2011 has officially been one of my favorite years EVER. So many awesome things happened, for one Trixie started competing in Agility in late May/early June, I still can't believe she has achieved so much in only six months. And I can't forget about Scooter who earned all of her AKC Novice agility titles, including her NA! it only took us like 12 tries no big deal...stupid teeter...Speaking of teeters, we bought one and both of the dogs overcame problems they had with it. When Trixie's teeter problem started I decided that before I trained my next agility dog I'd buy a book/DVD about training that thing because clearly I can't do it right from the start. Probably my favorite part of this year was I discovered agility juniors existed! well okay it was late December of 2010 but it was really summer/fall of 2011 that I met everyone! I can't believe I used to think I was the only one around who trained their dog, haha, so much for that. I'm really looking forward to 2012 and the challenges it will bring with it, known and unknown :)
Here's a video of some of our best agility runs from this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPFmsln413s
and, as you may or may not have noticed I love making goals, helps me have a sense of purpose and things I want to work on and things I want to achieve. So here are the goals of 2012:
For Trixie:
1) Get into PIII in USDAA
2) Qualify for 2013 AKC Nationals in Tulsa, OK
3) Q at least 4/8 at CPE Nationals
4) Earn our C-ATCH this year
5) Get our AKC MJP and MXP titles
6) Earn our APDT ARCh
7) End the year with 30+ performance titles (she currently has 18)
For Scooter:
1) Earn her Open AKC agility titles (STD and JWW)
2) Earn her CPE CL3
3) Earn her ARChEX
4) Earn her SPD and other PI USDAA agility titles
5) End the year with 35+ titles (she currently has 24)
6)Possibly earn our AKC Therapy Dog title (depends upon somethings which may or may not happen)
I'll make these goals their own page so everyone can see the awesome progress we'll be making!
30 minutes till 2012!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Last Rally Trial of the Year
last trial of the year was awesome! after waking up at 5:30 for my post-op checkup I went to an APDT trial with Scooter and Trixie. We got there just in time - when I walked in they were starting the level 2 walkthrough! At least we basically ran last after like 15-18 dogs so there was plenty of time to walk them and get out crate set up. There was basically no crate space so they were in a back corner. The runs went pretty decently - both of them got 210s (a perfect score :D) and 1st places, but Trixie's heeling attention was awful, she looked up at me like once, but she got her title and a 210 so what the heck. Next up was Level 3B for Scooter's ARChEX title. I was super happy with her backups, I think we got docked one point for the backup in heel but whatever, she finished with a 209 and 2nd place, and a total of 39 points towards end of year rankings, I don't think she'll rank but we'll see ;) As for our goals...
Trixie:
- Get her RL2 title w/ award of excellence (just needs to score about 190) - done!
- Place! - placed 1st!
- Score above 205 - got a perfect score of 210
- Better heeling attention - haha no not at all, but she did stay with me and had good attention during the stationary exercises
Scooter
- Get her 4th (? i think...) ARCHEX leg - done!
- Place in both runs - 1st and 2nd!
- Run during her fast pace - I feel like this is always a goal! haha - well sort of, more in 3B than 2B but she really ran on the send over jump which I was thrilled about! I think she's really starting to like agility :)
- Do retrieve exercise, if it's in the course - wasn't there
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
A Day of Training
We went to the K9 Jym today. yes that is how they spell gym I'm not totally sure why, but I think it's a pretty cool place, we've done some rally - o classes there and also done some competitive obedience classes with Anne Paul which was amazing, she almost made me want to do just obedience and earn an OTCH with Trixie! haha yeah...we're not going there - too many agility titles to be earned! Back to the K9 Jym, I did a ring rental with two of my agility friends who have some pretty awesome dogs, papillons and poodles, anyway they were a little bit late to the rental but Trixie and Scooter needed some work so I was happy to have the place to myself for awhile. Recently I've been working on doing a 2o2o on the dog walk because she has been striding out of the contact at trials and getting called for it - I think we've missed like 2-3 Q's because of it, some contacts were called even when she was actually in the zone, but no more! She has been making a lot of progress and after some warmup practice she did the 2o2o 5/6 times we did the dog walk in sequences. Her weaves were also looking NICE! she didn't blow them once and let me blind cross them several times. As for Scooter, she was doing great too! I'm sooo happy with how much progress she's made! She ran at the past two agility trials and did both teeters in standard AND at the K9 Jym, so I've decided she'll go back into the AKC Open ring and start showing again :D she has 1 OAJ leg and she'll probably do 1 day of all the 2-day March agility trials we'll be doing and both of the 1-day february trials, so I'm thinking we'll be able to finish her OAJ - 2 Q's in 5 tries? that sounds do-able, as for standard if she does the teeter she should have no problems with standard course time, even when she's walked standard courses and taken like 8-10 seconds on the teeter she's been under time... BUT NO MORE TIME FAULTS FOR SCOOTER AND I! it's behind us now!
