Trials!

Well school's been busy as usual so I haven't had time to write about last weekends trial so I'll just mix it in with yesterdays!

Last weekend we went to 3D Dog Training's CPE trial in Barto, PA. I was so excited to go because it would be in a NEW and HEATED building! No more freezing at 7 PM waiting to run jumpers... story of my life right there. Also two of my other junior friends were there, Hillary and Sarah, and it was nice to see them again because our last trial together was...August? not totally sure but it had been awhile - I also got to see Hillary's super cute new Papillon who was running in her 2nd CPE trial and she finish 2 titles!

Level 3 Standard - our 4th leg!

As for my dogs...Scooter was awesome and Trixie definitely had some 2 year old moments... but they both had perfect days so I can't complain. My favorite run was definitely Level 3 Colors with Trixie, it was pretty easy, a straight line to a serp to a minority challenging tunnel entrance to a straight line to the weaves and out - we rocked it with the 3rd fastest time of all the heights (the fastest was like 1 and 1/2 seconds faster and was like 10" taller...and a BC...) she hit a new YPS high again - 5.37 YPS, love how she keeps getting faster and I'm not flailing around and being late as a handler. All of our other runs had lots of silly mistakes, usually I'm willing to take the blame but 99% were definitely on Trixie, she just needs some more experience and age to settle her crazy mind... especially in Snooker... but we did get a perfect 51 and finished our CL3-S title, in Jumpers we also got our CL3-F.

Scooter was AMAZING! I love her when she runs - she's so cute! She got 1st and Q'ed in level 3 Colors at 3.88 YPS ( pretty good for her!) and got 2nd and Q'ed in Wildcard at 3.49 YPS! Then was standard...and she Q'ed!!! Absolutely no hesitation on the teeter - it was amazing! Now we only need 1 more Q for her Level 2 Standard and 1 more in Jackpot for her Level 2 Strategy and she'll have Q'ed for 2012 CPE Nationals! We're entered in another CPE trial before the nationals cutoff date and the 2 runs Scooter are doing and the 2 Q's she needs so fingers crossed!

Also right before the 3/4/5/C Jumpers walkthrough the Judge gave out a it-is-what-it-is award and I got it from wildcard this morning because Trixie was being so silly but I kept my cool and Q'ed, yay for my mental game :D

Here's our cool prize - a slip lead!

Yesterday we were at On Target's Winter USDAA trial which was also in the new Barto building. I was happy with how Trixie ran in everything but PII Gamblers, I think I could definitely have handled the gamble better than I did but I think Trixie was ignoring some of my cues there... After like 5-6 hours (literally!) of waiting we ran in PI Standard and got our Performance Dog title - so glad I'm out of PI. The course wasn't that hard but A LOT of dogs weren't Q'ing. Right after we ran in Performance Grand Prix - not gonna lie I was freaking out a little, it was definitely the hardest course I had ever run - I've just never been in excellent or masters because Scooter had her stress issues and Trixie's so new to trialing. I was so happy with how Trixie ran! Except for her refusal - Trixie gets the blame for that one, I don't know why she ran around that jump I don't think I could have cued that if I tried...but she didn't get eliminated! and we finished by 4ish seconds in 2nd! (probably the time it took to fix that jump) I was annoyed that we didn't get the bye because I thought the dog that beat us blew their DW contact but I didn't really care because Trixie got hers all day! Next time I guess. I was going to go home before PII Pairs because PGP and GP was taking SO LONG. Right as was packing up the last of our stuff for the car I noticed that they were about to start walking PII pairs and we were 2nd to run... it was such an easy course that I stayed the extra 20 min to run it. My partner wanted to run the 1st half, so I took the 2nd, and easier half. We Q'ed and got 1st. Now we only need a PII Snooker Q and 3 PII Standards for our Advanced Performance Dog title... Then we'll official be working on our Performance Dog Champion!!!! I've also been thinking about doing USDAA regionals... they're 2 hours away but...it's regionals... but then nationals happen during the school week so I don't know if I'd even be able to go...

Here were our courses!

The easy, yet fun PI Standard

Performance Grand Prix - so fun!

PII Relay - we had the 2nd half

Starting 2012 off right!

     Today was awesome :D Because there weren't any agility trials anywhere Scooter got to do APDT rally-o 2 weekends in a row! I gave Trixie the weekend off though because I wasn't totally sure how last weekend would go and I don't think she's quite ready to go for the ARCh title yet...even though she keeps getting 210's and such I'm just not satisfied with how she's heeling, I feel like when I'm in the ring with her she really is pushing ME around the course...maybe that's how it's supposed to feel, I'm so used to having to cheerlead miss Scooter all the time that going back and doing all the performance events with Trixie all seem completely different than they did before with Scooter. But back to the rally trial! As usual Scooter was slow, steady, and won the race :) well actually she lost twice on time but she had 4/4 perfect scores, and got her 5th and 6th ARChEX legs :D I feel like since I stopped pushing Scooter to get 1st place all the time her scores have gone up by like 3-5 points (to being consistently 210/209) and she actually gets 1st a lot more often! iconic isn't it? She got 1st place twice and a 2nd and a 3rd on time - I need to find some sort of way to speed her up! It's not that she's stressed like agility, actually I started agility to try and get her to be faster in rally!, because her tail is always up and wagging the whole time. I think she just likes taking her time, and I'm fine with that.
     Recently I've been thinking of more stuff I can do with Scooter. I know she and I can only go so far together in agility, probably the MX and MXJ are wishful thinking but what the heck she's only 3 so she's still young, so I've been looking into other titles we can work towards together. I'm thinking of trying CDSP obedience with her because they don't have out of sight stays - I don't think she'd have a problem but I don't really feel like training them to be honest. Teaching scent articles ought to be interesting... but on a different note...recently I heard about these "trick dog titles"and I have to be honest they seem kinda silly but being the sucker I am I've been thinking about them. If you haven't heard of them they were created by a women who wrote some books about how to teach your dogs different tricks and to get each trick title the dog has to know a certain number of tricks that a of a certain level of difficulty. Once you've taught your dog the tricks then you get someone to watch you do them with your dog and then they sign a form saying that you dog can do the tricks and voila! you have earned a trick dog titel. But of course you can't get away with getting these titles for free, that would just be silly! so for each title you have to pay $20 per application, really now? but wait there's more... there's a Trick Dog Champion title ( which is decently challenging) for which you have to actually submit a video of your dog doing the required tricks to be reviewed by a licensed judge type person which may be why they charge $109.99! Wow... They totally had me hooked until I saw how much all of this actually cost... So I've decided to do something...a little lame, maybe..., because I'm kind of cheap (but still I have more important things to spend money on!) Once either Trixie or Scooter have met the requirements for I trick dog title I'll post a video of them doing their tricks on here and I'll award them a trick title myself! ha take that you underhanded scheme! and for those of you wondering I do own one of her books... I'll probably get around to having them do their tricks in like wish weeks when we don't have any trials :'( I'm actually looking forward to working with them to teach them tricks again - the last one I taught was teaching Trixie how to shake like... a year and a half ago...shameful I know - but that will change!

Amending a Goal?

One of the things I love about training and competing with my dogs is that you have lots of goals which are changing constantly as you progress through their training, however my long term goals change less frequently. 3 days into 2012 I've decided that I'd rather work towards trying to complete her PDCh than her C-ATCH...so goal changed! Although I also want to be in Level 5 in all of the classes by the end of the year so we'll be in a good position to finish it next year. I love CPE but USDAA is...awesome :D