Mid-Atlantic Regional

Back from our adventures up in Barto, PA for Keystone Agility Club’s Mid-Atlantic Regional.  The club did a really fabulous job hosting this enormous show.  So thank you to Keystone, MEB, George Mariakas and the fabulous judges for taking such good care of the competitors and for making the site even better than ever!

This trip was all about Miles since we didn’t have much luck getting our SF Byes up in Michigan.  I didn’t have him entered on team so I could just concentrate on PGP/PSJ.  I decided to keep Rue entered in PGP/PSJ just for practice, but I was excited mostly for our team with Mardi Closson and Sassy.  Certainly, I was particularly happy to be able to run her at all after she had suffered from a HUGE corneal abrasion last Sunday night.  We had our doubts that she would be well enough to run, but she healed up super fast and off we went to Pennsylvania.

Overall I was very happy with the weekend.  Rue was for sure not running her best as far as speed goes.  She is in a false pregnancy right now and this time of her cycle is the most difficult on her mentally.  It was also quite hot in the afternoons and she may have still had a little discomfort with her eye.  That said, I think she put in the best effort that she could given the circumstances.  Each time we go through this though I think very hard about spaying her……

Anyway, onto the details and video:

Friday was only Team/PVP runs, so Rue ran Jumpers, Snooker, Gamblers, and Standard in that order.  Miles was thoroughly bored, but was a good boy in his crate all day with breaks to retrieve his ball.  The courses were definitely challenging as they should be.  Rue was a perfect pup and took 4th in Jumpers, Q’d in Snooker, had a great opening in Gamblers, and ran clean in Standard.  Sassy also stayed clean and helped out greatly in the points category as well.  At the end of the day we sat in 11th and were above the cut-off!

On Saturday, Rue and Sassy ran Relay.  They had a fabulous run and took 1st Place in Relay and moved up to 10th overall for the team Q!!  Miles also finally got to play.  His first run was PGP Rd 1 and was a freebie since we had a Bye to Rd 2.  He was a crazy man, broke his stay, and we were off to the races. This was my favorite run with him all weekend for sure.  He took out a jump wing on the way to the seesaw at the end, but his time was very competitive 🙂  He also ran PSJ Rd 1 along with Rue.  It was a very technical course but I was able to hang onto his monkey fuzz and we made it to Rd 2!!  Rue also made it into the next round, yeah!

Sunday brought us the Finals rounds of PGP and PSJ.  I had also entered Miles in Masters Challenge Jumpers to try to finish up that qualification for Cynosport.  PGP was a tough course for both of my dogs.  I was thankful to get to run Rue first to get a feel for it.  All I wanted to do with her was to have fun and test a couple of things.  She had a decent run despite a demotivating start for her.  I tested pulling laterally off of her DW and she had a HUGE leap, whoops!  Somehow it didn’t get called, however…..humph don’t like that.  In any case, it was a good test run for Miles.  His run started off great until we got to the jump before the aframe.  He read a wrap as a rear cross and we spent several seconds getting him from back jumping and then nearly taking the dogwalk again….aaaack!!  I held on and we finished, but lost a good deal of time.  What stunk was Rue was sitting well into the Bye range while Miles was hanging out in 8th.  She didn’t need the Bye AND she didn’t deserve a Q at all since she totally biffed her DW.  There were 18 entries, so I knew they would only give 9 dogs the SF Bye.  With 6 dogs in the next group, my outlook on getting the Bye for Miles was dismal.  I would have never thought that I could take away my own dog’s Bye with my other dog!!  Somehow, all 6 dogs in the other group had faults and we GOT THE BYE!!!  OMG OMG OMG!

Our last run was PSJ Finals.  Miles was up first.  The wind had kicked up and was blowing the EZ up tent around over the start gate.  He was super duper nervous and I knew there was no way in heck he’d stay at the start line.  Fortunately I was able to think on my feet and we got it done.  He finished 4th and got another SF Bye!!!  Rue’s run was really really nice.  I chickened out in the closing line and caused a ton of lost time.  She probably could have made the podium, but oh well.  Perhaps subconsciously I did it on purpose so as not to potentially affect Miles’ Bye again 😉

2013 Halfway update

Gosh I haven’t been around here much…guess that’s what happens when nothing too pressing is going on!  Plus Facebook is just easier, I admit……but figured it was due time for a blog update since I haven’t written about the pups after we got back from USDAA Nationals last October.

We had a fair bit of time off after that per usual…time to reflect, recover, and start thinking about the goals for 2013.  All this time my main focus with Rue has been for her to have fun out there and now, halfway through the year, I think I can FINALLY say that we’ve arrived.  It’s becoming more difficult for me to remember back to how she was even a year ago because now when we step to the line I am confident that we are in for a fun time!

Our first trial back after USDAA Nationals was a tournament only show up in Barto, PA put on by MEB’s club KineticDog.  I have NEVER been to a more awesome “local” show than this one.  The club was fantastic, the site beautiful, and the equipment was just awesome.  Both dogs had a fabulous showing there and we took home lots of ribbons, placements, money, and Q’s for this year’s Cynosport Games.  This was the first time that I thought, wow, I have the same dog in a trial that I have in practice!!  Go Rue 🙂  Miles and his awesome teammate Sassy/Mardi Closson “Kiss My Sass” took 6th Place in PVP, yeah!