Monday, December 26, 2011
Post Op Day 5
Well its officially post op day 5 - no, neither Scooter nor Trixie had an operation, I just had my wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday... good times, good times. When I found out they had to be removed like 3 months ago I kinda thought now would be perfect, no december trials, junior nationals would be over, even our agility club doesn't have classes but it was still terrible. Well all things considered it wasn't too bad, but it hurt! and I couldn't train for like 3 days, so it was just me, Dr. Who, Bones, Modern Family, and some Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream, yum! I realize this has nothing to do with training basically at all but... oh yeah I totally forgot I entered a rally trial on friday :D awesome surprise when I checked my calendar this morning, except everyone is totally out of practice... oh well anymore I just do rally for fun when there aren't agility trials, mostly because Scooter likes it so much. Trixie just tolerates it because there's food :P I suppose instead of rambling I should set some goals for this trial...
Trixie:
- Get her RL2 title w/ award of excellence (just needs to score about 190)
- Place!
- Score above 205
- Better heeling attention
Scooter
- Get her 4th (? i think...) ARCHEX leg
- Place in both runs
- Run during her fast pace - I feel like this is always a goal! haha
- Do retrieve exercise, if it's in the course
We'll take pictures - oh and MERRY CHRISTMAS/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/ other awesome holiday!
Sunday, December 18, 2011
AKC's 1st Junior Nationals!!
This event was sooo much fun! I really enjoyed getting to show with Scooter and Trixie with no pressure to get legs or earn a title or anything - it really was just for fun :D On Friday both Scooter and Trixie did agility and both of them were awesome! I LOVED Scooter's standard run! She ran the whole way and was so excited she was trying to weave two poles at a time! (so we got 2 R's :P) She even did the teeter too! I was so happy with how she ran right up to the top before she stopped, an improvement on last weekend when she stopped at the top of the up contact. Trixie's standard run was great too, but then I took my eye off of her at the double jump so she ran around it, UGH if there's any goal I have for 2012 its for me to keep my eye on Trixie when I run her - it cost us 1st place overall. She had a refusal, then back jumped the double - I led her right over it, and there went third...but I didn't care.
Next was JWW, both of them were clean! Trixie had a GREAT run, I got a little lost after the serpentine but Trixie was a good girl and didn't stray too far from me, we got 2nd place in the run by like 2 seconds - probably because of my confusion... ahhh but that's life. But my friend Kathleen beat us with her awesome sheltie so that was fine - as long as someone awesome beat us :) Scooter had a nice run too - a little slow at some parts but generally much faster than her usual JWW run - she was still about 15 seconds slower than 4th place but I was still happy with a clean run. Scooter didn't place overall but Trixie got 4th overall, about 10 seconds faster than fifth place. I loved getting to hang out with other juniors from our area and getting to see them all in one place, not like 1 or two per trial.
Our runs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbgIwTZGOLk
Saturday was obedience... Only Scooter showed because back in August when I entered I wasn't sure if Trixie was going to be ready. Our first run of the morning was Novice obedience, Scooter was great EXCEPT she didn't do ANY sits at halts during the heal on or off lead... what a stinker... but other than than she was great we only lost like 15 points... but some other teams had trouble too so we were in 4th place after the first round. Then we had group stays. One of the dogs got up immediately when the stays had started, but Scooter was good and she stayed where she was. At the end of the group sit though one dog went into a down and the judge didn't take off ANY points at all...really now?! that's like the whole challenge of a group sit! I wasn't a real fan of that judge, not just for that but other things too... like in this show we also get scored on things like sportsmanship and the appearance of the dog. One girl came out of the ring and said "That sucked!" basically screaming, she was like 9-10 years old and how many points did she lose for sportsmanship? none, yep go figure :/ The next round, Beginner Novice, was much better and Scooter sat every time and got a 244/250 getting second place in the class, the dog that beat her got a perfect 250 - I was annoyed I didn't get to see it. So we ended with 3rd place by 4 or so points - the dog that got second was the pap who laid down during the sit, but that's life - we'll beat them next year!
