About Tika

SUMMARY: May I brag? And list some statistics, too?

Just occurred to me: Hmmm, OK, Tika has been in Performance only since the end of April, but she's done very well in Steeplechase, Grand Prix, and Snooker, and I wonder where she shows up in the Top Ten listings? So I go to the USDAA page and look:

Heh, cool. I know we won't hold this (especially after this past weekend's Snooker disaster, and especially because I'm not planning on doing that many more trials this year, and also because who's likely to beat us at most trials? Hobbes and Brenn), but it's always fun to see our name in lights: Top Ten Performance 22" Snooker as of roughly the end of August.

Although, oh, interesting:

• According to my records, in the last 3 trials we've earned another 13 points that aren't on there (but then, so has probably everyone else).
• Out of Tika's 8 P3 Snooker runs, four have been Super-Qs (jeez, wish we could'a done that in Championship!).
• Because I mucked up something in my database, I just realized that Tika earned her P3 Snooker title LAST trial! Woot all over again!
  

Not bad, for only a partial year. Not bad, for a dog who took 36 tries to get her first 3 Super-Qs in Championship.

How about Tournament Top Ten? Pfah, nothing listed on the web site that I see. But she has Qed in 6 out of 7 Performance Grand Prixs to date, and 5 out of 7 Steeplechase. Not bad, for a dog who Qed in only 11 out of the 42 Championship-level Steeplechases she entered--almost all the non-Qs with 5, and sometimes 10, faults. Now we're clean. Go figure. We like 22".

So how is my challenging, attention-deficit, fun-loving and now-getting-reliable Tika girl doing in comparison to other dogs? According to this USDAA page:

• Only 192 dogs have ever earned the Silver ADCH.
• Only 247 dogs have ever earned their Tournament Master Platinum.
• If/when Tika finishes her LAA-Silver (only, hrm, 28 Qs to go), that's be one of only -- uh-- don't know because that's not listed on that page or anywhere that I'm finding. Gol dang.
  

Compare that to 9,946 dogs who have ever earned their Agility Dog (Novice) title, and who knows how many more who've competed some and never gotten even that far.

I think we're doing pretty OK.

Tika's Round 2 Steeplechase run from Sunday. Fairly smooth, not super-fast. It's 7:30 in the morning and we're starting behind the jump right in the center of the video, and I lead out towards the left.
My only real handling faux pas is that I was going to go for a front cross before the blue tunnel but wimped out--which was stupid, because I ended up coming to a complete stop and waiting for her, so I had plenty of time to get there and probably would've eked another second or so of speed out of things. Not sure it would've mattered--1st place dog was 4 seconds faster.

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This Weekend--Hopes and Fears

SUMMARY: USDAA Southwest Regional Championship/Qualifier

This weekend my club, The Bay Team, hosts one of the six(?) annual Regional events for USDAA, the oldest and the most interesting and challenging agility venue in the United States.

Until last year, if you took 1st place in Steeplechase or Grand Prix at a regional, you earned a bye into the finals at Nationals. No more; firsts this weekend aren't special. The advantage here is that all qualifiers in Grand Prix or Steeplechase Round 2 earn byes into the semifinals at Nationals.

Of course, first you have to make it to round 2. In Grand Prix, you just have to run clean; in Steeplechase, your time plus faults has to be within 25% of the top 3 dogs' average score. Those Qs count towards titles and send you to the quarterfinals at the nationals (AKA round 1 at the nationals).

However, to get the bye into nationals semis, you have to do well enough in round 2 this weekend in comparison to the other dogs who made it to round 2. In Grand Prix, you have to be in the top 50% (I think, jeez, why isn't that in the premium? That's what it used to be). And in Steeplechase, you have to finish within 15% of the average of the top 3 dogs.

Plus there are all the regular classes.

My fear is--based on last night's performance in class--that I'll be forgetting courses again; I must have forgotten half the courses we ran.

My hope is that the dogs will run as well as they did in class last night. Tika ran two courses at 26" without knocking any bars, for example. Boost is running like a champ.

And once again, I try not to focus on titles too much, but for the record:
* Tika Jumpers Q at 26" completes her silver ADCH (that's like a regular championship 5x over).
* Boost Jumpers Q completes her MAD (master agility dog).
* Tika Performance DAM and either GP or Steeplechase earns her performance tournament master title.
* Boost gamble earns her masters gambler title.
* Tika needs 2 Performance Standards and a performance Jumpers for her performance MAD--of course she can't get the jumpers until she's finished that last one at 26".
* Tika Pairs Relay Q earns her performance masters relay title.
* Boost needs the first-round steeplechase Q to be qualified to run Steeplechase at the nationals. If we go. Which we won't. Unless boost wins round 2 this weekend. (It is to laugh! I laugh, ha ha!)

OK, better go back and get ready for four (groan) days of agility. I won't be online at all (unless I decide to come home one of the 3 nights after all) until Monday evening at the earliest.

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Boost Steeplechase Round 2 Video

SUMMARY: Thanks, 3 Dog Video!

Here is Boost, just two steps to the right from taking home a big Steeplechase purse. :-)

Between the first jump and the tunnel there is another jump; you can see that she is NOT jumping between there. Really, the jump was almost in her way (I lined her up deliberately pointing at it and not at the tunnel) and it wasn't very much of a lead-out pivot at all, but dang she didn't get it. Rest of the run is lovely, though.

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Boost Steeplechase Video

SUMMARY: 3-Dog Video comes through again, thanks Steve.

Boost's Round 1 Steeplechase video. Same deal as Tika's; pick the resolution at the top (when you click the play arrow).

Boost's run was 5.46 seconds slower than the winning dog that round. I've used my stopwatch to figure out some differences; held her on the two Aframes for a total of somewhere around 1.5 seconds; the place nearing the end where she slows down to look back at me, turns back to me, spins, and then finally gets going again is at least 3 seconds.

Running contacts, I tell ya-- plus a dog who'll just keep taking obstacles in front of her!--would be handy.

And here's the course map:

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Tika's Saturday Steeplechase Video

SUMMARY: viewing online

Here's video of Tika's Steeplechase (Performance) run on Saturday. There are links at the top so that you can see it in whatever definition your computer will handle, from smallest (web) to high def.

You can see where I sent her offcourse: After the first aframe, the next two jumps are incorrect--I clap my hands in a little frustration realizing that I blew it and then deciding to go on with the correct sequence. The rest of the course is correct, although after the wrong jump, Tika's flow is bad briefly because she's not coming from where she should've been coming from.

Her course time WITH the extra jump and veering out of line there is STILL well within qualifying time, so she was hauling. In fact, looks to me that it's actually even within *Championship* qualifying time. Sighhhhh such a nice run--

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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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Platinum Dog!

SUMMARY: Tika gets a big title! And Boost doesn't!

Tika did it! At the SMART trial Day One today, she earned a Q in Steeplechase Round 1, so she's in the money run for tomorrow AND--ta-daaaa!--that finishes her Tournament Masters Platinum. Like...w00t! Totally!

What is a Tournament Masters Platinum?

• Tournaments consist of:
  • Grand Prix of Dog Agility
  • Dog Agility Masters (DAM) Team Championship
  • Dog Agility Steeplechase
  These are the events that you enter during the year if you want to go to nationals. If you qualify. Enough times. With high enough scores.
• What is Tournament Master? 10 Tournament Qs with at least 2 of each.
• What is TM-Platinum? 50 Tournament Qs with at least 10 of each. Platinum is the highest award that you can get in USDAA. (Until some time in the future, people start getting double platinums or like that, then they'll invent some other titles, like TM-AA (agility addict) or TM-I-didn't-want-to-set-aside-any-money-for-retirement-anyway.)

Steeplechase is tough because you have to be in the top 25% of the competitors to earn a Q, and it's based on time plus faults. So you have to be very fast, or merely fast but accurate, or VERY VERY fast indeed and maybe you'll get away with one mistake. Tika usually knocks a bar, and we're not in the VERY VERY fast indeed category. But today she didn't! Ticked the first bar, giving me a momentary heart attack, but it stayed up!

I am thrilled. She got a whole mess of bits of chicken quesadilla afterwards.

Now I can decide to move her down to all-Performance in the tournaments if I want to (so that she'll jump 22" instead of 26"). Which likely means that this will be the last Platinum she'll ever get (yes, you can also earn platinum in each of the 4 regular classes plus the platinum-ADCH). Because the count starts over from 0 when you move into Performance. And it has taken us 6 years to get here.

So I'm enjoying it while I can.

[Dang, left my course maps at the trial site. Will try to scan them in tomorrow & post here.]

Tika also Qed in Performance Pairs Relay, her first-ever Performance Q, so the count is now up to... 1. And in Performance Snooker, her second-ever Performance Q. So--2! (Had enough points for a super-Q but 2 other dogs were faster.)

She knocked 2 bars jumping 26" in Standard. And the gamble was very hard: Only about 1 in 7 dogs got it. Which is low even for USDAA masters.

Boost--well--she's physically looking good. Knocked some bars but nothing excessive. People watching say that she's moving beautifully. Had a couple of really nice runs that unfortunately ended early because of the knocked bars, but we also had way more than our share of runouts, refusals, and "you-mean-THIS-jump-THIS-one?" dances. Back to square 2. But she is FAST and fun to run when communication occurs with some semblance of success.