Our next stop was to Asheville for one of my favorite USDAA trials of the year….BRAC.  Once again, I was not disappointed!  Again, Rue was on FIRE and Miles was his typical awesome self.  Both dogs got lots of Qs, placements, and money again 🙂

At the start of 2013, we saw another of my favorite USDAA shows with CPA in Raleigh.  No other local show can generate the energy of a big show like this one can.  3 rings, thousands of runs, lots of vendors, just simply awesome.  Miles used to be terrified of this arena, but now he struts around there like he owns the place.  Both pups again had a fabulous showing.  Miles earned his PDCH under Scott Chamberlain on a tough Jumpers course too, yeah Miles!!  Rue and her teammate Maverick/Dudley Fontaine “DAM it feels good to be a hamsta” dominated PVP and finished 4th overall for that needed team Q.

 

In February, we took a marathon trip up the East Coast in search of PGP Regional Byes.  Our first stop was Dream Park, NJ.  Both dogs ran great, Rue had the fastest time but dropped a bar after a poorly timed blind cross, so Miles ended up with the bye…yeah!!  We then headed a few hours north to Greenwich, NY where Rue kept all the bars up, won the class and got the Bye 🙂  Mission accomplished.  After a brief stay in Baltimore, MD for a medical conference, we headed back to Barto, PA for some more USDAA and lots more fun and Qs.

Ever since last year when Rue qualified for AKC Nationals, I had debated if I was going to take her.  We stopped doing AKC last May after she finished her MACH and got her last QQs for Nats.  I had always noticed that Rue ran better in USDAA so that’s where we had decided to put all of our energy.  After a lot of debating, I decided to take her to Tulsa….what did I have to lose??  So Rue was entered as 1 of 409 dogs in the 20″ class…holy smokes that’s a big entry!!  I went there with absolutely no goals other than to have fun and run fast.  Rue was SOOOO excited to be there, she couldn’t wait to get into the ring (yay!).  Since the 20″ class was so big, they split us into two groups and my group actually ran Rd 2, Standard, first.  I wished it was the other way around because she historically is fastest in her first run and I had hoped that we’d get JWW out of the way early with a fast run, but that wasn’t in the cards.  Needless to say, she smoked the heck out of Standard and finished in 33 seconds 🙂  Rue held onto 3rd place for quite awhile, but after 409 dogs ran she ended up around 30th place.  JWW, our next run, was not as speedy.  It was a demotivating start for her and we never really got going.  Her time was decent and cumulative after 2 rounds we sat in 46th place (they were taking 31 to finals)…what?!?!  Wow.  Sunday’s Rd 3, Hybrid, was the perfect course for the little Miss.  I was so excited to get out there and just lay it down….but something happened in me and I was all of a sudden so nervous and focusing on going to the finals…something that I had never thought was possible.  I hated the way I was feeling…obsessing about things that I shouldn’t have been and watching dogs that were ahead of us in ranking crash and burn did not help my mental status at all.  So I took Rue for a nice loooong walk and had a talk with her….together we decided that it was far more fun to just go for broke and let the rest work itself out.  And go for broke we did…so much that I was late on a FC and she took the 3rd to last bar.  Oh well, no finals for us this year, but that was not our goal.  Overall her times would have put her in 26th place…out of 409 dogs THAT is something to be very proud of!!

 

Our next several trials were AKC trials.  I decided since Nationals was so fun that we needed to try to get qualified again…especially since it’s in Pennsylvania next year, woohoo!  Rue picked up her 4 QQs right away and we are nearly halfway to finishing the points and individual Qs needed to qualify.  She’s running great at 24″ and consistently wins Standard and places high in JWW.  Miles is LOVING Preferred and is 1 QQ away from NAC and then we’ll just be getting points and individual Qs for him too.

And our last adventure before wrapping up the first half of 2013 was a trip up to Michigan for the USDAA North Central Regional. I was THRILLED with both dogs’ showing there.  Rue continues on a hot streak and was speedy and happy all weekend.  She amazed me by going 3 clean in PGP with a 2nd place in the local qualifier on Friday and then blazed through Rd 1 and completely SMOKED Rd 2 to take 3rd place and the Semifinals bye to Cyno.  Likewise, she also blazed a trail through PSJ Rds 1 and 2 and picked up yet another SF bye!!  Crazy kid!  Miles did fabulously as well, he won PVP Standard and went clean in Rds 1 of both PGP and PSJ.  Unfortunately, the monkey side of him took over in Rd 2 of both and he had a brilliant flyoff on the seesaw in PGP finals and found an early tunnel in PSJ finals.  I guess he wanted me to go to more Regionals, haha!

 

And so there you have it…..blog updated…check 🙂  Next we head back up to Barto, PA for the Mid-Atlantic Regional in 2 wks.  Then a very light schedule through the summer before picking things up in the fall before USDAA Nationals!