In any event I was super happy with how unstressed Scooter was, I may even throw her in some spring AKC agility trials and try to finish our Open titles :) Oh and more good news! Trixie got her 12" height card for agility, not sure what to do about running preferred or not though...I want to go to 2013 nationals in Tulsa and she has her OJP and 2 OAP legs and she's been doing really great at 12" but now that she has a 12" card she'd have to jump 8" - and you can't do regular after april. I'm not sure whether she could qualify if I started back in Novice and worked my way up... At this point I'm thinking that I'm going to do regular with her until April and then reevaluate, who knows how far she'll get - building confidence at a lower level couldn't hurt.
Some pictures :D
- Someone's tired :)
- the loot :D - the obedience ribbon is bigger than Scooter
Next was JWW, both of them were clean! Trixie had a GREAT run, I got a little lost after the serpentine but Trixie was a good girl and didn't stray too far from me, we got 2nd place in the run by like 2 seconds - probably because of my confusion... ahhh but that's life. But my friend Kathleen beat us with her awesome sheltie so that was fine - as long as someone awesome beat us :) Scooter had a nice run too - a little slow at some parts but generally much faster than her usual JWW run - she was still about 15 seconds slower than 4th place but I was still happy with a clean run. Scooter didn't place overall but Trixie got 4th overall, about 10 seconds faster than fifth place. I loved getting to hang out with other juniors from our area and getting to see them all in one place, not like 1 or two per trial.
Our runs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbgIwTZGOLk
Saturday was obedience... Only Scooter showed because back in August when I entered I wasn't sure if Trixie was going to be ready. Our first run of the morning was Novice obedience, Scooter was great EXCEPT she didn't do ANY sits at halts during the heal on or off lead... what a stinker... but other than than she was great we only lost like 15 points... but some other teams had trouble too so we were in 4th place after the first round. Then we had group stays. One of the dogs got up immediately when the stays had started, but Scooter was good and she stayed where she was. At the end of the group sit though one dog went into a down and the judge didn't take off ANY points at all...really now?! that's like the whole challenge of a group sit! I wasn't a real fan of that judge, not just for that but other things too... like in this show we also get scored on things like sportsmanship and the appearance of the dog. One girl came out of the ring and said "That sucked!" basically screaming, she was like 9-10 years old and how many points did she lose for sportsmanship? none, yep go figure :/ The next round, Beginner Novice, was much better and Scooter sat every time and got a 244/250 getting second place in the class, the dog that beat her got a perfect 250 - I was annoyed I didn't get to see it. So we ended with 3rd place by 4 or so points - the dog that got second was the pap who laid down during the sit, but that's life - we'll beat them next year!
In any event I was super happy with how unstressed Scooter was, I may even throw her in some spring AKC agility trials and try to finish our Open titles :) Oh and more good news! Trixie got her 12" height card for agility, not sure what to do about running preferred or not though...I want to go to 2013 nationals in Tulsa and she has her OJP and 2 OAP legs and she's been doing really great at 12" but now that she has a 12" card she'd have to jump 8" - and you can't do regular after april. I'm not sure whether she could qualify if I started back in Novice and worked my way up... At this point I'm thinking that I'm going to do regular with her until April and then reevaluate, who knows how far she'll get - building confidence at a lower level couldn't hurt.
Some pictures :D
- Someone's tired :)
- the loot :D - the obedience ribbon is bigger than Scooter
Ohh I almost forgot about goals...
For Trixie: - generally be awesome :D she's so young that I really want her to have a good time at busy events like this - hopefully they'll be more of them in her future!! - Misson accomplished! she had a great time
- Place in at least one of her runs I do want to have fun - but placing is definitely a goal! - Yes! got 2nd in JWW and 4th overall
- Be clean in both of her runs - So close! I just need to keep my eye on her...