And the weather was great. And the chicken quesadillas at lunch were spectacular. And all my friends said how they missed me and hadn't seen me in FOREVER! (I missed one trial only! One! Really!) And I wore my latest new best-dressed-agility-handler jacket:


Could life be any better?

Tomorrow... Jumpers. Everyone has to keep their bars up. Tika, you hear me? You've been jumping 26" for years, you can do it again! Plus oh yeah standard and round 2 of the steeplechase in which Tika could actually come home with, oh, let's fantasize, maybe $6! And Grand Prix.

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Saturday Good, Sunday Not So Hot--Literally and Figuratively

SUMMARY: Got a couple of Qs but there's work to do.

Saturday in Santa Rosa was cold but not awfully so. Both dogs ran well: 7 runs each in one day! They loved it, probably because they could go all out in the cold weather and not risk overheating. You know how canine athletes worry about that stuff, especially when they're not drinking Gatorade. It was a long day, though, not done until almost 9 PM. At least the club had planned for that & advertised dinner along with Strategic Pairs. But I felt pretty good at the end of the day with our successes and luck.

Sunday chilled us to the bone. 28F at 7:30 in the morning. Glad I took my ginormous purple down coat, which you can't miss noticing from half a mile away. And wore thermal underwear. Then around 4:00, just as I was ready to start hauling stuff out to my car, it poured. Dogs were still happy to run in the cold for another 4 runs each, but things didn't go quite so well and I had to work myself out of feeling disappointed.

To give you an idea of the chill--I always take an ice-filled cooler packed with my fave diet soft drinks because I can't stand warm diet soft drinks. This time, I skipped the cooler entirely and just left the cans loose in my car. They were plenty ice-cold, thank you very much!
The "Lytle Cow Palace," scene of our glories and disgraces and some really cold Alaskan weather come to visit.

Saturday Tika Team

Five of the runs were for Team. Tika ran clean and fairly fast in Jumpers and Standard, although (as I had expected) even with the new Qing system for Team individual events, she missed Qs by 1.7 seconds in Standard and 0.2 in Jumpers--although had I worked even one of my sloppy turns better, we'd have gotten that bonus Jumpers Q. She had a nice Gamblers opening and we were exactly where we needed to be to try for maximum points in the gamble--but knocked the 3rd bar, so had very high opening points but only so-so closing; no bonus Q there, either.

Tried for four reds in the Snooker, knocked the first bar, but recovered easily to accrue 49 points. Only about a dozen dogs of the 87 competing in all heights managed to do four reds and get through to the end, so she did have enough for a bonus Q here.

Her team did pretty good. After the first two rounds--Standard and Gamblers--where both teammates did even better than Tika--we were in 2nd place overall of 29 teams. One teammate Eed in the Jumpers round, so we lost our prime position, but the rest of our Jumpers and Snookers were pretty good, and we all ran well in the relay in which at least half the teams Eed. So we ended up 5th overall despite that Jumpers E, and with 18 teams Qing, we were well up there.

Can I fantasize for a moment? Without the Jumpers E, we'd have been plenty above the first place team's score. But, oh well, I'm very happy with how Tika ran and delighted with my teammates.

Pretty good, and very happy about that; that finished her 10th Team Q. So, to get our Tournament Platinum, we needed only EITHER the Steeplechase OR the Grand Prix on Sunday.

Saturday Boost Team

We were all younger, less polished dogs on this team. After the first two runs--Standard (where one teammate Eed and the other two of us bobbled and faulted our way through it) and Gamblers (where Boost wouldn't go OUT for a bonus and I dinked around trying to insist that she do it, so got really low points--and our teammates had lower points than that)--I think we were in 3rd to last place. Not promising for Qing.

In Jumpers, another teammate Eed, Boost accrued a ton of faults, and one teammate ran very well. In Snooker, Boost knocked a bar in the opening so missed some points and popped out of the weaves on a rear cross in the closing so lost a bunch more points; One teammate did very well and the other better than Boost.

But we had a wonderful relay run; placed 7th of the 29 teams, and so even with two Es earlier, we all held it together individually enough here and there, and fully half the teams wiped out of the relay, including some of the top ones, leaving us enough room to just squeeze into Qing territory by a mere 2.17 points out of our total of 914.84 (1st place at 1229.79 for comparison), placing 18th overall. So one more bar anywhere, or one more popped contact, or one more missed weave pole that someone had to go back for, out of our 15 combined runs, and we'd not have qualified. Whewwwwwww!

It was quite a surprise and delight to get that Q after what had seemed like a dismal showing. Sometimes I curse the high point value of the relay, but it saved us this time.

The rest of Saturday

Tika earned another Q in Masters Jumpers. Boost and I Eed early in that--serpentine that she wouldn't come in on (which I was lamenting about on Thursday, remember that?) and by the time I got her over the jump, I forgot where I was going and--while I stood there thinking--she backjumped. So still no MAD for the baby dog.

Strategic Pairs filled out the day. 19 teams stuck around for the fun.

Tika's Strategic Pairs partner, Chaps the wonder-Aussie, who just got back from spectacular successes at the Aussie nationals.


Tika and her partner ran clean, but Tika had some bobbles in our first segment when she got ahead of me and I couldn't direct her, and then we had a communication failure among human teammates so there were several seconds where we both were standing doing nothing. We still managed to come in 6th of 19, which was nice--only 6 seconds slower than the 1st place team... who was...

Boost and her partner! Ta-da! We had no faults, we communicated well, we didn't waste any time. Boost was not the dog I'd have ever guessed I'd win a wild game like Strategic Pairs with--but actually the judge(s) designed a course that was very straightforward for switching between two dogs, so it was just short, simple sequences.

So, at the end of the day, I felt pretty good about my agility weekend.

Boost and her Strategic Pairs partner, Taiko, who just got back from winning at the ASCA nationals.

Here is what Boost won for me in Strategic Pairs. I had no idea it would be something cool like this! Thanks, Bay Team SP prize czar!


Here is what Boost won also for me in Strategic Pairs. I don't imbibe, so my renter/dogsitter benefitted from this part.

Sunday

Things fell apart a bit on Sunday. Not a lot. Just enough to take the edge off the general satisfaction for the weekend. It went like this:

Tika ran very nicely, fast, eager. In Steeplechase, almost 4 seconds under qualifying time, which is pretty good for her. But ticked the bloody broad jump. Just barely. I barely heard it and wasn't even sure whether I had heard it. We couldn't miss a Q by whacking a bar or flying off the Aframe or mishandling; no, we incurred 5 faults with a tiny tap of a toenail, putting us just out of Qualifying.

In Grand Prix, she ran fast and smoothly; we got through the whole course with no problems at all, nice tight turns, bars up, got the Aframe contact. The next to the last obstacle was the dogwalk, and she even got a foot solidly in the yellow zone going up, which has been one of our Grand Prix bugaboos. And then, 15 feet away from the last jump (which she kept up), she flew right off the end of the dogwalk, not even pretending to slow down for it. Crapola. Just one little flaw at the end of a lovely run.

So no Tournament Platinum.

Tika had a lovely Gamblers' opening, except that I lost her at one point, wasting time, and decided not to adjust for it; as a result, was way on the far side of the course with an Aframe between us and the gamble when the whistle blew. And she did the dang gamble, too, very professionally. But over time, so no Q.

And, in our opportunity to maybe pick up a placement, in Masters Pairs, I stepped into her path at the wrong stupid moment when I should've been stepping out, and pushed her into an off-course tunnel.

So not a Q all day.

Dogs get cozy crates with furry mats to curl up in during the freeze.


Boost ran very nicely all day, with no refusal or runout problems. She was such a good girl; very proud of her. But still... as I've commented before, there's only so long I can get by on "making progress" without "earning Qs".

I did the exact same stupid trick with Boost in Gamblers; she went into the weave poles in the wrong side so we had to restart, but again I decided that, since she's faster than Tika, I could go the extra distance and not adjust for it. Well--we ended up with more opening points than the first place dog, AND she also did the gamble perfectly, but only after (repeat after me) we were way on the far side of the course with an Aframe between us and the gamble when the whistle blew. Foolish handler trick again.

In Steeplechase, Boost had a lovely run, but had a bar down. Thought we might have qualified anyway, but nooo--there were 10 faults on our scribe sheet, not 5, and I have no clue what the other 5 were for. Another good reason to have your runs videotaped. But will that teach me? Nope, never does.

In Grand Prix, doh, I just skipped a jump. And this was a course I had already just run with Tika. Go figure. So--off-course.

In Pairs, however, she partnered with her SisterDog Bette, and both dogs decided to show the world what a wonderful litter they came from. We both had beautiful, clean runs, and placed 4th of 41 teams. So that was it, my sole Q for the day between both dogs. Disappointing, especially when several were so close.

This is how I end up averaging only 50% with Tika--one weekend with 9 of 10 Qs, the next weekend 2 of 8 or so.

Never did get the final word on what this was about--

And In Other News

Mom is home from the hospital, feeling good, injecting self with drugs (I knew there was a reason we needed to keep her from hanging out with those decadent hospital personnel), trying to get back to where she was muscularly before she had to lie in a bed for 4 days again. Yay, Mom! And I heard that Dad even got a good night's sleep a couple of nights ago, finally, after all that all-night hospital brou ha ha. Good on ya, dad!

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Some USDAA Weekend Classes

SUMMARY: Maps, videos, and brief discussions from this last weekend.

