Paperwork

SUMMARY: USDAA catches up on title certificates.

Got all of these in the mail Friday. Tika was apparently a busy little Merle Girl back in September!

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PVP Silver Team

SUMMARY: Photos from Labor Day USDAA Regional

Just got these lovely photos from a friend. This is Tika and her Performance DAM Team (AKA Performance Versatility Pairs) partner, Brenn, with their silver medals after coming out 2nd of 36 teams after 5 rounds at the Regionals. One of the high points of our agility career.

P.S. The shirt I'm wearing is our team shirt from when Tika, Brenn, and Skeeter went to the final round at Nationals in Team a couple of years back. Another high point. And I'm SURE that shirt is why we did so well on this day.

(Thanks, Erika, for the photos.)

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Bronze Dog

SUMMARY: Tika's Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA).

Some nice friends brought it back for me from Scottsdale; this represents 150 lifetime Masters and Tournament Qs. This sucka's heavy! Not sure how I'm going to hang it on the wall.

I think Tika is now at 224 lifetime Qs; the Silver LAA requires 250.

Dang injured foot--USDAA trial in less than 2 weeks with a chance to earn more.

Guess I can't take her to the vet to be x-rayed tomorrow, since I'll be at the Trkman seminar. Tuesday, then.

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Meanwhile Back at the Not-At-The-Nationals Ranch--

SUMMARY: Just sitting here-- well, OK, busy--

It is odd to not be at the Nationals when all the usual crowd is there. It is odd to not be there when Tika not only qualified in everything this year, but qualified in everything in BOTH Championship and Performance. Definitely one of her better years. It's just that random sore-can't-run thing that finally turned me off to making that very long, very tiring, very expensive trip.

Got email from a friend last night who's there, saying "We picked up Tika's ADCH-bronze plaque for you!" Whoaaaa! I had forgotten all about that. First time in a long time there's been anything there for me to pick up, and I wasn't there.

This year, of course (just last month), Tika completed her ADCH-Silver so the bronze was wayyyy back in my memory banks. And, of course as we expected, next year the nationals will not be on the west coast for me to pick up anything.

Caroline Winata posted on Facebook last night: "For those of you not at natl's; Ken just announced that the [USDAA Nationals] will be moving to either Louisville or Philly next year [2010]." There ya go, what can ya do? Anyway, takes the pressure off me to make the decision whether to go.

Thank goodness for facebook--semilive updates on what everyone I know is up to out there in Scottsdale.

Meanwhile--lots going on here, mostly not having to do with the dogs, and they are just insane; still haven't recovered from being mostly alone for 5 days. Doesn't help that we've had no class 3 of the last for weeks (Power Paws Camp, then class, then I was at Dland, now Nationals). Dogs are getting into the trash (never happens!), chewing things up (vacuum cleaner is busy!), barking at things (well, it happens, but this is over the top), hanging out under my desk leaning against my legs. BORED Tika. BOREDER Collie!

Trying to decide what agility to do and when to wrap up the year. I have three options--
* CPE trial in Turlock (2 hrs away) next (not this coming) weekend. I didn't send in my entry and missed the closing date. I have a feeling that they'd welcome more entries because all trials seem to be underattended these days. But I'm liking being at home and getting stuff done.
* CPE trial in Elk Grove (2 hrs away) Thanksgiving weekend, 3 days. I did 2 or 3 days of this for several years, winning the Turkey Trot with one or both of my dogs Friday night. Didn't go the year I had knee surgery, then the following year something else odd happened and I had to pull out, and now I'm out of the habit. But a friend thinks that her dog will C-ATE that Saturday (sort of like an ADCH-gold)--they're pretty reliable Qers in CPE so it's a good bet. Do I want to go all the way out there for one day? Maybe. (If it's still open--just a one-ring trial, I think.) Because--
* Next trial after that is USDAA mid-December. That's a long way for the poor insane agility dogs to wait for some actual agility stuff.

Hmph.

Meanwhile--back to photography.

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Titles, tongues, trekking, tunes, with photos

SUMMARY: Still practicing terseness with assorted updates.