- make it on the airplane: yeah she stretches airplane regulations so i really don't want any problems getting her on the plane and I definitely don't want her to freak out on the plane... -Trixie was great! Not even a little whining :)
Ultimate Goal:
- Place overall: I'm competitive... :) - yes!
For Scooter:
Agility:
- Run! - Dear Scooter, if you only run in two more agility runs of your career please let these be the two - Sincerely you're nervous handler - DONE!
- Do the darn teeter!! you aren't afraid of it Scooter - I bought a stupid $500 seesaw from MAD agility so you no longer have an excuse - DONE!
- Run clean in jumpers - that means not going over SCT... mission impossible? I hope not - DONE!
Ultimate Goal:
- really just running, I don't care if you place as long as you aren't afraid and you run! - DONE!
Obedience:
- get qualifying scores in both of her runs - DONE!
- place in novice senior - they're are only 6 dogs, I think you can do it Scooter! ( I managed to singlehandedly prevent two scores of 195.5 from happening) I know its in there somewhere - GOT 3rd!
- good heeling, that includes a good fast pace - I'll even try not to make it too fast for your poor 6" legs :) - better in Beginner Novice - but that's because I totally missed the briefing where the judge went over the heeling pattern...
- be happy! (notice a trend?) - haha a little too happy :D
- Place in at least one of her runs I do want to have fun - but placing is definitely a goal! - Yes! got 2nd in JWW and 4th overall
- Be clean in both of her runs - So close! I just need to keep my eye on her...
- make it on the airplane: yeah she stretches airplane regulations so i really don't want any problems getting her on the plane and I definitely don't want her to freak out on the plane... -Trixie was great! Not even a little whining :)
Ultimate Goal:
- Place overall: I'm competitive... :) - yes!
For Scooter:
Agility:
- Run! - Dear Scooter, if you only run in two more agility runs of your career please let these be the two - Sincerely you're nervous handler - DONE!
- Do the darn teeter!! you aren't afraid of it Scooter - I bought a stupid $500 seesaw from MAD agility so you no longer have an excuse - DONE!
- Run clean in jumpers - that means not going over SCT... mission impossible? I hope not - DONE!
Ultimate Goal:
- really just running, I don't care if you place as long as you aren't afraid and you run! - DONE!
Obedience:
- get qualifying scores in both of her runs - DONE!
- place in novice senior - they're are only 6 dogs, I think you can do it Scooter! ( I managed to singlehandedly prevent two scores of 195.5 from happening) I know its in there somewhere - GOT 3rd!
- good heeling, that includes a good fast pace - I'll even try not to make it too fast for your poor 6" legs :) - better in Beginner Novice - but that's because I totally missed the briefing where the judge went over the heeling pattern...
- be happy! (notice a trend?) - haha a little too happy :D
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
To Advanced and Beyond!
Well it happened! We moved from the intermediate class to advanced! Now we have Tuesday free so I may add another night of agility then - one night just isn't enough! Both the dogs were good at class tonight - Scooter was a little slow so I didn't run her as much - no need to practice that before junior nationals... speaking of which! they're only 3 days away!!!!! I still have to go through 2 more days of school - so not fair all of the other juniors left today or are leaving tomorrow :( I just want to mainly have a good time with the other juniors and get to watch the obedience/agility invitationals!! I do have some goals in mind though... I like writing these things out so then I can't deny the goal later :P
For Trixie:
- generally be awesome :D she's so young that I really want her to have a good time at busy events like this - hopefully they'll be more of them in her future!!
- Place in at least one of her runs:s I do want to have fun - but placing is definitely a goal!
- Be clean in both of her runs
- make it on the airplane: yeah she stretches airplane regulations so i really don't want any problems getting her on the plane and I definitely don't want her to freak out on the plane...
Ultimate Goal:
- Place overall: I'm competitive... :)
For Scooter:
Agility:
- Run! - Dear Scooter, if you only run in two more agility runs of your career please let these be the two - Sincerely you're nervous handler
- Do the darn teeter!! you aren't afraid of it Scooter - I bought a stupid $500 seesaw from MAD agility so you no longer have an excuse
- Run clean in jumpers - that means not going over SCT... mission impossible? I hope not
Ultimate Goal:
- really just running, I don't care if you place as long as you aren't afraid and you run!
