Dropping By Briefly

Oh, it's been a while; not that I don't have anything to report, it's just that it takes a while to type (and I type pretty quickly) and I'm busy BUSY BUSY.

We've had no agility competitions since May. Our next isn't until 4th of July weekend--3 days of CPE out in Elk Grove, then another 2 days July 23-24 in Sunnyvale, then August thru October go nuts (see my perpetual weekend calendar at finchester.org/weekends).

We've had minimal agility classes because I've been splitting one class between Jake and Tika, which isn't very satisfying for either of us. AND there's no class this week at all. We're starting up 2 different classes again next week. It's good because I need the exercise AND the practice, and they need the attention, which they've been short on lately.

Tika's speed

A friend of my sister finally reassembled my teeter totter (it's been over a year since it disintegrated and I bought a replacement fiberglass top) and I've been trying to get Tika to blast to the end. She still hesitates at the drop point (where it starts to drop when she runs out onto it) instead of continuing to the end, but I THINK she's getting through it faster and moving out of it faster to the 2-on, 2-off at the end.

In Oct 2002, Clean Run Magazine published "Obstacle Performance Times", which are probably still pretty accurate. In seconds, they are:

Teeter: Avg, 1.7. Very good, < 1.4. Excellent, 1
A-Frame: Avg, 2.4. Vg, < 1.7. Exc, 1.3
Dogwalk: Avg, 3.4. Vg, < 2.5. Exc, < 2
Weaves: Avg, 3.2. Vg, < 2.8. Exc, 2.3 (surface and pole structure affects this a lot)
Table down: Avg, 2.8. Vg, < 1.5. Exc: < 1

Tika has been closer to the very good range in most things, but her teeter's the slowest, and she tends to slow down on the dogwalk down ramp, so I've been working on that, too. But we want to be in the Grand Prix finals this year! And in the Steeplechase finals! (Well--OK--latter doesn't have dogwalk or teeter, and she tends to be pretty danged good at weaves and A-frame in competition.)

We've timed the performance in class occasionally, and sometimes I time it from videos (which I haven't been asking anyone to film lately--guess I should get back to it).

The Booster

I just don't spend enough time with her, or she'd be able to do Sit and Down on command by now, and probably be more reliable on her Come! Crud! Where does the time go? She's 4.5 months already, getting big.