Saturday Masters Standard

The opening of this course was interesting, because I was the only one I saw who ran with the dog on my right. It worked very nicely for both of my dogs, but I have a good "Right Through" (which goes against the Darrett system but is OH so handy in cases like this). Saw lots of dogs knock the #6 jump or get a refusal, as that was a pretty challenging rear cross to get in. 15 of 47 big dogs Qed on this course.

NOTE: As always, the course map doesn't exactly reflect reality: you could actually set the dog into a stay before jump #1 so that she could see the Aframe from that position. Made a difference (to me, anyway) in whether you worried about the dog going off-course into the tunnel--which we saw some of, even with handlers on the opposite site.

Another frequent problem was 12 to 13. Several people who handled it with a single front cross before 13 got an off-course onto the back side of 17. I saw some successful serpentines of 12 and also the front-cross equivalent--both before and after 12. I did a rear cross, as did others, thinking I'd get a tighter turn to the table. Worked OK for Tika but Boost still went wide, although we survived. The other main off-course problem was 15 to 19.

Saturday Masters Gamblers

Posting this mostly because I have videos, in which you can see:

• while I think that I am directing the dogs clearly and distinctly--my body is flapping around all over the place
• Tika miss a send-out to a weave entry--and she's supposed to be my GOOD dog-- (and that was twice in one weekend with the same sort of send in gamblers); something to work on
• Boost go under the tire repeatedly
• that the reason that I couldn't get Boost out over the jump after the teeter was because she didn't stick her contact and wait for a release, self-released to come towards me.

Steeplechase Round 1

Another case where the course map isn't a perfect reflection of reality. The line over 3-4-18 was a bit more obvious to the dogs than shown here. That's very important to note, because that was the most common off-course.

People probably split half and half on whether they kept the dog on their left and pulled to #5 and rear crossed #6, or led out towards the tunnel to do a lead-out pivot and run with the dog on the left over #5. And about the same number of dogs went over #18 instead of 5 using both handling methods, so your timing and body language had to be good in both cases. The down side to the pull method was that it left the off-course tunnel wide open, which some dogs took.

The most successful lead-out pivots had the handler standing pretty close to the entrance for the #12 tunnel, so that when they turned and ran towards #5, they were running straight at 5, not having to veer past #4.

#7 to #8 was more of a time waster than anything, with the dog turning back to the handler often. Some people ran around the left side of #7 and the Aframe, but I don't think that worked any better.

Lots of people worried about the 10-11-12 line. There were lots of refusal-type errors at #12 tunnel entrance, usually with the handler over-pushing and blocking the dog's entrance into the tunnel, but I don't recall seeing any actual off-courses over the #4.

Another big choice was whether to front cross between 17 and 18. I tried that with Tika, who flew off the Aframe and went straight for the offcourse #6, which I saved her from, but she hit the #18 at such a bad angle that she knocked the bar.

Master Snooker Sunday

Of interest because of the unusual layout and no contact obstacles. Hope you can read it with all my scribbles.


Most Super-Qs were earned with a 4-5-7-7 plus 2-7, although there were also some 7-7-7-4 and sometimes a 5 instead of a 4 in both sequences.

My numbers on the map are close but not actually the way I handled it. If the top of the map is north and the left is west:

• West over the first red (southwest corner) to the back (west) side of 4a, to 4b.
• to the southeast red, run around the outside to the 6a tunnel and the 6b jump.
• South over the northeast red, turning the dog toward the west, which made a straight line over 7a to the south end of the 7c tunnel, to the 7b jump
• south over the northwest red, wrap to the east, over 7b into 7c and east over 7a.
• Threadle past the northeast red to the east side of #2 (which was NOT bidirectional in the closing).
• Might be hard to read, but the jump that serves as both #3 and #4a is set up to force you to backjump. The 4a was bidirectional in the closing, so that if you felt strongly about it, you could bring your dog around and do sort of a figure 8 over the 4a after doing the 3. But that wasted a lot of time, set the dog up badly for the straight line 4b to 5, and also provided more off-course opps to either side. I saw only a couple of handlers try the figure 8. It actually worked very well to blast the dog straight out over #3, because there were no obstacles out there, and as you and the dog blasted into the open area, then you turned, called the dog, and went back over 4a-4b-5 in a straight line, and because the dog had moved fairly far beyond the #3 jump, it didn't have the look or feel of a backjump.

Masters Jumpers Sunday

It was 6:30 in the evening. I was really tired. Tika sailed comfortably through it, taking 4th place of the 12 remaining dogs (lots of attrition at the end of such a long weekend), and I never really did communicate clearly with The Booster--too bad, because I felt that it was a nice, flowing, speedy course.

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Achievements

SUMMARY: Lots of good stuff this weekend. But handler needs more training.

Biggest news

Started Saturday by Qing in Standard with both dogs, on a course where a full third of the dogs Eed and another third had faults. Tika placed 4th of 14, and Boost's run was beautiful! No refusals, runouts, hesitations, or knocked bars! Just the irritating elbows-up-on-the-table issue, causing a really long table count, and also it becoming apparent that I have broken Boost's previously rock-solid contacts (hit bottom and wait for a release...she's self-releasing now) by releasing too aggressively too often. Always something to work on! (Tomorrow I'll post a video.)

Then Tika Qed the next two classes, also, very neatly completing her LAA-Bronze. WooHOO! I am mighitily pleased. She is running so very well.

And Boost did all of her weaves perfectly again.

Tika's Weekend

Over all, Tika Qed 4 out of 5 Saturday (Standard, Pairs Relay, Gamblers, and Snooker). The only failure was in Steeplechase, where I tried an aggressive lateral front cross after the A-frame, meaning that I had no leverage on her contact, so she popped the Aframe and then knocked the immediately following jump. As usual, our time was 3 seconds under the cut-off, but with faults, we couldn't Q.

Sunday was only 2 for 5, but two of them were blatantly my fault. Snooker consisted entirely of a sort of double circle of jumps, almost every obstacle made up of multiple jumps and some jumps serving as multiple obstacles--and approaching the closing I very carefully threadled her past a difficult jump ONE DANG JUMP EARLY (needed to threadle past the NEXT one and TAKE this one), so we were off course. But she did everything I asked her to very smoothly and with no bars down (that was about 15 physical obstacles before I messed up).

Gamblers was SUCH a doable gamble, but for some reason when I sent her out to the tunnel, I pointed my body at the center of the tunnel instead of directly at the tunnel entrance, so she ran towards the center, veered off to one side, turned back to me, and finally took the correct entrance, but it was called as a refusal so although she did it, she didn't get credit for it. DEEEP sigh.

The only other non-Q was Standard, where she knocked the first bar (lots of dogs knocked that one, including Boost), so I took the opportunity to make her wait or down on her contacts to hopefully get a little more control back.

Boost's weekend

Once again, the Booster started off really nicely after another week of intense practice, but slowly deteriorated through the weekend. Still, we're making progress--we in fact earned *3* Masters Qs this weekend, which is wayyy more than we've ever earned in a weekend before, and several runs or parts of runs went much better than they would have been a month ago.

She Qed in Saturday's Standard and Snooker (knocked a red in the opening so didn't get full points but got all the way through the closing), and also in Sunday's Gamble, where I corrected the mistake that I made with Tika and she did it beautifully.

DANG TIRE: Boost did this tire perfectly in Saturday morning's Standard run. In Gamblers, she ran under it 4 times before I got her to go through it, and then I figured the problem was fixed. But no. Ran under it in Sunday's Standard. Ran under it in Grand Prix, and I brought her back and tried again to get her to do it and again she ran under it, so I just walked her off the course. I avoided it in the Gambler's opening because it wasn't going to be used in Snooker or Jumpers. Then, at the end of the day, I took her over, set her up in front of it--and she did it perfectly. Twice. Dang weird border collie.


My theory is that (a) the orange is hard to see against the green grass, (b) the paint on the tire was very faded so the stripes weren't obvious, (c) the tire was narrow and the frame was wide and they were basically the same color, so the distinction wasn't great, and (d) orange is supposedly very difficult to see against green (the grass). But who knows--then why did she get it first thing saturday morning?

CONTACTS: I used the rest of her Gamble opening and also her non-Qing Sunday Standard, after she knocked the first bar, to work on HER contacts, too. They're not as broken as Tika's, since she's still hitting the bottom and pausing, but she's sure not waiting for my release. I hope that fixes them again.

TABLE: Before her standard run on Sunday, I worked on just a down stay while waiting to go into the ring, with lots of excitement and testing, and got her to break or start to come up about 3 times and could say "Oh my goodness!" and put her back into position. Can't do that at home, class, or fun matches, but i didn't think before to work on it just on the ground at the events RIGHT BEFORE going into the ring. Result: Her table down was perfect! Will have to do more of that at events.

LEAD OUTS: I've been working on remedial lateral leadouts and lead-out pivots and she's doing very well, but in Sunday's Snooker I needed to set her about 20 feet away from the first red and lead out wayyy across the field. Even though I could see her over the top of the red jump, she came around it to get to me when I released her. So now we have to work on weird Snooker lead-outs.

GAMBLES: Saturday's gamble required running parallel to me from the teeter over the last jump, about 20' lateral from me. It was pretty much a gimmee gamble for people whose dogs did the teeter at a distance, which she had no problem with. But then she came in to me instead of going out. So her SENDS are much better than her lateral "out"s.

JUMPING ISSUES ASSORTED: We just need to keep working. Progress is happening, and she is SUCH a blast to run now that she's doing her weaves all the time, and when she's looking ahead to do obstacles instead of looking back at me constantly.