Oh yeah…AND I’M GETTING A PUPPY!!!!!

Puppies!!!

I wanted to go more in depth about the wonderful breeding I posted about on Facebook the other day.  I’m VERY excited about this!  Rue’s litter-sister, Punch was bred just before Christmas to a really nice field dog named Shag.  Gayle Watkins (Rue’s breeder) bred to Shag last year and got some great pups out of him.  This litter will be raised by Jill Brown in Canada, but she will be using Gayle’s puppy raising system which you can read about here:  http://www.gaylans.com/raising.html

Jill was nice enough to provide me some write ups of the expecting parents 🙂

Can. MOTCH Gaylan’s You Quack Me Up
Am CDX WCX CCA; Can. JH WCI
 

“Punch” 

http://www.k9data.com/pedigree.asp?ID=305231

Punch is a stylish little bitch whether competing in obedience or field. An enthusiastic and accurate partner in obedience, Punch has earned her MOTCH in Canada and finished her American CDX in one weekend while visiting friends in New York.  She has multiple Am/Can High In Trial awards, as well as a 200 out of Open B.   On her last trip to the States she won the Utility A class at the 2012 GRCA National Specialty.

Punch started her field career by earning her Canadian Working Certificate and Working Certificate Intermediate on the same weekend.  Just a few weeks later she finished her Junior Hunter title.

While at the GRCA National Specialty she also came home with her Working Certificate Excellent.  The icing on the cake  was when Punch earned her Certificate of Conformation Assessment at the same specialty.  Her WCX and CCA completed the requirements needed for the prestigious GRCA Triathlon Award.

Even though Punch loves to work (and play!), she also has a wonderful on/off switch making her a joy to live with, as well as a blast to train.  She has a beautiful water entry and is a fast, strong swimmer.  She has no preference between clean or dirty water 😉

Punch is a small, balanced, athletic bitch that moves cleanly coming and going.  Although I would prefer a bit more substance, she is nicely muscled, has beautiful length of neck and a strong loin.   She has a lovely topline, correct tailset and tail carriage. She has a pleasant head with a kind expression, nice pigment, a dark eye, full dentition and scissors bite. Her coat is smooth, medium gold in color, with correct texture and undercoat, allowing it to dry quickly.

Punch has OFA Excellent hips, normal elbows, heart and eyes. She is also clear for prcd-PRA, PRA-1 and Ichthyosis, and has no history of skin allergies, ear infections or hot spots.

Punch’s littermates include:

•  OTCH Gaylan’s Catch A Rising Star UDX3 OM5 AX AXJ OF OBHF CCA CGC

•  OTCH MACH Gaylan’s Thaleia UDX3 OM4 RAE TDX JH; WCX OBHF CCA VCX

•  MACH Gaylan’s Mad About Rue OF ADHF PTM AAD ASA AG CGC

•  Gaylan’s Little Tramp CDX TD MX MXJ MXF CGC

•  Gaylan’s Laughing Out Loud RA OA AXJ NF AD SSA SJ CGC

•  Gaylan’s Second City Stand Up NA NAJ JH WCX VC CCA

•  Gaylan’s Siriusly Not Joking CCA

•  Gaylan’s S’ M-A-S-H ‘N Success Can CDX JH WCX

They all have their clearances and seven have OFA Excellent hips and the last is OVC normal. All have had their elbows x-rayed and seven have normal elbows and one has asymptomatic, unilateral grade 1 Elbow dysplasia. All have clear eyes and normal hearts.

Punch’s dam and sire have/had all clear eye exams but her maternal granddam does have a mild case of PU.  One of Punch’s littermates died at 3 years of age from a stomach ulceration. He was diagnosed with Grade 1 stomach cancer but we will never know the relationship to that tumor and his untimely death. The remainder of Punch’s relatives are healthy, sound dogs that have been active and competing successfully throughout their lives.

Punch’s Mother, maternal Granddam and maternal Grandsire are all still happy, healthy, and active at 8 1/2, 11 ½ and 12 ½ yrs of age respectively.  All three have excellent hip ratings.

Punch, Grandpa Goose, and Mama Dart:

UH Trifecta’s Shag–edelic CCA CD WCX MH *** 

“Shag”

http://www.k9data.com/pedigree.asp?ID=92358 

Ten-year old Shag is a bold, hard-driving working dog who has excelled with his first time owner and handler. As a young dog, Shag made the 2004 National Derby list and became Qualified All-Age before the age of 2. Since then, he has earned Open and Amateur Field Trial Stake placements in the US and Canada, made it to the sixth series of the Canadian National Open Retriever Championship in 2007, finished his Master Hunter title handily, and earned his Companion Dog title with placements. 

I recently had the opportunity to spend time with Shag and loved what I saw. He ran well in the GRCA National Specialty Field Trial, marking and handling beautifully. He showed he is strong in the water and has an excellent nose. After the run, he schmoozed with me, looking for belly rubs and pets. He even took the time to play with the young puppy that managed to escape its owner!  Shag exudes confidence! No matter where he goes or who he is with, he takes everything in stride. He gets along well with other dogs and people and is happy to hang out at home with the kids when he isn’t training or competing. 