Titles

This arrived today. Woot! 50 Tournament legs at Championship level, highest possible tournament title. Never thought we'd never get there. But now already have 8 at Performance level after 10 tries.

Tongues

Exercise the beasts in warm weather and see what hangs out.

How does such a small face contain such a gigantic tongue?

In case you always wondered: The inside of a panting dog.

Tika has a natural paw-tuck when lying down. Usually when I try a photo, she leaps up to check me out.

Trekking

Left the Merle Girls at home and took myself for another 6-7 mile Sierra club hike with ~500 feet elevation gain at Rancho San Antonio. The hills were richly colored with this brilliant red foliage. Yeah, well, poison oak.

We don't often see horses on these trails, but this one passed us twice, trotting past the ubiquitous brilliant red foliage.

Air was a bit hazy/smoggy, but still had a nice view of the blimp hangar and wind tunnels at Moffett Field and of the south end of San Francisco Bay.

Looking down towards a section of trail on the dry hillside, probably the one on which we came up. And the requisite rich red foliage in the foreground.

Tunes

Bad enough I make up bad lyrics when I'm awake. Last night dreamed I was in agility class and we were discussing the bad traffic coming home from the trial. (This is the only relationship that this topic has to dogs. It's a stretch but it's what I've got.) I said I had no trouble. Friend said it was awful just trying to get onto the freeway, how did you get around the on-ramp? I burst into song (to the tune of I'm Getting Married In The Morning):

We're stuck in traffic on the on ramp.
We're stuck in traffic going slow!
Pull out the stops! But let's watch for cops!
'Cause we're passing traffic going slow.

She looked at me blankly. I said, "Haven't you ever seen Mary Poppins?" which woke me up immediately, because of course it wasn't Mary Poppins, it was My Fair Lady. And it stunned me that the lyrics actually worked in real life, too, not just Dreamworld.

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CPE Trial Saturday Surprises

SUMMARY: Day 1 of Bay Team Palo Alto CPE trial.

Surprises:

• Boost earned more Qs than Tika! (Admittedly she's in a lower level where you can Q with minor faults--but still--that's never happened before.) (Tika Qed 3 of 4--there goes our Perfect Weekend award; Boost Qed 4 of 4.)
• I do CPE in part because I love getting lots and lots of blue ribbons because I almost never get them in USDAA. But we had some--er--Issues--and our crates were collecting a lot of these today:
• It was 90F on Thursday. Today we huddled in our coats and blankets at the score table and for the Bay Team meeting at the end of the day.
• The wind off the Bay was biting and surprisingly intense.
• This was apparently the Day of the Tunnels Under the Aframes: In Snooker the #7 combo, in Jackpot (Gamblers) in the opening (I love doing these! A quick 16 points A-tunnel-A-tunnel):
  and DOUBLES in Standard!
• The park in which the trial is taking place has a variety of intriguing sculptural thingies.
• Pink! (This is Terry.)
  Compare to Green! with Vicke at our March trial---oh, wow, I was going to link bakc to that photo, but I see that I have a whole directory of photos on my computer from that trial labeled "USE IN BLOG" but I never posted them! Doh! Another surprise! So here's the photo:)
  
• Both dogs got this gamble (coming towards us: Jump-jump-jump-right side of tunnel; the gamble line is out where the person is walking).
• Jersey got very excited every time I put the camera to my face. No idea why.
• Wonderful rich colors and textures. I love looking at these leashes.

OK. Am wiped. Out. Off to bed and do it all again tomorrow.

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Ribbon Wall

SUMMARY: We earned 'em; we'd like to enjoy 'em.

Photo by popular request. This is 2 years of ribbons at my current participation level and the dogs' current Q/placement level. In theory, at the end of every year, I take off the oldest year's worth.

Right now it's full and I'm starting to accrue ribbons in a pile at the bottom. Bad. Maybe in February, when I have no trials for a whole month.


P.S. Click photos for larger views to see how I overlap the rosettes and tuck the placement ribbons into the rosette to take up less space.

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