Oh, one of the runs where we fell apart a bit (after another dumb handler move early in the run) was steeplechase, so we definitely won't be running in Steeplechase at Nationals.

Steeplechase

This weekend's Steeplechases were the weirdest I've ever seen. The courses were somewhat challenging, but not really awful--and a couple of dogs were very fast but not that many of them-- but what was weird was that so many 22" and 26" dogs failed to have non-Eliminating (offcourse) runs, that they had to combine the two heights to determine qualification! Only 6 of 13 26" dogs avoided Eing, and only 6 out of 29 22" dogs qualified! That is sooooo weird, at least around here. (We often have to combine 12" and 16", and both performance groups also--all of which we also had to do--but I've never seen so many 26 and 22" dogs crap out.)

So Round 2 was filled out with dogs who hadn't qualified (Steeplechase rules send a certain minimum number to Rd 2 in each height), but we didn't even have enough non-Eing dogs in some heights to fill out the minimum numbers!

And then in Round 2, it got even weirder--never seen a steeplechase Rd 2 where most placements were taken by dogs who merely survived--large number of dogs Eed and a good portion of the remaining had faults.

For those who care about the details, in Performance, only ONE dog in each of 8", 12", and 16" ended up taking home a check (and there were supposed to be 3 each); only the four 22" dogs survived.

And at the Championship level, the 16" and 26" each had only TWO dogs to survive for the money payout, and only 4 22"s. So the club kept a whole lot of extra award money (per the rules).
Anyway--odd.

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Runs from this weekend

SUMMARY: summarytext

Tika's Saturday Standard

Tika doesn't bother stopping for contact zones but is fairly solidly in them. I look completely uncoordinated in these videos. On the field, I feel like I'm sprinting alongside the dogwalk, but here it looks like I'm jogging, and not very well.

She knocks a bar near the end, obviously because I'm not telegraphing the front cross/change of direction well. At the very end, you can see her diving in to grab my feet as usual.

Boost's Saturday Standard

Same course as Tika. It was a Qualifier, but not lovely:
1. After the weaves, there's a tunnel then a jump. She comes to me instead of going over the jump, then barely makes it, then turns right instead of towards the Aframe and I sort of reach over the jump to push her away from backjumping.
2. Three jumps after the dogwalk, she wants to go around but I extend my arm over the jump area again to bring her in.
3. On the table, you can hear the judge pause several times as her elbows come up.
4. The next to the last jump, you can see her starting to look back at me instead of looking for jumps.

Boost's Steeplechase

This is a more typical round:
1. Runouts galore.
2. Pops out of weaves and I can't get control of her to put her back into the correct place and finally give up and take the E just so I can go on.
3. Leaves the A-frame without a release word both times and I make her lie down until she stays down long enough that I was able to release her.
4. At the end, looking back at me and turning back to me.


Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties with the volunteer videographer, Tika's lovely Steeplechase (with bad A-frames) looks remarkably like the inside of a lens cap.

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Tika Status and Chasing That Steeple

SUMMARY: How Tika's feeling and Why we didn't qualify.

After 24 hours of drugs (Monday evening), Tika's feeling better enough to play plenty of fetch, but jumping hurts (e.g., bouncy tug-of-war, jumping for joy at dinnertime). Still licking. But eating fine. Definitely subdued from the painkiller between bouts of playing. Have an appointment with my regular vet Tuesday morning at 8:30 to decide what to do next. In theory, this post will magically post itself while I'm gone.

Meanwhile--more from this weekend. It's interesting to dissect what I can specifically work on with each dog, after rewatching the videos of their Round 1 Steeplechase. Boost: the slightest lateral lead-out. Getting her to look ahead for obstacles instead of back at me, which is in some part what seems to cause missed obstacles. (But I already knew both those things.)

For Tika, she was 4.5 seconds under time but had a knocked bar, preventing her from Qing. But as I watch, I see all kinds of places where she's turning a little wider or a little slower, or both, than she needs to, and taking an extra step or two before jumps, and I'm thinking while watching and listening to myself, that it's because she's not getting the info that she needs from me in a timely fashion. Probably the same thing with Boost, just exhibiting it differently. There was plenty of room for Tika to run a couple of seconds faster on that course.

And me: I look like I'm running to protect my knees, kind of sliding along on the flats of my feet. Among other things. I've been trying to practice staying on my toes and pumping my arms forward and back, not side to side, but it doesn't seem to stick during a run. And I'm just not getting to where I need to be! Plus there are those extra 15 pounds from this last winter...

Anyway, if you're interested, you can watch for things like that (although I realize it's hard with this small video image).

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Steeplechase and Team Courses

SUMMARY: Several courses were interesting in their challenges this weekend. Here are some.

Steeplechase, both rounds

Round 1 of the Steeplechase on Saturday I enjoyed because it had a pleasing sort of symmetry to it and it also ran fast and smooth.

Round 2 on Sunday was more challenging. In particular, the broad jump tucked up into the corner of the ring gave a lot of people problems, in part because they were starting their motion for the turn early, pulling their dogs too soon, and in part because it was aimed straight into the corner, where dogs don't usually like to go (although there was no solid wall there). Many dogs hit the spreads in the broad jump, and a few went between the side poles.

Round 2 seemed to invite knocked bars, and people also dealt with the 16-17-18 sequence in various ways, and some had trouble with it (going from Aframe to #10).

The entry to the weaves also proved to be a time-waster for a number of people whose dogs missed it, and it was handled in several ways: Running from the start with the dog on your right and pulling, starting with the dog on your right and doing a front cross between 3 and 4, leading out to the right side of #3 and treating #3 as a serpentine (which I did with both of my dogs and had no trouble at all with the weave entry).

Team Standard

This course provided a tremendous number of off-course opportunities and less dire handling challenges, and I believe that nearly half the dogs eliminated on this one.

The 1-2-3-4 sequence gave some people problems; there were offcourses after 3 both to the Aframe and into the tunnel. Most people had no trouble with the 4-5-6, although Tika (on my right) almost went into the RIGHT end of #6, which I hadn't anticipated, but somehow she stopped before putting a foot in the tunnel, leaped OVER the dogwalk (gulp!) and ducked into the correct end of #6, earning only a runout for 2 faults. I think I saw a couple of other dogs hit the end of the dogwalk instead of going into the #6.

The spot that had the largest clot of people standing and discussing during the walkthrough was the approach to the dogwalk. Most people saw that taking your dog to the right of jump #7 made the approach to the dogwalk extremely difficult, which also made the tunnel to its right extremely inviting (and many dogs ended up there), so most people opted to turn the dog left around #7. That left the question of how to (a) avoid the #20 as an offcourse--which not everyone avoided--and (b) how to get them up the dogwalk instead of into the tunnel, where an unmanaged turn would take the dog. Many people did a front cross between 6 and 7, which wasn't impossible to get to but many people just barely got into place in time and some missed, resulting in various other problems. Some put in an additional front cross between 7 and the dogwalk and then rear crossed the dogwalk, putting them way behind for the push to #9.

I opted for the front cross before 7, did a hard RFP after 7 to be sure the dog came in right next to the upright, then pulled way back to give them a lot of room to the dogwalk and gave the "climb!" command. Both dogs executed perfectly.

The next problem area was 9-10-11-12. Some dogs missed #10, some missed #11, some hit the Aframe or the tunnel on their way through. With Tika, I front crossed between 9 and 10, sent her to 10, and basically serp'ed 11, rear crossing 12. With Boost, I was concerned that she wouldn't catch the 11 if I were on that far side and that she'd then get confused and skip the tire. So I also put in a front cross between 10 and 11, which I had no trouble getting to (and several others also did), but didn't work #11 well and she just skimmed right past it full speed and into the tire. (I drew an incorrect line on the course map above; she did take 10 and went straight to 12.)

16 to 17 gave a few people problems, although most anticipated that you had to call your dog a bit coming out of the tunnel to get to 17.

Team Snooker

This was an interesting one to watch, and we all got to do so, because the trial ran only one ring at a time. This was a rare, cleverly designed course where the plan wasn't obvious (although many people did variants on the same thing) and, furthermore, where the course was challenging enough all the way through that people's scores ranged fairly smoothly all the way from 0 to the highest of around 54. The crowd cheered for almost every success within the course, or whenever anyone made it through the opening, or certainly for the few who made it all the way through the closing (some ran out of time, too).

Most people started with the red in the lower right followed by the Aframe, although occasionally they opted for the weaves, to the red in the lower left. A few people went from the lower right all the way to the #4 tunnel. I don't remember seeing anyone starting on any other red, or going counterclockwise around the course.

Next was either the #4 tunnel or going around the back of #4 and picking up 6b and 6a.

The path varied among 5s and 6s depending on the dog and whether the handler was doing 3 or 4 reds, usually involving doing either the 5s or the 6s and then running outside past the 5a or 6a to the other red. For example, you could do: red-aframe-red-around the 4 to 6b, 6a, turn left to the upper left red, do 6b 6a again, go around to the upper right red, and do 5a-5b-2.

Most people ended the opening on the 5a (from either side) to 5b and into the #2 tunnel.

My planned path was 1-7-1-4-1 (upper left), around the outside of 6a, to 5a/5b/2 with Boost, and to 5a/5b/red (upper right)/5a/5b with Tika.