Obedience:
- get qualifying scores in both of her runs
- place in novice senior - they're are only 6 dogs, I think you can do it Scooter! ( I managed to singlehandedly prevent two scores of 195.5 from happening) I know its in there somewhere
- good heeling, that includes a good fast pace - I'll even try not to make it too fast for your poor 6" legs :)
- be happy! (notice a trend?)
Ultimate Goal:
- Place in novice senior
Two more days until we leave - I can't wait!!!
For Trixie:
- generally be awesome :D she's so young that I really want her to have a good time at busy events like this - hopefully they'll be more of them in her future!!
- Place in at least one of her runs:s I do want to have fun - but placing is definitely a goal!
- Be clean in both of her runs
- make it on the airplane: yeah she stretches airplane regulations so i really don't want any problems getting her on the plane and I definitely don't want her to freak out on the plane...
Ultimate Goal:
- Place overall: I'm competitive... :)
For Scooter:
Agility:
- Run! - Dear Scooter, if you only run in two more agility runs of your career please let these be the two - Sincerely you're nervous handler
- Do the darn teeter!! you aren't afraid of it Scooter - I bought a stupid $500 seesaw from MAD agility so you no longer have an excuse
- Run clean in jumpers - that means not going over SCT... mission impossible? I hope not
Ultimate Goal:
- really just running, I don't care if you place as long as you aren't afraid and you run!
Obedience:
- get qualifying scores in both of her runs
- place in novice senior - they're are only 6 dogs, I think you can do it Scooter! ( I managed to singlehandedly prevent two scores of 195.5 from happening) I know its in there somewhere
- good heeling, that includes a good fast pace - I'll even try not to make it too fast for your poor 6" legs :)
- be happy! (notice a trend?)
Ultimate Goal:
- Place in novice senior
Two more days until we leave - I can't wait!!!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Keystone Winter USDAA trial
this was our last trial before the juniors agility competition and I have to say after this trial I really couldn't be more excited about going! Both Trixie AND Scooter were awesome and qualified in all of their runs! (3 for Scooter and 5 for Trix) The best part is that Scooter was RUNNING! like running running not jogging/moving kinda quickly. Trixie also was awesome in the weaves! Like basically eating them for breakfast awesome - okay I'm having trouble believing I just said/typed that... but she was that fast :) I felt bad for Trixie though because she was sliding around on the turf all day and did at least 1 face plant in 4/5 runs... granted two of the runs wouldn't have happened if she had stopped contacts! Well, we're getting there...
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNvmgkFRJuQ
Trixie -
PII Gamblers (Q and 1st) :
Awesome - yep this one was awesome :) great weaves, great running dogwalk, good send to the a-frame. I'm also happy the judge didn't call her teeter in the gamble - I know I would have called it a fly off - but then again we were due for a call to go our way... Only one more Q until PIII Gamblers!
PI Standard (Q and 1st):
flawless on Trixie's part (at least I think it was...it wasn't filmed so I have trouble remembering these things...) - except for her face plant at the end of the dog walk, but thats okay! hopefully it'll get her to slow down a little at the end of the board
PI Pairs (Q and 1st):
another great run, not sure why she ran around the teeter though...so happy with how it looked, she ran all the way down the plank and everything, and no hopping like in gamblers! We also got our Starters Performance Relay (SPR) title!
PI Snooker (Q and 1st):
I don't usually try and get like 12621986 points in snooker and because she was sliding around so much before this run I just kept it really simple - she did great and we got our Starters Performance Snooker (SPK) title!
PII Jumpers (Q and 1st):
Yes! We finally broke 5 YPS! we finished the course in 23.67 seconds making our speed 5.11 YPS - my front crosses were A LOT better, still a tiny bit late but much better. I finally just stopped babysitting all the obstacles at the trial and let her just do what she does best! it was also a really easy course for PII so there wasn't a whole lot that could go wrong :D
We are officially knocking on the PDCH's door now!
Only...42 Q's to go! ...okay that sounds like a lot ... but we're a lot closer than we were 6 months ago when Trixie first started trialing! I still can't believe how far she's gotten in only 6 months - she already has 16 agility titles!
Scooter!
PI Gamblers (Q! and 1st too :) ):
SO happy with this! she was running!!! she had a beautiful gamble - I'd forgotten how easy gamblers is with her, she's just so darn obstacle focused!