 

Shag is a handsome dog with a masculine head and athletic body. He has an intelligent expression with a dark eye and very good pigment. He has a scissors bite with full dentition. His coat is dead straight and wash-and-wear with good undercoat. He has appropriate substance with good depth and breadth of chest. He has good angulation front and rear with adequate forechest. Shag’s topline is level and strong and he carries his tail straight off his back. He moves like the athlete that he is although he is a bit longer in leg and lighter in bone than is ideal.

Shag’s pedigree is filled with talented working dogs that also had good health and longevity. Shag’s sire was the great Rugby, AFC Emberain Rugby. Rugby won his first Derby at 10 months of age, is the only golden in history to be on the National Derby list before he turned a year, and became both an Amateur Field Champion and a member of the GRCA’s Field Dog Hall of Fame at the age of 4. Rugby was an excellent sire, producing pups that excelled in field trials, hunt tests, obedience and agility. He died unexpectedly at 9 1/2 of an unknown illness, possibly tick borne, but apparently not cancer. 

Shag’s dam was Grace and Lisa’s wonderful bitch, Audie, who was QAA and a Master Hunter lived till 14 according to her owners. Audie

produced a number of ** and *** dogs, including Trifecta’s Bet on Me***, who is a double-header winner (winner of the Open and the Amateur stakes at the same field trial). 

 In this pairing of Punch and Shag we expect intelligent, focused working dogs with the ability to excel in any performance game. They will do best with experienced handlers who want to compete at high levels in multiple venues: obedience, field, agility, and/or tracking. They will be confident, stable animals who will seek to be working partners with their trainers. This pedigree has very good longevity, soundness and health. 

To view the pedigree on this upcoming PunchXShag breeding, visit:

            http://www.k9data.com/pedigree.asp?ID=490293

Fall.

There are many things that I love about the fall….cooler weather, beautiful foliage, apples, fires in the fireplace, sweaters, jeans, and boots….but one of my favorites is taking some time off from agility and letting the dogs be, well, dogs.

Nationals are done, Rue and Miles rocked, and now it’s time to rest a bit, recover.  It’s time to reflect back on our year together, think about our accomplishments…and about the things that we had hoped to accomplish, but didn’t.  Now is the time to start to make plans for the next year…what local trials do I want to do, what Regionals do we want to attend, what are my goals for each dog and for myself?  I love to plan…this makes me giddy with excitement!

This past year brought a few injuries for me.  I learned a ton about proper posture, better running technique, and the importance of stretching and warming up.  I’m not getting any younger and it’s evident that I need to be aware of some of my limitations, but also take control and make myself stronger and more balanced.  I started with a new personal trainer in January whom I love.  He kicks my butt on a regular basis, but I still love him 😉  I also found the most amazing chiropractor in the world who helped to rehab my shoulder after I dislocated it twice in the ocean while shredding some awesome waves.  She has taught me about kinesiotape and it’s benefits in healing and kept me from needing to have surgery.  This past year I also started teaching a foundations class at a local facility.  I LOVE teaching and so far have had the most amazing experience and the most wonderful students and dogs.  I look forward to teaching for a long time to come 🙂

The dogs have had a lot of accomplishments this year.  Miles continues to enjoy agility and continues to get faster and more confident.  That boy made me work to get him qualified for Cynosport and dang I was all set to not take him, when he said wait a minute, and proceeded to finish up his local Q’s and both semi-finals byes at the Chicago Regional in August.  He did it in fine style too taking silver in both PSJ Finals and PVP Pairs.  Thanks Monkey!  “Original Golden Mafia”:

There was a little set back in the spring when I felt like I didn’t want to run him any more.  I was putting way too much pressure on myself and had all of these expectations from him and neglected to focus on what was important….and that was FUN.  I had forgotten about joy.  I felt horrible and I knew he felt it too.  Part of it was that Miles had his first seizure in April and I was terrified that something would happen while we were running.  I was also crazy worried about injury for him because he just seemed “off”, but that was likely more me than him.  We just couldn’t seem to get it together.  Bars were falling a LOT and his JWW yps were not up to par.  After a lot of thought, I made the decision in July to move Miles to Preferred in AKC.  This negated any chance we’d have of qualifying for the NAC in 2013, but I made the decision for Miles…not me.  And boy, let me tell you, he LOVES him some 20″ jumps!!  Hopefully once AKC implements a break away tire, we can set out on getting him qualified for 2014 NAC in Preferred!  Miles also had a stellar showing at USDAA Nationals this year.  He was the most confident he’s been yet at a big event and was just on fire.  He only put a foot wrong once, in PGP Semi finals, but everything else was spot on.  I got in his way in PSJ Semi finals and cost precious time which put us out of the cutoff by 0.4 seconds and one placement.  But, he was squeaky clean in all team classes and made it to PVP finals where his team, Dogs ALoud, took 8th in Relay and 9th overall out of ~150 PVP teams!!