Tika, however, went 1-7-4, although I thought I had plenty of time and room to call her away from the tunnel by pulling, rather than by front crossing after the Aframe. Apparently I was wrong. She did hesitate and look at me, and then I moved, thinking I had her, and she was gone. She was far from the only one who bit that.

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Things Is Looking Pretty Good Here

SUMMARY: Tika has a good weekend and Boost improves.

The weekend was mostly sunny, with a chill breeze, rising to a frigid wind in the afternoon. The shade fabric bellied out like the canopy was making way for Tortuga. This is a site where you have to stake your canopy very well. I know of only one that took flight on this weekend, but there may have been others. Cold fingers, working the score table! But good for running dogs.



Because Tika had been so sore earlier in the week, I scratched her from all but three runs a day. She seemed to thrive, either because she was jealous of Boost getting so many runs, or because of the wind, or because she was just feeling good. On Saturday, She qualified in Jumpers (that's four in a row! Amazing!) without placing. She got very excited for her Gamblers run and I decided to even put her over two dogwalks (something I usually avoid for her in Gamblers) plus two A-frames, and she got all four (barely), and fast, too, not slowing to a cautious pace. Didn't get the gamble, though--I didn't handle it well.

AND Tika qualified in Steeplechase! Two weekends in a row! Now *that's* astonishing. We were 6th of 7 Qing dogs, so again just a little over a second under qualifying time, but I'll take it!

On Sunday, she and her pairs partner ran clean and placed third of 32 teams, woo! She did Snooker, and earned a Qualifying score and again seemed happy and driven, but a little matter of an Aframe flyoff kept her out of the placements. At the very end of the day, we were last in the scheduled runs for Jumpers, with Steeplechase to follow quickly thereafter. I almost pulled her from Jumpers because I wanted her full effort for Steeplechase, but when she came out of her crate and started playing like a lunatic with her frisbee, I decided to leave her in. Glad I did--she won! One of our very few 1st places in Masters--our fifth. Not a huge class, only 17 dogs, but--OK, I'll take that, too! So that's FIVE Jumpers in a row.

And then, for Steeplechase Round 2, she again went for the frisbee with gusto instead of wanting to sniff at the ground. She had a lovely run, although I didn't give enough notice on one turn and she went VERY wide. That probably made a difference in our placement, because she took 3rd and the difference in time between 1st and 4th was only about a second. (Of the fastest two dogs from round 1, one scratched and one had a 5-point fault, knocking them out of the running.) So we got another lovely placement ribbon and another small handful of money to take home.

So she Qed 5 of 6 and placed in 3 of 4 runs today. A very good USDAA weekend for Tika.

Boost had a few stretches or full runs that looked very smooth. Still bobbles with some hesitation or turning the wrong way afterwards, still bars coming down, but not so haphazard and confused-looking as it was even just 3 weeks ago. She had I think the second highest opening points in Gamblers, but the gamble was beyond me and Tika, so I really bungled it with Boost.

Her weaves were spotty--did two sets of 6 in Saturday's snooker, made her entry in Saturday Standard but popped out early, did them beautifully in Steeplechase Round 1 after first turning back to me because she was so far ahead. In fact, other than that and running past the last jump before I caught her and brought her back, her Steeplechase run was lovely--and, despite the two bobbles, Qualified!

That's The Booster's first Steeplechase Q. Her sister, Bette, also qualified with a similar time--we were 13th and 14th out of 15 Qs.

On Sunday, she had a very nice Relay run, with only one runout, but her partner was off-course, so no Q. Her weaves were nice in the relay (6 poles); in Standard, she made the first pole and then turned back to me, then after entering correctly, popped out at the end (our only fault in that class! Dang!). But in Steeplechase Round 2, she did two full sets of weaves perfectly without a blink, with no babysitting.

Furthermore--her Steeplechase run was a thing of beauty! Fast, focused, only one brief hesitation before a jump where I didn't get my front cross in, probably added a second or so to our time--but her time at 29.60 was faster than the winning dog at 29.72. (Compare to the fastest dog--who had faults--at 27.81, and Tika's time of 33.09.) A beautiful, beautiful run with only one, er, well, tiny fault--she cut the corner on the broad jump for an off-course. (I wouldn't have bothered to try bringing her back to correct it even if I could have possibly pulled her away from doing the following tunnel.) The run felt good! She looked good! And she proved that she really does have that speed, even with a 2-on/2-off Aframe. It was a truly lovely way to end the weekend.

So--only the one Steeplchase Q for her, but lots of promising things.



A fun side note is that, of the 7 26" dogs in Round 2, four were from our Thursday night class; one scratched and the rest of us placed 2nd/3rd/4th.

And I had lots more I was going to talk about--what a great group of people to work with at the trials and how they make me laugh; other friends' successes; bittersweet visiting with an agility friend who's back in town because her husband (also agility) recently passed away. Hearing all weekend at the trial how well Ashley and Luka were doing at the AKC tryouts for this year's World Team, and how they won today, thank goodness; as someone else commented, they're the right team for the job, they do so well so consistently and he seems unflappable. The dogs chasing Ken The Gadget Man's (owner of the Segway I rode the other week) kite. Miscellany like that. But I'm exhausted. To bed.

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It All Turns Out OK

SUMMARY: Tika's aches, Boost's weaves, generally an OK day.

It's funny that a day with no qualifying scores and with Tika turning up too sore to run again can end up feeling so successful.

Last night when we got home, I put Boost through some weaves, which she of course did perfectly. Then I really revved her up, held back on her collar, whacked at her with a toy that she just couldn't quite get, blasted her through the same tunnel twice and then launched her at the weaves--and Lo! she missed her entry! Whereupon I picked her right up (which she grumbled about) and walked her around telling her to cut out being lazy about her entries. And then I hoped the lesson would stick for the morning.

Pairs Relay: Tika had a lovely run in the morning, clean and smooth but not superfast; no Q because of partner's off-course, but these things happen. Boost made her weave pole entrance! Woo! But popped out early. I made her stop and wait and then go back in and fix the last couple of poles, hoping the lesson would stick. Then she blasted past a tough-angled jump and to the next obstacle for an offcourse (sorry, partner), then she left her Aframe before I released her, and I made her Down (several times because she kept popping back up in front of me every time I moved).

Standard: Tika wouldn't play tug with me during warm-up, which looked uncomfortably similar to the other times when she has then been too sore to run. Knowing that she'd Drama-Queen me if I were to be solicitous, I just acted as if everything was fine. I led out, did a release and pivoted. She started out slow, knocked the 2nd jump, slowed even more over the next two jumps, then came to a complete stop. Yikes. Of course this would be a day when she's in Round 2 of Steeplechase and guaranteed a cash prize if she could just complete the run. We of course left the ring.

Boost had quite a credible run. She actually entered her weaves correctly and stayed in all the way to the end. That alone was great, after yesterday's weaving disasters. She also stuck every one of her contacts until I released her. AND although she knocked two bars and did one spin before the last jump when she was way ahead of me, one bar I yelled over, and the other was just a little tip, not a major hit, and overall it was a lovely, smooth, masters-type run for The Booster. I felt good about it.

Jumpers: I scratched Tika from this class. Gave her a good massage and stretched her joints (which, incidentally, she loved), gave her a doggie aspirin, let her rest. Boost came so close to Qing that I could almost scream--it was lovely! She did run past one jump, and I backed up until she was in a position to take it (I'm trying to remember instructor's instructions to "don't leave the scene of the crime--make her take those jumps!"), and there were a couple of very tiny hesitations that I noticed but that weren't actual refusals, and she kept all her bars up, and it was wonderful how it all came together! If we're not careful, someday we might actually get a Standard or Jumpers leg.

Steeplechase: Steeplechase was even more interesting--of the 4 other dogs in her height, Cap is a perennial tournament winner locally and double finalist at Scottsdale last year, Maja is another perennial tournament winner, national finalist, and world cup member, Aiko is a former Steeplechase Nationals champion, Hobbes is a USDAA Top Ten dog and Nationals finalist. And they're all Border Collies. Tika is just Tika. In the first round, three of the four were in the 27-second range; Tika was at 32. I knew I couldn't make up that much speed; I could just try to handle well, try to excite her, and see whether everyone else crapped out. Well--Cap hurt his toe Saturday and so scratched, leaving only 4 of us.

I walked the Steeplechase course a couple of times quickly and then went back to Tika while the walk-through continued. There were only 8 dogs before Tika, so I gave her another bit of massaging and joint stretching, a little trotting around, then tricked her by pulling out the frisbee instead of the usual prerun Riot Tug, and she came out just bouncy and boingy and rarin' to go. So I went ahead and ran her.

She ran clean. Not an inspired round for speed, and I think she looked at little wonky in the weaves, but that's two clean Steeplechase rounds in one weekend--pretty rare for us!

Then--Maja eliminated, Hobbes had a 5-point fault, and Aiko almost went off-course into the wrong end of a tunnel, but saved the run--still a second faster than Tika, but leaving us with a 2nd place ribbon and a cash award that would actually do more than just buy lunch.

Taj MuttHall Mom is pretty happy, although with that nagging worry about what's going on with Tika. Time will tell--

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When You Wish Upon A Star

SUMMARY: Tika has a good day. Boost? Well-- Oh, and dogs' names, too.