PI Standard (Q and 1st again!!)
GREAT :D really I was just blown away - She did stop on the teeter and took quite a bit of coaxing to finish it but she did it! and kept running the whole course - not one patch of walking or even jogging!!!
PI Pairs (Q and 1st!):
This was literally the best run she's ever had - need I say more?
PI Jumpers:
well we scratched because it was the very last running and even Trixie and Scooter were shivering... also I wanted her to leave happily and on a stress free note and not push my luck
Before this trial I was pretty apprehensive about doing the juniors agility competition with Scooter but now I'm actually looking forward to it - but we will definitely be working on her teeters!
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNvmgkFRJuQ
Trixie -
PII Gamblers (Q and 1st) :
Awesome - yep this one was awesome :) great weaves, great running dogwalk, good send to the a-frame. I'm also happy the judge didn't call her teeter in the gamble - I know I would have called it a fly off - but then again we were due for a call to go our way... Only one more Q until PIII Gamblers!
PI Standard (Q and 1st):
flawless on Trixie's part (at least I think it was...it wasn't filmed so I have trouble remembering these things...) - except for her face plant at the end of the dog walk, but thats okay! hopefully it'll get her to slow down a little at the end of the board
PI Pairs (Q and 1st):
another great run, not sure why she ran around the teeter though...so happy with how it looked, she ran all the way down the plank and everything, and no hopping like in gamblers! We also got our Starters Performance Relay (SPR) title!
PI Snooker (Q and 1st):
I don't usually try and get like 12621986 points in snooker and because she was sliding around so much before this run I just kept it really simple - she did great and we got our Starters Performance Snooker (SPK) title!
PII Jumpers (Q and 1st):
Yes! We finally broke 5 YPS! we finished the course in 23.67 seconds making our speed 5.11 YPS - my front crosses were A LOT better, still a tiny bit late but much better. I finally just stopped babysitting all the obstacles at the trial and let her just do what she does best! it was also a really easy course for PII so there wasn't a whole lot that could go wrong :D
We are officially knocking on the PDCH's door now!
Only...42 Q's to go! ...okay that sounds like a lot ... but we're a lot closer than we were 6 months ago when Trixie first started trialing! I still can't believe how far she's gotten in only 6 months - she already has 16 agility titles!
Scooter!
PI Gamblers (Q! and 1st too :) ):
SO happy with this! she was running!!! she had a beautiful gamble - I'd forgotten how easy gamblers is with her, she's just so darn obstacle focused!
PI Standard (Q and 1st again!!)
GREAT :D really I was just blown away - She did stop on the teeter and took quite a bit of coaxing to finish it but she did it! and kept running the whole course - not one patch of walking or even jogging!!!
PI Pairs (Q and 1st!):
This was literally the best run she's ever had - need I say more?
PI Jumpers:
well we scratched because it was the very last running and even Trixie and Scooter were shivering... also I wanted her to leave happily and on a stress free note and not push my luck
Before this trial I was pretty apprehensive about doing the juniors agility competition with Scooter but now I'm actually looking forward to it - but we will definitely be working on her teeters!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
AKC Juniors competition!
It's officially 5 days until I leave for Florida! I can't wait to meet the other juniors and, of course, run my dogs :D hopefully Scooter will be awesome tomorrow at the USDAA trial so I can be more confident about how she'll do - and Trixie's always awesome so no worries there :) I just want the week to go quickly!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Training...
well today's agility class was... well certainly something... the instructor set up a course which was left over from open training time there on Sunday (which I of course went to being the agility addict I am :D) so the standard course wasn't as much fun as it otherwise would have been. The course was from last Saturday's Excellent Standard from the LCDTC - I'm really not looking forward to rerunning the courses that I just ran the weekend before now that Trixie and I are in excellent....hopefully we'll move to the higher class by Feb. so that won't happen but I have my doubts. Trixie and Scooter have been in the same class for what feels like forever (Scooter like 1 1/2 years, I know!, and Trixie about 6-7 months) and they almost always ace the courses running super fast and yet...we're still in intermediate... even some club members have come up to us to ask why we aren't in the highest level...
