Whew!

The qualifying period is over! Yay! We finished things up nicely, too. Now we can relax. We are heading up to State College this weekend for a trial, but really we are going just to visit our son, Lee. The trial is just for fun. Of course, it does count for next year's Invitational...  :-)

This past weekend, we had a fabulous, fun, hot & humid, three days of agility at the BCKC trial in Palmyra! We closed out the Invitational qualifying period almost perfectly--we dropped one bar in our first run of the weekend, and then were fast and perfect for the rest. Now we just have to wait and see whether we qualify first or second!

Below is a link to a video of our JWW run on Friday. This was a really fun course and we got to do it twice! The first time through, when we finished the timer said we had done it in 14.44 seconds! Obviously, it had malfunctioned. So we ran it a second time a few minutes later. (Our actual time was about 29 seconds.)

What made this course fun and challenging was that you really had to move. There were a couple of spots where you were in trouble if you didn't beat your dog down the line.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In7VCRxJyDU

As I said above, Darcy was fast this weekend. I have always considered him to be heat sensitive. But I've found if I really soak him (with a hose or by letting him swim) right before we go in for our run, he does just fine.

My next posting will probably come after the AKC posts the final results for the Invitational qualifying.

Rob

Video of yesterday's NQ

Here is a link to the video of one of yesterday's runs in Cato. You can take a look for yourself and see if you can tell why the bar came down. It's the first jump (the panel) after the A frame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eQssk2XiI

Other than a wide turn and a bit of a sloppy dog walk (the never-ending bane of our agility existence), I think it was quite a nice run. Well, there was that dropped panel jump...

Rob

Penultimate Trial

We had a good weekend up in Cato, NY! It was a four-day trial (Thursday through Sunday), but we were there for just the last two days. The site is nice--a farm about a half-hour west of Syracuse. But the weather, whew, was it ever hot and humid! Highs around 90 both days. I don't know what the humidity was, but it was very high, too. The trial was outside, and the dogs and Paula and I spent two days hanging out in the fug. Mr. D. did well, though. I kept him cool with water that I sprayed him with and by letting him swim in the pond. Saturday we had a double Q, but Sunday we had one bar down to spoil our run in Standard.

Since I bought a triple jump a few weeks ago and have worked with Darcy most days on it, his jumping has really improved! The bar that came down yesterday was not related to his old problem of taking off too early. I'm not quite sure what happened here. He knocked a panel jump (we don't see many of those in practice), set 90 degrees and very close to the A frame. I think he just took off a little too close to the jump. Anyway, we'll work on that for a bit after class tonight.

Missing that one Q on the weekend almost definitely takes away any chance we had to finish first in the Invitational qualifying. Although I've said that doesn't really matter (we just have to finish in the top five, which we definitely will), it does matter on a personal level. I had really hoped we would place first and that hope is now gone. Oh, well.

It probably seems like I'm a bit obsessed with qualifying for the Invitational, and with the sport of dog agility in general. It's true, I am obsessed. But when you spend two or three years focusing on a particular goal, you do become pretty obsessed. Otherwise, why would you be doing it!?

We have only one more trial, now, in the qualifying period. This coming weekend we'll be up in Palmyra, PA, Friday through Sunday. Then we can take a deep breath and relax for a while.  :-)

Rob

Back in First Place!

Much to my surprise, we looked at the latest data (up-to-date as of May 30) and found we are back in first place, by 49 points! However, after May 30, we missed four trial days and our competition presumably did not. So more than likely we will fall back to second place. This does give us a sliver of hope, though--we could still finish in first. We have five trial days left--two this weekend in Cato, NY, and three the following weekend in Palmyra, PA. Should be fun!

We got back to trialling again last weekend, practically for the first time in nearly three weeks. Even with that extended break, we did very well. In our first run of the weekend, Darcy made one minor mistake, missing one weave pole. (On the video he appears to be a little discombobulated and is running through the poles a little differently than he usually does, two-footing it instead of single-footing. Maybe this was due to slippery grass? Who knows.) After that we had great runs the rest of the weekend, including matching our highest scoring day ever on Sunday: 26 points in Standard and 13 points in Jumpers With Weaves. So we ended the weekend very pleased. And now with this latest news about being in first place again at the end of May, we are extra happy!

Rob

Bad News

We've had a string of bad news in our Quest. Every trial day is critical now, as we finish up the qualifying period for the Invitational. (The qualifying period ends on June 30.) But we keep losing days.

First, we had to limit our three-day trial last weekend to one day, due to having to travel out to the West Coast for my mother's memorial service. We did manage a double Q on Friday, before traveling on Saturday. (On the upside, the memorial service was really nice, and I got to see a lot of old friends and celebrate my mother's life.)

Second, we found out yesterday that we fell a few points out of first place in the Invitational qualifying.

Third, the two days we were supposed to trial this coming weekend just got canceled due to torrential rains we are supposed to be getting this weekend.

Don't they say bad news comes in threes? So maybe we're done with that stuff.

Our chances of recovering first place are now next to nil. Our June trial days have now fallen from 11 to just 7. Oh, well. It's highly doubtful that we'll fall out of second place, and certainly not out of the top five. Being in the top five is all that matters. But I was sort of hoping we'd be able to finish the qualifying period in first place. Those consistency problems we've had all year are now coming back to haunt us...

Rob

Running in the HEAT

Today the doggies and I went up to East Freehold Park, in Freehold, NJ. The weather was predicted to be sunny and hot--92 degrees. The sunny part was right, but it got significantly hotter than expected! When I left the park around 4:00pm, it was 98 to 100 degrees! Yowza! I found a place in the shade with some breeze to crate the dogs all day. Before and after each run I soaked Darcy with a hose, then put a soaked reflective vest kind of a thing on him while we got ready for our run.

Neither of our runs were super fast--not too surprising! But they were both clean. So no complaints. Especially since Darcy has always been pretty heat-sensitive.

A lot of people and dogs were pretty fried in the heat. The two courses were not THAT challenging, but a lot of people were getting lost, bars were coming down for no particular reason, etc. In the Standard course, the weaves were the second to last obstacle, with the finish jump directly in front of the weave exit. But many dogs popped out of the weaves early--I think both the handlers and dogs knew the run was just about done and lost focus.

For us, today was our only trial day this weekend. We were originally supposed to do all three days, but tomorrow I am flying out to Oregon for my mother's memorial service. Given that the rest of the weekend is supposed to stay very hot, I don't mind missing it. I will miss my doggies, though.

So, good luck to anyone spending the next two days up in Freehold. Stay cool and stay focused.

Rob

Sunday's (sort of) U Q

A "U Q" is a phrase a friend of mine and I coined recently. It stands for "Ugly Q". "Ugly" meaning mistake-filled, but still a Q.

So here is the video of Sunday's sort of U Q. I didn't give Darcy good information to get into the weave poles. So he turned the wrong way, then saw where I was and came back to the weaves. Then later he came half off the table (not a fault, but does cost time as the table count stops) before getting back on. The rest of the run was pretty nice.

Here is a link to the video: http://youtu.be/iwjjVcehfvs

Rob