 

As always, I’ve made a movie highlighting each dog’s past year.  Here is Miles’ year in review (excluding our recent trip to USDAA Nationals):

 

Now onto Rue.  Wow, what can I say…this girl has really stepped up to the plate in the last year.  I still cannot even believe how much she has accomplished in her 4yrs, unbelievable really.

In summary, Rue earned her MACH in March, she was in the top 25 Goldens in AKC agility for the 1st quarter of the year, she earned a spot in the Golden Retriever Agility Dog Hall of Fame (ADHF), qualified for 2013 NAC in Tulsa, OK, won or placed in several USDAA Regional events, earned semi finals byes to USDAA Nationals, earned her USDAA PerformanceTournament Master, is ranked in the top 5 Golden Retrievers in USDAA tournaments, and ran her heart out in Denver in all of our runs and ended up making it to PGP Finals taking 3rd Place at USDAA Nationals!  Rue was the only Golden Retriever to make the Finals in PGP and she got to get on the podium.  So blessed, so blessed.  We still have lots to work on…I know she can go even faster as she gains more and more confidence in the ring 🙂

And now, on the brink of her spay surgery, it’s time to look back to her year:

 

We are very excited for our next adventure!!

~ Kristin, Miles and Rue

Retraining…

Continuing on from my last post, we’ve had a few hiccups.  We’re still in our “retrain” phase, but between Rue’s heat, Miles hurting his back, and then me hurting my back, it’s been interesting.  Miles’ injury was thankfully very short lived, but both dogs had to miss a USDAA trial at the end of October.  My back injury started not long after he got better and is still ongoing.  Through chiro, massage, yoga, and not running I’ve managed to get it a bit better but still not at all where I’d like to be.  Very depressing really.  Running has always been my “therapy”, so trying to exist without it has been difficult.  Fortunately, I’ve been able to still work with the dogs to some degree and Rue has been to 3 trials.  Miles has been to one.

Right now Rue thinks she’s pregnant….she has very pronounced false pregnancies and the hormones really affect her.  During these 63 days, keeping her attention and her interest in training/running with me is really put to the test.  This is the best she’s done with it so far, but she’s definitely not at her best.  We’ve been continuing to train our Silvia Trkman foundations and she can now do multi-wraps with the bar at 10″ pretty successfully.  We’ve also spent time going back to open weave pole channels and play chase the toy through.  The weaves are probably her least favorite obstacle and we lose a lot of time on course depending on when the weaves occur.  If they’re early on, she’s painfully slow.  If they’re at the end, I can count on a fairly fast performance.  So I’m trying to retrain these and make it all about powering through them to get to the toy.  We started with 12″ wide channels and are now at 9″.  Working on entries as well as driving ahead even if I’m not moving.  Miles and I are pretty much still concentrating on his up contacts.  We’ve had 11 sessions and I don’t think he’s getting it, so I have some new ideas to try.

Which brings us to the last two weekends.  Rue was entered one day at Teamworks for AKC on 11/13.  This is an outdoor venue and definitely NOT her favorite place to trial because there are so many distractions both visually and olfactory.  She actually ran pretty well though.  Had a bar in JWW, but ran great other than a bit of a trot out of a tunnel in Standard to get 4th place and 20pts.  Then Rue and I traveled to one of her favorite indoor venues in Concord, NC on 11/17. Again, due to her false preggo she’s not running even close to 100%.  She had a pretty speedy Standard run at 4.3yps but popped the last pole.  Her JWW started slow, but ended very very well for a Q and 9pts.  Geez if she could only run that speed all the way through…she’d be incredible!  On Saturday and Sunday (11/19-20) we were entered in a USDAA trial at the site where we used to train.  Rue ran fairly well and picked up a PSJ Q with a 2nd place in Rounds 1 and 2 to her brother.  She missed her DW contact in PGP because I failed to give her any information about a turn and she left the DW high.  She also ran Masters Pairs with a friend of mine and her BC.  Rue ran really well in her half, but we got an E when our partner found the poles a bit too soon 🙂  Her 3rd run on Sunday was Masters Snooker.  She gave me trotting off the line and for more than 3 obstacles, so we left the course without a party.  Yes it was 75 degrees out and yes, it was her 5th run of the weekend and yes she had trialed the previous Sunday and Thursday and yes she thinks she’s pregnant.  HOWEVER, she had just given me a LOT more in her other runs that day, so I had to make it clear to her that trotting does not end in any sort of party/food/play/etc.  I haven’t had to do this in nearly a year, but it’s been an effective reminder in the past so I used it.  She doesn’t show again until December 17th which will be indoor USDAA.  I pulled her from several classes that I had originally entered her in because I realize that this is a tough time for her.  Her “puppies” are due sometime between Christmas and New Years, so hopefully it will be all out of her system soon!!