Sometimes fantasies DO become realities. Tika earned that Grand Prix that I wanted for her, with a 5th place out of about 22 in her height. She earned that Snooker Q to complete her Snooker Silver (25 masters snooker legs), and did it in style in 4th place with a Super-Q. AND she ran clean in Steeplechase, being one of only five 26" dogs out of 21 to go on to round 2, ending a one-year dry spell (same trial last year) AND completing her Tournament Master Gold! Whoo! She got extra treats! Plus if we can avoid Eing tomorrow we're guaranteed to be in the money! A whole 3% of the purse for 5th place again!

She didn't get ANYTHING that I DIDn't ask for--completely crashed through the first bar in Standard, don't know why, although the rest of the run was nice, and had an excellent Gambler's opening but I got ahead of her when the first whistle blew and so had to come to a complete stop to send her, so she pulled off the gamble obstacle.

Boost's day can be summed up in two words, one consisting of a variety of emphatic puncutation marks: #%$&*@ weaves! She either mucked the entry, or popped out early, or sometimes both, or in the Steeplechase 6 or 7 times from a down-stay BEFORE the weave poles all in one run! And I waited around for 90 minutes or more for that run!

What am I to do? (That's a rhetorical question--I'm working on it--but meanwhile what passes for my wits are nearing a terminus...)

But the weather was nice, I was among friends, pal Apache and his dad finished their ADCH, Boost actually had a couple of runs that were very smooth with no refusals on jumps and made me feel like I was running a masters dog instead of a babydog, and she DID get the gamble although over time because we were out in the middle of the course HAVING ANOTHER DISCUSSION ABOUT POPPING OUT OF THE #%$&*@ WEAVES! ARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh...

And speaking of ellipses--We discussed dogs whose names contain punctuation. Today there was "Rowdy!" and another California agility dog is "Tally Ho!". I said what about a dog named "." (pronounced "Dot")? Do you think that every secretary would call when you sent in your entry to say that you didn't give the dog's name? What would the gate steward call when they saw "." on the running order list? Or would they think it was a typo? And, hey, how about a dog named "ellipses" that was spelled like this: "..."?? Wouldn't it just be a blast chiding USDAA and CPE and all those other organizations for not spelling your dog's name right?

Then we got around to a dog who, after he wins the National Championships or maybe has his photo on the cover of Clean Run or otherwise now becomes famous, changes his name from a run-of-the-mill traditional dog name to a sort of a bone symbol on a stick something like this and now he's known as "The dog formerly known as Prince"? Wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't you want to be trial secretary dealing with TDFNP's owner who wanted the symbol correctly on the page? (Thanks to my fellow scoretableist for the Prince idea. You can hit her if you want--it's not my fault!)

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Dang Steeplechase

SUMMARY: Dang Steeplechase.

I thought for a moment that Tika had completed her Tournament Master Gold this weekend, but noooo-- she needs one more Steeplechase for that. Faugh! We cannot run a clean steeplechase to save our lives. We also have earned only one Steeplechase Q in the last year and a half. For us, it's not the TIME; she's plenty fast enough as the following table shows. It's just that, when she's between 0 and 5 seconds under time, we earn a 5-point fault, which (scoring on time plus faults) puts us out of the running; when she is more than 5 seconds under time so that we actually have room for a 5-point fault, she earns 10 faults. And, gadzooks, the couple of times that we haven't earned faults--we run past a thing or two, wasting enough time to put us over time!

We are so bloody consistent in our failure strategy! I wish I could be so consistent n a SUCCESS strategy!

Here it is in ugly black and white since September 2006. I say again, faugh!

Qual	our time	SCT	under time by (Neg=over)	faults	notes	best time
n	36.4	40.19	n/a	E	offcourse	31.71
n	34.44	40.46	6.02	10	2 bars	32.13
n	41.76	38.42	-3.34		ran beyond Afr and past a tunnel (lots of wasted time)	29.84
n	37.3	43.05	5.75	10	2 bars	32.65
n	39.98	39.04	-0.94		bobbled BOTH weave entries	30.1
Q	39.68	40.43	0.75		bobbled one weave entry	31.64
n			n/a	E	offcourse
n	32.96	37.92	4.96	10	2 bars	29.61
n	34.51	35.66	1.15	5	bar and pulled her past a jump (wasted time)	27.59
n	28.86	35.2	6.34	10	hit broad & bar	26.94
n	30.69	32.72	2.03	5	popped Afr	24.82
n			n/a	E	offcourse
n	37.24	37.29	0.05	5	bar	28.95

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Weekend Courses

SUMMARY: Some interesting courses from the Haute TRACS event.

Here's a selection of interesting courses from this weekend. Coincidentally, they also are all from different judges (also judging, Tami McClung).

Team Snooker

I like Snookers that give people a lot of reasonable options so that everyone isn't running virtually the same course over and over. That's hard to do. Tammy did a nice job with this one by making 3 and 7 (and 4 of course) one-way-only during opening and closing and 2, 5, and 6 usable from any direction, any which way. Time was 50 secs for large dogs, 55 for 16", and 60 for 12".

The 4, 5, 6, and 7 were most-frequently used in the opening in various combinations. I had a two-part strategy: Find something that flows fairly nicely so I didn't have to be doing call-offs and threadles between obstacles, and secondly, hope that everyone else trying to do more complicated things crap out. Hence, my plan was (as numbered on the map) middle red to #2 to right red to #4 teeter, to left red to #5, to upper red. After that, I veered onto the dogwalk #7 for Boost because she has fast & reliable contacts, and #6 for Tika because her dogwalk up and down are iffy but her weaves are good.

It worked well except that Boost slid off the dogwalk on the way up (I guess I didn't line her up well, although she also slid off the dogwalk in the Standard ring later, and the teeter later, too) so I had to go back and redo it, and then she knocked the bar on #3 in the closing. She actually did a great job of sending out to the red after the teeter and then swinging around and sending ahead of me to the #5 pinwheel--except she knocked one of the bars there. Still, no refusals that I remember.

And I was already feeling stupid and lethargic in Tika's closing and didn't bother lining her up for the #4 teeter, so she came on from the side above the contact, earning a whistle.

Huh, I forgot to note what the higher or typical scores were for this class; sorry. Will fix that when the results are posted online.

Team Gamblers

Team Gamblers is always interesting because it's nontraditional. Funny that a USDAA friend commented to me recently that she wasn't that fond of CPE nontraditional gambles because you always had to figure out new rules, whereas traditional gambles you don't--but everyone accepts and generally likes to play Team Gambles, which are exactly the same concept as CPE nontraditional gambles. (Judge invents something. Period.)

This was a how-greedy-are-you kind of gamble. Big dogs had 30 seconds. The Aframe was worth zero, BUT it doubled any points that you had gotten up to that point. You could do it once, and then continue earning points as usual until the whistle blew. Attempting it and blowing it did nothing except waste time. However, the gotcha was this: If your dog was on the Aframe in any way at all (e.g., even holding a 2-on, 2-off) when the whistle blew, you lost EVERYTHING.

Also, if you did the weaves as a gamble from behind the line, they were worth 7 instead of 5.

Many people did some part of this sequence: tire-teeter-jump(to the left)-tire-teeter-"get to the weaves"-weaves-tunnel-weaves-jump-Aframe, where "get to the weaves" is either the tunnel or the 3 jumps after the teeter. If you completed ALL of it successfully, this sequence earned you 78 points. Most people didn't try for the whole sequence, maybe leaving out the tire at the beginning (which I left out for Tika but did with Boost), or going directly from the first weaves to the jump-Aframe, etc.

Highest score was 89, good lord, I have no idea how they managed it--even doing that sequence and then doing the tunnel under the Aframe twice would've been only 84 points and you'd have to be really really really fast to do that.

Typical scores were in the 60-64 range. Both my dogs popped out of their first set of weaves, dagnabbit, must be something in the water and not something their handler was doing. Tika ended up with 64 points, placing 19th of 43; Boost had 60, placing 28th of 73. (ANd I'm still puzzled because I thought she did 2 points MORE than Tika! Never had time to go back and check the scribe sheet.)

Grand Prix

The Grand Prix had about a 50% Qualifying rate, I believe, but very few of those were clean qualifiers. I think that only about 4 dogs out of 44 in Tika's jump height, for example, had clean runs, although a bunch qualified with 5 faults.

A lot of people had problems of one sort or another in the sequence between the dogwalk and the #15 tunnel. There was much debate about whether to send the dog to #13, and serpentine #14 into the tunnel, but I think it was tighter in reality than it looks on paper. Some people front crossed between 13 and 14 and pulled into 15; some did front crosses in both places.

Tika flew off the dogwalk while I stopped flat-footed in an attempt to get her to make the contact, then when I called her hard, she knocked the bar on #13 but still didn't turn in time to avoid the runout line on #14, so within 2 obstacles we had 15 faults. The rest was nice.

Boost was having weave pole issues a lot the first day, including here.

Another problem area for people was the 10-11-12 sequence. I handled it by running on the far side of the dogwalk, rear crossing the tunnel, and catching up to my dog for a wrap to the dogwalk. They both slowed and looked back at me, but weren't close enough to 11 for a refusal. Tika pushed/wrapped nicely, but Boost looking back at me put her into multiple-refusal-land, and this is the point in the course where I finally left. Ashley's the only one I saw who did it on that same side AND got a front cross in before the #10 tunnel. Most people ran on this side of the dogwalk, with the dog veering off towards the tire before the handler got there, sometimes taking it for an offcourse, or ended up backjumping the #11, either before or after taking it the correct way.

