boost managed enough Qs so that she'll now be in Level 4 in five of the seven CPE classes, which means the same courses as Tika so I'll have fewer separate walkthroughs and conflicts in the future. This is good.

My knee is even less happy today than yesterday, but the pain at least has moved from where it was before surgery, and it's still not swollen, so SOMETHING has changed. It's been iced and antiinflammatoried and hot tubbed and now it's going to be taken to bed. 'Night.

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Tika's Masters Qualification Record

SUMMARY: Some statistics on Tika's qualifying and nonqualifying masters runs.

I keep all of my competition info in a database, and I can pull it out in various ways if I think it'll help me to understand where we need work. Here's a very simple list of nonqualifying (N), qualifying (Q), and Super-Q (S) runs in the various events. To read it, start at the top and go left to right.

For example, in Masters Relay (below right), our first run was a Q, followed by 4 nonqualifying runs, two qualifying runs, 5 nonqualifying runs, and so on.

This shows me that we've improved tremendously in Gamblers, have a real problem in Standard (and Snooker Super-Qs), and have made inroads into Jumpers. Then I could look at the detailed records to see what has been causing our NQs (which I've already done, over and over :-) ); might be interesting on this chart to also list "E" (elimination usually for off-course) NQs separately from mere fault NQs (e.g., knocking a bar or a refusal at an obstacle).

Gamblers			Jumpers
12N	Q		12N	Q
9N	Q		6N	2Q
N	3Q		4N	2Q
N	Q		4N	Q
N	Q
N
Standard			Relay
6N	Q			Q
10N	Q		4N	2Q
N	Q		5N	Q
2N	Q		2N	3Q
14N	Q		N	Q
7N	Q		N	2Q
6N			N	Q
			2N
Snooker
	Q
N	S
6N	2Q
N	Q
6N	2Q
	S
4N	2Q
N	Q
N	2Q
2N
Grand Prix			Steeplechase
	2Q		4N	Q
4N	3Q		N	Q
N	Q		5N	Q
2N	Q		2N	2Q
2N	2Q		2N
N	7Q

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