Here’s her highlights from these last few shows:

And then there was Miles.  I did not enter him in either of the AKC shows that I brought Rue to.  He doesn’t need any AKC Qs for anything until the qualifying period for 2013 Nationals starts on December 1st.  And since we’re in our “retrain” period, I thought that wasting $$ on AKC would be silly.  We do need USDAA Tourney Q’s, however, so Miles also ran last weekend.  He was entered in 4 classes on Saturday and 3 on Sunday.  He picked up a PSJ leg with a 1st Place finish in both rounds.  He also took 1st in PIII Standard and 2nd in PIII Snooker.  He was an off course away from a PGP leg, a PIII Jumpers leg, and another PIII Std leg.  Oh and we missed the Gamble in PIII Gamblers.  Overall, I was super pleased with our weekend.  I had no focus on qualifying, but simply used these runs as “training”.  When there were handling options, I chose the ones that would be hardest for us.  We did a lot of rear crosses, haha.  It was also cool to see his dogwalks.  He only missed one up-contact all weekend, which was sweet!  I still think I need to figure out a better way of helping him to understand what the criteria is, but it was nice to see that he can hit it 😉

Miles is also off until our 3-days of USDAA in mid-December.  This trial was supposed to be the first in our 2nd phase of gearing up towards Nationals and to be used as a test of what we’ve trained.  However, due to above mentioned injuries and the Thanksgiving holiday we’ve not gotten to where I thought we’d be with his understanding of the up-contacts.  I’ll still use this trial as a “test” trial, but also realize that I cannot test his ups quite yet….

Two videos that summarize our last year

I should have put these with the last post, but I made cumulative videos of Miles’ and Rue’s journeys since last fall.  Enjoy!

 

Blowin’ off the dust….

Ok, it’s been a full year since I’ve last posted to my blog.  Too much time doing?  Not enough time to write?  Too much time on Facebook?  All of the above, I’m sure.  A lot has happened in the last year….a LOT.  Both dogs are doing great and we are about to embark on a new journey.  In the process of moving forward, I feel it’s also necessary to look back at the past year to see what we’ve done.

So in that vein, I thought it would be good to take a look at my last blog post which was about my goals for 2011.  I’ve copied that post here and have added comments.  I’ll be back later to talk about what’s next on our agendas.

Originally posted 9/29/10

First, my long term goals for each dog:

Miles:

MACH by early spring 2011 – Woohoo!!  Earned at the HOTC trial in Huntsville, AL on 5/8/11

Qualify and attend 2011 USDAA Nationals and run clean in finals of PGP and PSJ – Well, we qualified and we entered.  But didn’t make it past Quarterfinals due to an upcontact call on the DW in PGP and an offcourse tunnel in PSJ.

Qualify and attend 2012 AKC Nationals running clean in all rounds – We are qualified!  Last year Miles had a bar in Round 2, but was clean in Rounds 1 and 3.  We were privileged  to be able to run again in the Challenger Round.  We put in a great run, but had an offcourse.  I couldn’t have been more proud of our first trip to AKC Nationals!

 Attend 2011 Golden Retriever Nationals – Nope.  Chose to focus on USDAA Nationals instead.

Rue:

Attend 2011 Golden Retriever Nationals – Nope. Chose to focus on USDAA Nationals instead.

Qualify for and attend 2011 SE Regionals – Yep, but we did not enter tournaments there, just titling classes.

Qualify for and attend 2012 AKC Nationals – She finished her qualifications in September.  The jury is still out whether I’ll take her to Reno, NV.

Qualify for and attend 2011 USDAA Nationals – Big yes here!  Rue did amazingly well for her first trip to a national event.  She made it through PGP Quarters and ran in PGP Semi’s with a gorgeous run.  She had a bar, but would have needed to be a touch faster to have made it to finals.  Rue also ran great in her team events, putting in fast and solid runs.  VERY proud of her!

And my short term goals for each dog (ie. the next 1-2 months)

Miles:

– Continue fine tuning our warm-up and  cool-down routines for agility – We got it down.

– Continue to stretch him nightly and after strenuous activities including jogging, offlead hiking, swimming, and agility – Of course.

– Do ball work/strength work 2-3 times per week depending on agility schedule.  Work up to longer duration on the ball.  Master side sit-ups, crawling, handstands, and 1,2,3,4 exercises on the floor. – All is being done/been done except the side sit-ups….

– Make and use cavalettis and/or ladder – Oops, not yet.

– Continue monthly massage visits, every 1-3 month visits with chiro, and semi-annual visits with Dr. Schwabe – He gets a massage and a chiro adjustment every 3-4 weeks and continues to see Dr. Schwabe bi-annually.

– RUN like I mean it in trials and in practice.  Drive my dog! – Oh yeah, baby!  This is something that I’ve gotten really good at 🙂

– Make the finals of PGP and/or PSJ at 2010 USDAA Nationals – Again, nope.  He did great last year at Nationals, but had an offcourse in PGP semi’s and was 1 spot away from PSJ Finals.  Didn’t help that I almost missed my run and then had no mental capacity to remember the course.  We got through it, but I was NOT driving him….

Rue:

– Give her a 2 month break from competitions to enable us to go back over missing foundation work and to continue to increase her drive for agility – Yep, and boy did that help!

– Continue to find new places to work on focus and motivation – We did lots of “taking it on the road” last fall.

– Continue to build upon our tug/play/agility sessions by making the agility portion a bit more prominent and/or more difficult – For sure!

– Continue to stretch nightly and after strenuous activities including jogging, offlead hiking, swimming, and agility – Of course.