Coming out of the #15 tunnel to #16, an amazing number of dogs headed straight for the chute or the #20 final jump (again indicating that the actual layout was slightly different from the course map). Some dogs went around #17 or #18 or both. The #6 to #7 caused some off courses at #3. The 7-8-9 caused some off courses onto the dogwalk.

In short, lots of opportunities to screw up.

There were

Steeplechase

The Steeplechase really wiped people out. There were some, like me, who took the Aframe path after the first set of weave poles instead of the correct path. The biggest challenge was the 12-13-14. Lots of dogs had problems with the broad jump itself, and many dogs went into the wrong end of the #14 tunnel. There were some offcourses from 10-11 over the 18 or 3, but not as many as you might think, as those were fairly obvious problems that people were prepared for.

The #5-6-7 also gave problems. I think that the jump was further to the right, in reality, so a lot of dogs were pulling past it on the left as the handler broke off towards the weaves.

Many many many missed weave entries, particularly after the #6, and it's not entirely clear to me why, unless the dog was heading for the tunnel and so came in at an odd angle. Tika had no problem. Boost made the entry but skipped the next pole, but she's been doing that a lot lately so I don't think it had much to do with the course.

Fastest times were in the mid-28-seconds, posted by Cap, Luka, and...uh...I should remember but don't (having worked that score table most of the day--wow what a long class, 5 hours!). Those fast times plus the high fault and offcourse rate kept the number of qualifiers very low, it seems to me.

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USDAA Weekend Brief Results

SUMMARY: Not what I had hoped for, but there are signs of hope.

What I hoped for on friday and what I actually got:

• Tika:
• Hoped for: Steeplechase Q. Got: No Steeplechase Q. (Knocked 2 bars.)
• Hoped for: Grand Prix win. Got: 5-fault Q. (This extends our lifetime GP Qs to two clean Qs and 17 5-point Qs. Arrrrghhh!)
• Hoped for: Wins or at least placements in everything else. Got: Q/5th place in Saturday Standard (for 1 whole top-10 point); 2nd place and Super-Q in Snooker Sunday (for 7 top-ten points); I'm quite pleased with the latter. (And 4 non-Qs and 2 other nonplacing Qs.)
• Boost:
• Hoped for: Grand Prix Q or Steeplechase Q or preferably both. Got: Neither.
• Hoped for: Pairs Q and Standard Q. Got: Neither.
• Hoped for: Good weave poles. Got: Mixed bag. She missed almost all--but not all--of her weave entrances, but, once in, popped out only 3 times, and I made it a point to do weaves in gambles & snookers for lots of opportunities. So--not as bad as some prior trials. But *weaves alone* kept us from a Steeplechase Q, and *weaves alone* kept us from a Standard Q on Saturday. Sigh.
• Hoped for: Move up to Masters before Bay Team next weekend. Got: Enough Gamblers and Snookers Qs that we can--and will--move up to Masters in those.

Now I am exhausted and heading to bed.

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Another Three Days of USDAA

SUMMARY: Tika 5 Qs including Team; Boost only one, but finally nailed weaves. Plus rain. Plus the usual post-trial whining.

For the third year in a row, I'm so glad that I didn't sign up for all four days of Haute TRACS. Three days is just too much, plus when I miss the Steeplechase cut so narrowly by stupid handler mistakes, I don't think I could sit and watch it and really enjoy it. In addition, I've taken the opportunity today to dry everything out--but I get ahead of myself.

Wednesday night

Wednesday night I fell asleep at home pretty quickly, with the alarm set for 4 a.m. But I woke suddenly about 1 a.m. with the horrid realization that I hadn't sent in my entry for the SMART trial in 2 weeks, with Grand Prix and Steeplechase qualifiers, and closing was the next day. I had to get up, fill out the forms, send email to the secretary, make copies to take with me in case the sec was there this weekend, and stamp and address an envelope.

Then I couldn't get back to sleep. Finally gave up about quarter to four, assembled myself, and headed on out to Dixon May Fairgrounds, so I looked and felt my best that morning-- I wanted to run like the all-American competitor-- man, I wanted, I wanted to feel like-- I wanted to BE the all American agility competitor.

Thursday

I had entered Boost and Tika in everything, which gave me 14 runs on Thursday (5 for DAM Team plus Standard and Jumpers). AND I was signed up to be co-chief ring steward in one ring with Boost's sister Bette's mom, Mary. The site was laid out in four rings end-to-end with a large swath between them with a roadway, grass, and vendor booths. It was a long walk. The DAM and Masters runs were in three of the rings and Advanced (in which Boost and Bette were entered) were in the fourth, far ring.

I did a lot of walking. Pedometer said 14 miles on Thursday. I hardly ever sat down. Apparently we were supposed to be avoiding using the loudspeaker very much to avoid annoying the neighbors, so there were only occasional announcements. Thank goodness that three of the rings were synchronized, but trying to keep an eye on Starters vs. Advanced in the far ring and set up ring crew for 12 rotations in our ring was overwhelming. Fortunately Mary didn't have a dog in Masters, so she ended up doing most of the work.

Tika teamed with Brenn (from our National finalist team last year) and a Papillon, Roxee, run by Rob, a very experienced handler--has been doing agility since the very early '90s, so almost from the beginning of the sport in the U.S. But Roxee's still a bit of a wildcard--still young, and trained by his owner who can't physically run her. Still, we asked them to join us for fun. 53 teams entered, which meant that at least 27 teams would qualify for nationals. Since Team consists of five full classes, you really don't want to have to keep paying for and trying to Q over and over.

Team Standard course was murder: fully half of all dogs eliminated, and since Team is all about not eliminating (if you want to qualify), the fact that Brenn and Tika both had lovely runs (Tika with a bar down)--although Roxee Eed--meant that we were above average to start with. Our team rated 18th of 53 in this class.

Team Jumpers also killed a lot of dogs. I think that, as the day went on and people watched earlier handlers making fatal mistakes, the non-E rate improved, so that there were fewer than 50% Eing. Although Roxee again Eed and Brenn had a couple of bars down, Tika's clean, fairly fast run and Brenn's fairly fast time placed us 10th in the Jumpers class, which surprised me immensely.

In the afternoon, we moved on to Team Gamblers, in which I once again found a course that I really liked for Tika both in the opening and closing, we executed it perfectly with no bobbles or complaints from the girl that I wasn't being clear, and we placed individually 2nd of 39 dogs; Brenn's score was good and Roxee's low but not terrible, and our team placed 18th.

In Tika's Team Snooker, I chose a not-too-aggressive course that I thought Tika and I could handle easily, with only one oddball turn and angle off to one of the Reds, but while Tika was in the weaves, I apparently started looking for that red because she popped out of the weaves, and we fumbled around a bit to get back in--and then, disoriented, I put her back over the red we had just come over. So we had only 8 points on a course where pretty much everyone was going for four reds and doing well, so we essentially Eed on that course. Brenn did well but Roxee backjumped after getting 24 points and our team was only 42nd of 53 in this class.

Typically, you can still Q if your team collectively has only one E, and sometimes with 2, but almost never with 3 Es, and we already had 3 Es with the Team Relay still to go, which is very heavily weighted. None-the-less, because so many dogs had Eed in Standard and Jumpers, we were in 17th place before the Relay, which meant that probably if we managed to avoid any one of us Eing, we'd be among the 27 Qing teams.

I don't remember exactly who did what in the relay--Brenn might have had a bar down--Roxee popped out of the weaves and almost went off course before Rob could get her back and fix the problem and then had a refusal somewhere, too-- But overall it was a pretty easy course so almost no one Eed on it, which meant then that your team's time was the critical factor in placing within the Relay, and with the bobbles and our generally conservative approach, we were a mere 35th in the Relay--

BUT combining the five events with their weighted values, we ended up 20th, safely in the Q zone. Woo hoo.

Boost's Team Snooker was more of a disaster. I had been feeling pretty confident with Boost when we set up the team--after all, she had done well enough for a baby dog at the Nationals in November and had finished her novice title in just a couple of trials. But we've not been doing so well in Advanced.

In Team Standard, none of the three of us went off-course, which was astounding on that course with three young dogs. However, Boost had 3 bars down and 5 (!) refusals, and 3 refusals automatically becomes an E. And Bette kept popping out of the weaves, so their run was almost 70 seconds, which cost us a lot of points. But Maiya's run was lovely and we were 30th of 53 in that class. And Boost in fact had no problems whatsoever with the weaves, which I'd been worried about since that's been our bugaboo this year. It was everything else that messed us up!

Team Jumpers proved problematic for both Boost and Bette, both of us Eing, but Maiya was beautiful again. Team Snooker was going OK for us until Boost knocked a red in the opening, I had to scramble to rearrange my course plan on the fly, and I couldn't call her off an off course. So we had only 17 points on a course where the best dogs were getting 59--OK, better than Tika, but not much. Bette had problems even earlier, but Maiya hung on for 43 points. That was our lowest point, placing overall 47th of 53. But at least we weren't last!

In Team Gamblers, I don't know what we did at the end of our opening but I know that we got more points than what showed on the scribe sheet and possibly a lot more. BUT in the closing we bobbled the weaves badly and got no gamble points. Bette did the weaves successfully so had a bunch more points, and Maiya did well, but overall none of us were stellar, so we ranked 41st in this class.

For Team Relay, Boost and Bette redeemed themselves partially in this high-value class by running fast and clean, Boost even doing weaves again, but Maiya went off course, for a change of pace. We placed 43rd in the Relay and 43rd overall, a long way from the 27th cutoff to qualify.