anyway! The standard course had a couple possible off course options - none of them were a problem for Scoot or Trix...because they had already run it like two days ago! Trixie was awesome and was the only dog in the class who ran it clean - about 39ish seconds I think. She also let me get 10+ feet away from the weaves so I could do a front cross. I also totally slipped at a tight turn but she was a good girl and took the jump anyway :) Scooter's run was somewhat less impressive... For the first 12 obstacles she was awesome then she decided to totally ignore me and eat some leaves...really Scooter?? eventually she did get back on track and did a great dogwalk! ( Trixie also pulled off an awesome running contact -props to her :) )
In jumpers I just ran Trixie because Scooter just ignored me for a lot of standard and the jumpers courses are run on wood chips in the winter (which EVERY dog at that class likes sniffing) as a result Trixie had a pretty awful first run... after we reran it she did well but I handled it much more conservatively, so eh I was just glad that she wasn't sniffing.
After we ran our two sequences I went and worked on Trixie's new 2020, I decided that having a running contact, that's been called like 3/7-8 times at trials just wasn't worth how annoyed I was when judges called it when she actually got it... Trixie was doing really well despite another big dog totally being in her face, I actually had to push the dog away like 3 times, why people let their dogs off leash around other dogs when they just don't have control of them ill never know...
This class didn't make me too optimistic about Juniors for Scooter...I'm just hoping she doesn't totally embarrass me by walking the whole thing and refusing the teeter (she did it in class!) and then there's the USDAA trial this weekend...why I entered her in that ill never know... I should have just done standard but no I entered her in four things... ahhh Well at least I get to run Trixie, she's so fun :) Can't wait to see how she does in Juniors!
anyway! The standard course had a couple possible off course options - none of them were a problem for Scoot or Trix...because they had already run it like two days ago! Trixie was awesome and was the only dog in the class who ran it clean - about 39ish seconds I think. She also let me get 10+ feet away from the weaves so I could do a front cross. I also totally slipped at a tight turn but she was a good girl and took the jump anyway :) Scooter's run was somewhat less impressive... For the first 12 obstacles she was awesome then she decided to totally ignore me and eat some leaves...really Scooter?? eventually she did get back on track and did a great dogwalk! ( Trixie also pulled off an awesome running contact -props to her :) )
In jumpers I just ran Trixie because Scooter just ignored me for a lot of standard and the jumpers courses are run on wood chips in the winter (which EVERY dog at that class likes sniffing) as a result Trixie had a pretty awful first run... after we reran it she did well but I handled it much more conservatively, so eh I was just glad that she wasn't sniffing.
After we ran our two sequences I went and worked on Trixie's new 2020, I decided that having a running contact, that's been called like 3/7-8 times at trials just wasn't worth how annoyed I was when judges called it when she actually got it... Trixie was doing really well despite another big dog totally being in her face, I actually had to push the dog away like 3 times, why people let their dogs off leash around other dogs when they just don't have control of them ill never know...
This class didn't make me too optimistic about Juniors for Scooter...I'm just hoping she doesn't totally embarrass me by walking the whole thing and refusing the teeter (she did it in class!) and then there's the USDAA trial this weekend...why I entered her in that ill never know... I should have just done standard but no I entered her in four things... ahhh Well at least I get to run Trixie, she's so fun :) Can't wait to see how she does in Juniors!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Training!