– Do ball work/strength work 2-3 times per week depending on agility schedule.  Work up to longer duration on the ball.  Master side sit-ups, crawling, handstands, and 1,2,3,4 exercises on the floor. – Again, all but side sit-ups.

– Make and use cavalettis and/or ladder – Nope.

– Continue monthly massage visits, every 1-3 month visits with chiro, and semi-annual visits with Dr. Schwabe – She is on the same schedule as Miles.

Me:

–  Lose the 5 lbs I gained since February plus the 5 more I’ve wanted to lose for years by Dec. 31 2010 – Yes, I did…but I gained 5 back…oops!

–  Continue keeping a food diary 5 days a week and being sensible on the weekends – This is definitely routine now.

–  Integrate more protein into my diet and avoid processed foods as much as possible – Yup.

–  Take my multivitamin daily!!! – Haha, oops.

–  Train for and compete in the 2011 Tobacco Road Marathon – Nope, decided it was too much time away from family and pups.  I still run distance, but not for race training.

–  Continue weekly personal training sessions to help with strength and power – Aborted in the spring when the trainer became a flake.  Need to find a new one.

–  Continue yoga/pilates 1-2 times per week to work on flexibility and core strength – Fell off this wagon…still trying to get back on!

 

Goals for the rest of 2010 and beginning of 2011

I decided to lay out my goals in a little bit more of a coherent fashion, plus I’ve added some personal goals to my list at the end.

First, my long term goals for each dog:

Miles:

MACH by early spring 2011

Qualify and attend 2011 USDAA Nationals and run clean in finals of PGP and PSJ

Qualify and attend 2012 AKC Nationals running clean in all rounds

 Attend 2011 Golden Retriever Nationals

Rue:

Attend 2011 Golden Retriever Nationals

Qualify for and attend 2011 SE Regionals

Qualify for and attend 2012 AKC Nationals

Qualify for and attend 2011 USDAA Nationals

And my short term goals for each dog (ie. the next 1-2 months)

Miles:

– Continue fine tuning our warm-up and  cool-down routines for agility

– Continue to stretch him nightly and after strenuous activities including jogging, offlead hiking, swimming, and agility

– Do ball work/strength work 2-3 times per week depending on agility schedule.  Work up to longer duration on the ball.  Master side sit-ups, crawling, handstands, and 1,2,3,4 exercises on the floor.

– Make and use cavalettis and/or ladder

– Continue monthly massage visits, every 1-3 month visits with chiro, and semi-annual visits with Dr. Schwabe

– RUN like I mean it in trials and in practice.  Drive my dog!

– Make the finals of PGP and/or PSJ at 2010 USDAA Nationals

Rue:

– Give her a 2 month break from competitions to enable us to go back over missing foundation work and to continue to increase her drive for agility

– Continue to find new places to work on focus and morivation

– Continue to build upon our tug/play/agility sessions by making the agility portion a bit more prominent and/or more difficult

– Continue to stretch nightly and after strenuous activities including jogging, offlead hiking, swimming, and agility

– Do ball work/strength work 2-3 times per week depending on agility schedule.  Work up to longer duration on the ball.  Master side sit-ups, crawling, handstands, and 1,2,3,4 exercises on the floor.

– Make and use cavalettis and/or ladder

– Continue monthly massage visits, every 1-3 month visits with chiro, and semi-annual visits with Dr. Schwabe

Me:

–  Lose the 5 lbs I gained since February plus the 5 more I’ve wanted to lose for years by Dec. 31 2010

–  Continue keeping a food diary 5 days a week and being sensible on the weekends

–  Integrate more protein into my diet and avoid processed foods as much as possible

–  Take my multivitamin daily!!!

–  Train for and compete in the 2011 Tobacco Road Marathon

–  Continue weekly personal training sessions to help with strength and power

–  Continue yoga/pilates 1-2 times per week to work on flexibility and core strength

 

There, now maybe you all can help hold me accountable!!!

Catching up

Boy have we been busy!  I have three trials to post about so I’m just going to do them all here.  Overall the pups have been doing great.  Miles is really stepping up his game and Rue is on a new program to help her get faster.

Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Asheville, NC for one of my favorite trials….BRAC’s AKC trial.  Indoors on dirt and this time in three rings.  Overall the big accomplishments were that Miles got QQ #10 which landed him in the Golden Retriever Agility Dog Hall of Fame (ADHF).  He also was an international superstar and took 2nd place in ISC JWW 26″ earning himself (and me) $33!  Rue nabbed QQ #3 and her MXJ!  Here are the videos:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

Our next adventure was down to Perry, GA for USDAA Southeast Regionals.  This was our first time to a Regional event and I was cautiously optimistic for Miles.  He was entered in Team and Grand Prix Semi-finals and Rue was in 5 Starters classes.  Major accomplishments for this trial was that somehow Miles’ team went for NQ to Q due to a kick ass Relay run which in turn gave Miles his Accomplished Tournament Dog (ATD) title.  He also shocked and amazed me by making it to Performance Grand Prix Finals and then coming in 7th for a bye to Semis at Nationals!  I also learned a ton about Rue and her ring stress.  As you’ll see in the videos I started out with only doing 5 obstacles on course and gradually increased it.  Bye the end of Sunday, I decided to try an entire Starters Snooker course (13 obstacles) and she freaking ROCKED it!  You’ll be seeing us doing mini loops on course for a little while to come.

