CPE Detailed Results

SUMMARY: Another ALMOST perfect weekend plus lots of blue and a few flaws in my evil plans.

My evil plan for the weekend: A triple-perfect weekend for both dogs, which means:

• Part 1: All first places in our class (dogs at same level and height)
• Part 2: Perfect Weekend: Qs in all 8 classes (you get a ribbon and special recognition for that)
• Part 3: All fastest/highest scores of all dogs who ran the same course (which  is all level 4/5/C dogs, sometimes also all level 3 dogs, and, sometimes, all dogs, period)

However, as with all evil plans, there were flaws in the planning stages--

Tika's Weekend

Tika competed in Level C all weekend. Level C is the only level in CPE in which you cannot Q with faults. You must both qualify to be in Level C and choose to compete at that level. You can also opt to compete at Level 5, where certain faults will still allow you to Q. For example--knocking one bar in Standard.

	Q?	place	dogs in class	all dogs	time/score	highest, fastest, strongest, cutest...
Sat. Colors	Q	1	7	59	14.17 sec	2nd fastest all (Boost faster)*
Sat. Wildcard	Q	1	10	92	18.51 sec	2nd fastest all (Boost faster)
Sat. Standard	Q	1	6	64	36.22 sec	4th fastest all (boost faster, also 2 others)
Sat. Gamblers#	Q	1	7	67	43+20 pts	highest opening pts, highest total all dogs (AND knocked bar on 5-ptr**** so 0 for that)
Sun Standard	nq	4	6	66	34.46 sec, bar**	fastest all dogs (only 3 others even under 40 secs)
Sun. Full House	Q	2***	10	122	40 pts	4th highest of all dogs (Boost and 2 dogs with 42 pts--if only I hadn't run tika past that 5-pt aframe instead of going up it)
Sun. Jumpers	Q	1	8	88	25.11 sec	fastest all level 4/5/C dogs--but dang, two small level 3 dogs were faster!
Sun. Snooker	Q	1	7	77	51 pts, 32.44 secs.	tied with Boost for highest (Boost faster)

^* Flaw A in my evil plan: When Boost and I run well together, we'll beat Tika. So, doh, not only can both dogs not get the highest score or the fastest time, but it's extremely unlikely that one will beat the other in all 8 classes. Plan Part 3 defeated!
^** Flaw B: Tika--knocked a bar at 20"?! Crap! In level C, that ruined our perfect weekend. Especially frustrating when 47 out of 66 dogs NQed on this course and Tika was the only one who NQed because of a stupid bar--others were off-courses or major faults. Gah. And, of course, had I opted to enter her in Level 5, it would've been a Q. In fact--this one stupid bar is the only thing that stood between us and our Perfect Weekend ribbon. Plan Part 2 defeated!
^***Flaw C: Gak! Boost and Tika BOTH entered in Level C 20"! That means they were competing directly and both could NOT take 1st place! Gak! Plan Part 1 defeated!
^****I think we had a timer issue in our favor on this one. Sure, Tika was fast and pretty accurate. Sure, I had a good plan. But Tika did a 49-point opening, when no other dog got more than 37--18 obstacles, which is a lot for 30 seconds-- AND I ran out of my plan and extra obstacles, AND I had time to stop and look at the judge and say, where's my buzzer, AND he had time to step over to the timer and look and say that we had time left. About then, the buzzer blew. I'm thinkin' that the manual start didn't start and we must've gotten quite a bit more than 30 seconds. That's OK, makes Tika look like super-dog. On the other hand--Boost did two sets of weaves incorrectly and then bounced back to me, so didn't get points for those, looked back at me instead of going straight on to jumps and tunnels, thereby wasting time...but, still--guess I'll have to wait for the video to arrive to know The Truth.
^#Sorry, "Jackpot" it's called in CPE. It's still Gamblers.

That one red ribbon! Tsk! Dang that Boost!

Boost's Weekend

Boost competed in Level 4 in some classes, Level 5 in some, and Level C in Full House.