In Normal Land, Tika's Master Standard was beautiful and fast but she knocked the next-to-last bar. Masters Jumpers got us an E in an odd way. I had walked it at the same time as the Team Jumpers, and when I raced up to ringside with Tika after various conflicts, I had one dog to look at the course, and I couldn't remember it! So as I walked Tika out, put her in a sit-stay behind the starting jump, and walked out to my lead-out position past the 2nd jump, I was still looking around the course, trying to remember my path. When I turned around, Tika was waiting to go--in a crouch BETWEEN the first and second jumps.

Well, I had no idea whether she had gone over the first jump, but it didn't really matter, as this meant that she had left the start line without any ready signal from me of the least kind. So I walked her back to her crate and that was that.

Boost's Advanced Jumpers and Advanced Standard runs were generally chaotic, with no course faults on the Standard but so many corrections of runouts and such that we were over time. Oddly enough, only 3 of 11 dogs ran clean on that course, so we actually placed fourth.

I fell asleep instantly and slept soundly Thursday night in the back of my van. I've always slept with my head behind the driver's seat, and every time it feels as if the van slopes slightly downward, so my feet are higher than my head, and every time I'm too exhausted to want to get up and move my pillow to the rear. This time I remembered while setting up. It was much more comfortable in that direction for many reasons.

Friday

Started out cool like Thursday, but not quite as cool, and got fairly warm as the day wore on. Only five runs per dog, but one was the Grand Prix qualifier. Tika knocked a bar on a tough opening where a large percentage of dogs went off course. Then somehow we ended up with a refusal at a jump, which right there put us out of Qualifying, and then when I got her turned around again and made a U-turn to the dogwalk, she slipped on the up ramp and took quite a nasty-looking, twisting spill, hitting the dogwalk on her way off the side. It knocked the breath out of ME, seeing that happen, but she bounced up, twice as excited as before, so with the judge's encouragement, I put her back on the dogwalk and we finished nicely. Boost was a handful. Seems that we were running past or fixing or refusing or redoing every third or fourth obstacle all the way around, and we managed an E one way or another. The judge bipped over to us as Boost was holding on the Aframe (after our E) and asked in a friendly voice whether this was a baby-dog. Really? Was it obvious? Sigh. This puppy just might not compete in Nationals this year.

In other news, Tika's Master Gamblers I bobbled a rear cross, pulling Tika off a teeter, resulting in us missing finishing the weaves for points by 2 poles, and then the gamble was virtually identical to the one at our CPE trial, where I managed to send her from #1 directly to #4, and despite thinking I was handling it differently, I managed to do the same thing again. There went our first chance at dreams of glory of staying in the USDAA Top 25 for a while longer. If we had finished the weaves and made the gamble, we might have been placed high enough for a couple of TT points, but not way up there anyway. We Qed in Relay with Brenn with a couple of my bobbles that wasted time (9th of 43 teams, not bad but it's always better to get a ribbon).

Tika Qed in Standard with a nice, flowing, but not super-driven run. Still, it was 5th of 23 dogs, so I think that's enough for 1 more TT point there--AND that finished her Standard Championship (10 masters standard Qs). In Jumpers, she once again kept her bars up, but I've been trying to run more aggressively, so I left her to her own devices to take a slight push-out to a jump and raced ahead, but she came past the jump for a runout, so no Q there.

Meanwhile, Boost wowed the Known World with a completely gorgeous Advanced Gamblers run and win. I even started her on the weaves to see whether she could do them, and she did. We got compliments from a few talented people with wonderful dogs. Truth is that's just a course that was built for us to do; no major handling things, which is where we fall down, but lots of contacts and tunnels in an arrangement where we could do them all over & over. But in her other three Advanced classes, we Eed--although I felt we were getting smoother, we had no offcourses, but I had already decided that it's more important for my dog to keep driving at a competition, so when she ran out past jumps, I just kept her moving rather than going back and fixing it. I like that super drive and I don't want her to start worrying that I'm going to stop her and bring her back, like I did with my first dog before I got smart.

There was a fund-raising dinner that evening that was announced only once and did no publicity that I saw. It was a phenomenal spread of food hosted by one competitor, and by the low turnout I'm afraid that they spent more on the food than they brought in. But we had a good time chatting and eating.

There was supposed to be a chance of showers on Saturday, so I wrapped everything outside the van in plastic, set up my canopy over the dog's crating area with side rain panels, and slept. It showered somewhat off and on during the night; heard it on the roof.

Saturday

In the morning it seemed to have stopped but remained completely overcast. The pacesetters for the Steeplechase Q times ran fairly early in the day--we didn't know that they were pacesetters until it started raining again partway through the morning and then never let up. This meant that the dogs and handlers never ran as fast the rest of the day, although some came close.

Tika's Steeplechase run nearly broke my heart. If she can keep her bars up, we can Q. She did her job and kept her bars up. And I love Steeplechases with 2 weaves, because she can make pretty tough entries and is pretty darned good about staying in, both of which give us an advantage that we don't always have in speed in other areas. BUT the first approach was a very hard turn, and I called her but trusted her too much and she barely skidded in--to the 2nd pole, not the first. Aughhh! In steeplechase, that's not a fault, but it wastes time, and I'm sure that it takes 2 seconds to pull the dog out, bring her back to the beginning, and restart. So I really really pushed the rest of the course, and she was so good! And the second approach required a front cross for a really tight, fast entry, and I over-crossed, so I pulled her AWAY from the weaves and she spun towards me. Probably another 2 seconds to turn her and get her back in. We missed the cutoff by less than a second. I just about collapsed in a heap of seeting frustration.

In fact, my whole day was like that. Gamblers was another one where I found a course that I thought was perfect for us and that I didn't see anyone else doing, and the gamble was a give-away with weaves. BUT. Again the handling thing. I've been releasing Tika instantly on her contacts all weekend, trying to go for the higher placements, and at one key point, I needed her to flip left from the Aframe into a tunnel, which she's usually a star at. But I didn't think about all those early releases all weekend, and she went straight out from teh Aframe over a jump before coming back, which I'm guessing was a 3-second detour. Now I really raced, because I knew I'd have to adjust the end of my course, which was supposed to end on the teeter before the gamble, but I hadn't walked the ending that I was creating on the fly. The whistle blew just as I was getting to the new turn that I had to make, too far from the gamble, and I muffed it so that Tika turned back to me and barked, and then she headed out correctly, did the gamble perfectly--and was over time by 3/10 of one second. My seething frustration was boiling over. What's worse, I was right about our course--our opening points were good enough for 2nd of about 30 dogs if we had done the gamble on time.

(In case you hadn't noticed, this is where the whining comes in.)

Meanwhile, the rain just never let up. It was pouring so that we could justify shutting the rings down, it was simply maddeningly drearily raining. Early in the day, everyone had rain gear and hats, but by the end of the day I could see that everyone, like me, had given up--no hats, dripping hair and clothes, soaked through to the skin everywhere except possibly my tummy. My course maps turned to mush in my pockets. I had several species of fungi growing between my toes and evolving into advanced lifeforms. Wet wet wet.

Tika had a awesome standard run--I'm enjoying really driving her through courses--but found out afterwards that she had 5 faults. Since she did hit and stick all her contacts and we had no bobbles or bars, it must have been that danged up on the dogwalk again.

And in Snooker I forgot where I was going during the closing at #5. With the bobble and taking an extra obstacle and then getting her away from barking at my feet and running off, we STILL had 6 seconds left, which would've been more than plenty of time to finish a 2nd-place Super-Q. Crap crap crap was my summary for my handling of Tika for the day.

On the other hand, she was such a joy to run at all times, fast even on the contacts at all times, even in this big crowd of high-ranking competitors. She has matured so nicely and I come off the course with quite a high, working this dog.

I think Boost will be even faster. It seems to me from watching that she is faster than any of her 3 siblings competing up here--Derby, Beck, and even Bette, although I think that Bette is pretty darned close. None of them are slouches by any means, and Derby's pretty close and handled by a good trainer and competitor. But I keep thinking--if they were blasting around courses at Boost's speed, Derby & Beck wouldn't be in Masters already. Maybe I'm just making excuses for being a poorer handler than the others. But I sure give Mary credit with Bette--for all of the unfamiliar challenge of a very fast, driven dog, Bette managed to qualify in all four Advanced runs on Saturday, and Boost in none. But I felt smoother than the previous days, AND she did several sets of weaves beautifully, including two in the Steeplechase--although she ran past them the first time, when I got her lined up, she did them all the way through perfectly, and the second time through nailed them on the first try, but then later ran past a serpentiney jump and by then I knew we weren't making time anyway so didn't go back for it, Eing out.

But she also is such a high to run with on course. I love seeing her working, and the last class where I just aimed her at the weaves at an angle and she blasted ahead of me and made the entry perfectly and zoomed through and then when I caught up to her and turned her back for more points, she did them again perfectly, and I felt like flying.

Yeah, the usual ups and downs, I suppose.

The rain let up long enough to load all my sopping-wet gear into my car, and then it broke into a downpour, so it was tough even to stay dry going into the restroom with dry clothes to change into for the ride home, but I managed it, so I took Tika's five Qs and one placement and Boost's one Q and 2 placements--out of 34 runs-- and we were home about 9:30 p.m.

Had no trouble falling asleep and sleeping through again.

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