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

And now onto the business of yesterday.  We headed down to Bon-Clyde just for one day of AKC agility.  No real goals for this trial and honestly the sand surface makes me a bit nervous, but we’ll be trialing her a few times this summer so I wanted to get back on the horse so to speak.  Again the plan was for Rue to just run a few obstacles and get out.  For Miles I was just hoping for fun and hopefully some points.  Unfortunately he had a massive fly-off on the teeter which caused us to miss a QQ.  I’m in the process of adding a stop back in because he just is getting more and more naughty on this obstacle.

(I need to add Rue’s JWW run, but YouTube keeps flaking out on me.  Hopefully will have it up later).

So that’s it!  Today I have a private lesson with Karen Holik then on Friday I’m doing a few runs at a local CPE trial with Rue.  The following weekend we’re back at Bon-Clyde.

Winston-Salem Dog Training Club AKC trial 5/8-9/10: Rue gets QQ #2!!

I’m a slacker, oops!  This trial was 2 weeks ago and so much has been going on between then and now that it seems like it was last year!!  I’m not sure I’ll remember any details, so here’s the report in abbreviated fashion…

Saturday:

Small to tall with JWW first.  I get Rue warmed up with treats and she’s really revved to go on the line.  Timer says “go” and off we go….10 obstacles later the judge says “sorry you’re going to have to start over, I wasn’t ready”…ack!  So I run back to the start gate all the while telling her we’re going to get cookies.  She was excited to leave and get cookies, but everyone was very confused as to what was happening.  Finally after a few dogs ran, we got to try again.  I don’t think she was as fast the second time out, but I handled it differently both times.  She still turned in a respectable run at 4.51yps for MXJ leg #8. 

Somehow this weekend I forgot how fast Miles is and never really walked the courses for him correctly.  It is especially evident in this first run…I was late on 2 of my FC’s and ultimately caused the double to come down because I was completely in his way, ugh.  He was still very fast at 5.61yps.

Standard was an interesting course with a very difficult challenge at the end of the dogwalk.  I focused on Rue’s run since she had a QQ on the line and decided I would try a blind at the end of the dogwalk to keep her extended as much as possible, but also to signal the correct tunnel hole.  Well it worked perfectly and she had a gorgeous hit.  She did add a stride, so the blind must have signaled some sort of turn for her I guess?  Or it was the fact that we were running towards the wall and maybe I wasn’t running as hard as I had thought I was?  Anyway, the rest of the run was perfect although we had a little table issue.  The judge starting counting very late as Rue was already down for a few seconds before she started.  Then I guess she got an itch and started to lick her back leg and popped up her elbows with 1 second left on the count.  I got her attention and downed her again before finishing strong.  I believe the entire table incident was 13 or 14 seconds.  We Q’d by the skin of our teeth on this one!  MX leg #2 and QQ #2!!

Again, I didn’t walk for Miles at all so this was all by the seat of my pants.  I LOVE the lead out I got and his speed off the line is amazing!  I don’t like the FC after the dogwalk for him at all and I was very late with my FC before the frame which pulled him off of it.  The rest was just training stuff, etc.  He had fun at least 🙂

Sunday:

Tall to small today and I really wanted to concentrate more on Miles today since I sold him short on Saturday.  Standard was first and had a challenging wrap before the dogwalk.  I got him over that jump and he had started to wrap back, but someone was whistling really loudly.  I think this threw him off a bit and he ended up backjumping, dang it!  Again the rest of this run was just training stuff, so we had a few errors 🙂  He still had fun….

Lil’ Rue didn’t like the start of this run at all.  This tends to be a consistent theme of tunnel starts for her….probably doesn’t like the immediate break in connection??  She did speed up at the dogwalk and had a high hit.  I planned to blind her here as well, but wasn’t in the right spot so opted for a push.  She got a nice weave entry and the rest was brilliant except for an unfortunate bar on the panel.

JWW looked very fun and fast.  I again walked for Miles and figured I’d wing it with Rue based on her speed.  It was another opening that I thought she’d dislike anyway.  Miles flew through this course, but had a bar after the triple.  I heard from folks who built the course that the dirt was very soft right there where he landed/took off, so that’s probably why and a lot of dogs took that bar.  I also pushed him wide around a jump…need to work more on lateral sends, dang it!  Otherwise smokin’ and way fun 🙂 

As expected Rue was pokey off the line.  She also knocked over the ring gate on the way in which may have shook her a bit too.  She managed to keep going and I hung onto her for MXJ leg #9, but no points.  Ugh.

There you have it…sorry for the delay!  This weekend I’ll be working both dogs in a workshop with Rosanne DeMascio and then we head to Asheville next weekend for 3 days of AKC including ISC classes, yay!  Then down to Perry, GA for the USDAA Southeast Regional 🙂