	Q?	place	dogs in class	all dogs	time/score	highest, fastest, strongest, cutest...
Sat. Colors	Q	1	5	59	13.71	fastest all dogs
Sat. Wildcard	Q	1	7	92	17.11	fastest all dogs*
Sat. Standard	Q	1	8	64	34.92	2nd fastest all dogs (Teo the Toller 2 secs faster!**)
Sat. Gamblers	nq	4	6	67	37 op. pts, 0 closing	tied 2nd highest opening with 2 other dogs (Tika highest)
Sun Standard	nq	3	8	66	a bit of a mess	ran past a jump for an off course. Popped out of weaves at #10. Some bobbling. Some very nice bits, too.
Sun. Full House	Q	1	10	122	47 points	highest all dogs--next closest were two with 42 and Tika with 40***. TOO! MUCH! FUN!
Sun. Jumpers	nq	2	5	88	another mess	ran past a couple of jumps, once for an offcourse, and some "what this jump?"
Sun. Snooker	Q	1	4	77	51 pts****, 29.10 secs	tied Tika for highest pts; faster

^*These first two are very short courses--9 to 12 obstacles. What a blast, running her on these short, simple courses!
^**I was holding Boost on all her contacts and telling her she was a good girl. I'm sure that used up at least 2 seconds. ;-)
^***Only reason Tika wasn't 2nd highest (or tied with Boost) was because I misjudged where I had to be to push Tika out to the Aframe, so she ran past it instead of getting the 5 points and we wasted a bit of time getting back on track. Tika ran first, so I learned from that and did not make the same mistake with Boost. Voila.
^****Snooker. What a simple little course, with all the reds surrounding the 7-point obstacle, which was a set of 6 weaves, and a closing that was a tight little circle. There's a sign of the big difference between CPE and USDAA--only a couple of the 77 dogs who ran that course even tried for three 7s in the opening, and we were the only ones who succeeded. Jeez, we had 40 seconds! Even with me missing one important front cross with both dogs, which caused a little confusion, and not wrapping my dogs clearly enough around another jump, both did the whole thing in about 30 seconds.

That one red non-Qing ribbon--everyone else had so much trouble with that Jumpers run that Boost still came in 2nd even with an NQ. I felt we earned it.

Overall

I'm still figuring out my new point-and-shoot. Got a lot more photos than I'd have gotten with the old one, but a lot more are blurrier than I was expecting. Including the two above, where hte dogs were holding still, I was holding still, I was controlling the environment--and still they're soft. Guess I should learn my tools better.

Boost had a pretty good weekend mostly. Never broke her start line (but we also worked on that before every run). Left only a couple of contacts early, in full house as it became clear that I was releasing her quickly, and then not much early. Weaves were still an issue. Popped out of one 12-pole weave, skipped randomly through the poles on two 6-pole weaves. That's 3 out of 13 weaves for the weekend. Not great.

Several of the courses allowed me to stay ahead of her or to be exactly where I wanted to be so I didn't have to "trust" her to do the right thing, so she flowed smoothly and ran fast. I think CPE courses allow this for me more than USDAA courses do. When she got ahead of me or when I expected her to do the right thing but wasn't close enough to monitor it, then things fell apart as usual.

Boost knocked only two bars that I remember all weekend, and of course it was one that counted--the first one in the Gamble, which negated the entire gamble. The other was a botched lead-out pivot where she crashed the entire jump.

Tika also held the start line all weekend. I was exceptionally firm with both dogs on every run at the start line. The only time Tika got up and started to move before I was ready, the timer called me back after releasing me, so saved by the bell!

Tika actually knocked two bars--the perfect-weekend stealer in Standard, and the one bar in Gamblers that cost us a 5-pointer.

Final note: Wow I love Full House with my dogs! You pretty much design your own course with minimal rules, and then do as many obstacles as you can in 30 seconds. What a blast to challenge myself with a high-scoring course design that my dogs and I can actually do, and then to move them and myself through that course at our peak performance. Woo hoo! Wouldn't it be fun to have an ENTIRE WEEKEND of nothing but Full House? Hmmm--perhaps it's Evil Plan time again--