I'm still working with miss Scooter on her teeter work, she's definitely not afraid of it anymore so I'm just working on speed and drive and I think she's definitely much better than she was :) Now if I can just get to run a full agility course... Then she'll be ready for the AKC Juniors tournament! (13 days away!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl3KHA0SKQw
Scooter and Trixie are entered in the Keystone USDAA trial that I'm doing next weekend in Jumpers, Standard, Gamblers, and Pairs. I really don't care if she Q's (and I'm not expecting her to because of USDAA's tight times) I just want her to run!! Trixie is in everything (Standard, Jumpers, Gamblers, Snooker, and Pairs) and she'll hopefully get her Starters Performance Pairs & Snooker titles but we'll see, you never know how those two classes are going to go because if you get a bad partner in pairs (totally possible in PI) then you're out of luck and can't Q no matter how well you do. Luckily that hasn't happened to us before and I hope it never will! Snooker always stresses me out, well just USDAA snooker because CPE's snooker is usually pretty easy, because it's so easy to NQ for doing something stupid. NQing doesn't usually bother me unless my dog was totally capable of doing the course and I messed them up - if the course is just to hard for us it actually makes me happy (weird right?) because then I know how we need to improve. That's why I love USDAA, the courses are usually challenging, and fun too! It's nice to have more than just standard and jumpers and make you really have to think - plus if you're going to be at a trial all day you might as well run more than twice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl3KHA0SKQw
Scooter and Trixie are entered in the Keystone USDAA trial that I'm doing next weekend in Jumpers, Standard, Gamblers, and Pairs. I really don't care if she Q's (and I'm not expecting her to because of USDAA's tight times) I just want her to run!! Trixie is in everything (Standard, Jumpers, Gamblers, Snooker, and Pairs) and she'll hopefully get her Starters Performance Pairs & Snooker titles but we'll see, you never know how those two classes are going to go because if you get a bad partner in pairs (totally possible in PI) then you're out of luck and can't Q no matter how well you do. Luckily that hasn't happened to us before and I hope it never will! Snooker always stresses me out, well just USDAA snooker because CPE's snooker is usually pretty easy, because it's so easy to NQ for doing something stupid. NQing doesn't usually bother me unless my dog was totally capable of doing the course and I messed them up - if the course is just to hard for us it actually makes me happy (weird right?) because then I know how we need to improve. That's why I love USDAA, the courses are usually challenging, and fun too! It's nice to have more than just standard and jumpers and make you really have to think - plus if you're going to be at a trial all day you might as well run more than twice.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Keystone ESS Winter AKC 2011
Trixie and I had a lot of fun at this trial! It was our last AKC trial before the AKC Juniors Agility Competition this December and I think we're definitely going to do well there :) We QQ'ed both days getting two OAP legs and finishing her OJP title. Trixie also ran in FAST but the runs weren't very good... Saturday's NQ in FAST was definitely my fault but I was happy with the run anyway because she had really good weaves and a great teeter. In fact, she got her weaves all weekend on the first try :) Sunday morning's FAST annoyed me because the send was totally something she could do with no problem, but she just got too excited and ran around me to take some random jump... At least she's building drive! LOL at least she gets it out in FAST before standard and jumpers where it really counts - we're trying to qualify for 2013 AKC nationals, getting our OAP, AXP, AJP, and 6 QQ's before the end of November next year should be no problem right?! Well, we'll give it a shot :)
Here are her runs:
Saturday FAST and Open JWW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0CHahw10dE
Sunday JWW:
loved this run!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gtt-OaMejE
Here are her runs:
Saturday FAST and Open JWW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0CHahw10dE
Sunday JWW:
loved this run!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gtt-OaMejE
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Here goes nothing!
Well, here goes nothing... I keep trying to keep dog training journals but so far the one that's lasted the longest lasted two weeks or so... well hopefully this will work better! Trixie is about to start more serious competitive obedience training next week and she still isn't in the Excellent B/Masters/ Level 5 agility so it should be fun to look back and see all of the progress we'll hopefully be making :) I'll try and update this at least once a week but we'll see if school lets me do that
Here's a little bit about my two dogs:
Scooter:
Scooter is a little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who loves to sleep, chase squirrels, and generally be adored by everyone :) She was born in late August of 2008. Scooter was the first dog I have ever owned and I just love her. She tries so hard to do exactly what I want her to in training and rarely disappoints in the ring, and has earned over 20 titles. I give her a lot of credit for doing as well as she did despite the fact that I knew essentially nothing about training a dog at all when I started with he.
Trixie:
Here's a little bit about my two dogs:
Scooter:
Scooter is a little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who loves to sleep, chase squirrels, and generally be adored by everyone :) She was born in late August of 2008. Scooter was the first dog I have ever owned and I just love her. She tries so hard to do exactly what I want her to in training and rarely disappoints in the ring, and has earned over 20 titles. I give her a lot of credit for doing as well as she did despite the fact that I knew essentially nothing about training a dog at all when I started with he.
Trixie:
Trixie is my crazy little English Cocker Spaniel who just loves life. She was born in December 2009 and in the less than two years I've had her she has proved to be a loyal and smart, but certainly mischievous!, little Engie <3 She's been training in agility for about a year now and is about to start seriously training for competitive obedience.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)