On The Road to Power Paws

SUMMARY: Can't you just hear Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Singing?

Team Small Dog just posted some nifty photos of things that we see on our way to Power Paws for class every week. I took similar photos back in 1998 (and back THEN I thought I had been going there for a long time!) but hers are better. Except that she doesn't have this one--which was my favorite--because it doesn't exist any more. They redid it so that now all you can get are GOATS SHEEP PIGS. It seems a shame.

Truckee Weekend

SUMMARY: Had a wonderful time. Feel great. Dogs exhausted.

I stayed with agility friends at their cabin in Truckee. It's a beautiful cabin, they're fun people, and I had a wonderful time. We hiked miles and miles cross country through snow and ice and a little bit of snow-melty muck here and there. I feel surprisingly good; maybe my hiking and upstairs/downstairsing are paying off (although that short but steep uphill is a wakeup call that I still need work on that type of conditioning). Knee is good and I haven't had ibuprofen in 24 hours. No blisters. No muscle aches. This is very cool, as my friends are fit and quick and do a lot of hiking.

The dogs undoubtedly covered four times the distance that we did. They really enjoyed themselves. Tika led the way the whole trip, scouting out to either side of the path for a hundred yards in each direction to be sure no ambushes awaited. Boost chased the other Border Collies all over tarnation. Both my dogs ran and ran and ran. And not an agility obstacle in sight!

They are zoned-out puppies today. After our very long morning hike yesterday, they were all a bit snoozy. Although Boost (of course) still wanted to play, she did actually lie down and nap while we were still awake. Then we took a nap, watched a movie (more dog napping), went out for one final frisbee game at a nearby soccer field in what had to be 10 degrees F with wind chill added. When I loaded them into the car to come home, they both keeled right over onto on their sides and barely lifted their heads again, even when we stopped at the AM PM Minimart halfway home.

This morning, when I first rolled over, neither of them even twitched! Usually they're all over me as soon as they hear an eyelid blink. They've been thoroughly sacked out all morning. Got excited about breakfast, but went right back to snoozeland. They didn't even bother raising their heads when I crinkled a bag of dried fruit, and usually Tika comes running and Boost sits up and takes notice. They are SO tired! This is wonderful. :-) I wonder how long it will last?

I took 544 photos. I've winnowed out the worst 100 so far. Lots more blurry ones; I foolishly took just my cheapo snapshot on the first hike and tried taking action shots of the dogs in the snow. No workee goodee. Lots of challenges taking photos of all the dogs against the snow even with the SLR, but especially their black border collies.

Here are some photo highlights to give a flavor of the weekend. I'll post the rest of the best eventually.

View from cabin. This is the view looking out their living area's profuse sliding doors and picture windows. You could just sit in here and feel a million miles away from civilization. Except for the natives wearing shorts in freezing weather and walking their dogs along the road. I think they require you to own a dog in Truckee.

Bump's boot. Bump has been suffering from a stubbed toe lately. He had to wear a bootie to try to protect it during his romps. It actually worked perfectly once we got it on the correct foot.

On the trail. Friends and at least part of all four dogs. Can you find the well-camouflaged Tika? (Now we know why blue merle coloring is a useful adaptation. Plus mud.)

Dashing through the snow. The dogs loved it. They ran, they chased each other, they dashed back and forth. The snow had a crust that, for the most part, held our weight, yet wasn't icy slick. Made the whole forest into a huge, soft, smooth field in which to frolic.

Boost in the field. Snowmelt was everywhere. The dogs were hot enough from all their running that they didn't care; they'd wade right in and drink. They splashed a bit, too; all got hosed down every time we went back to the cabin. Not their favorite part of the trip.

Scenic views. Mostly we were among the trees, but occasionally we got peeks at peaks.

Foot grabbing. That foot-grabbing behavior that Tika only ever exhibited in competition, and that I managed to manage into where she does it only at the end of a run, came out in full force this weekend. She hauled me around by my boots on several occasions. I think a combination of excitement, annoyance that I was always at the back of the group (taking pictures) and she was always at the front (showing us the way), and maybe a lack of direct interaction--we almost never Just Walk; we're always doing something, playing something, throwing toys. She was so happy to be communing with my boots, I hated to make her stop. But it was very hard to walk with a 45-pound dog attached.

Karma! Wow--Guess who, instead of me, won that Dogopoly that I put a ticket in for in last weekend's raffle! We never did actually play it, but we opened it and entertained ourselves by looking at the pieces and the board. (It's easy to be entertained when your brain is operating on 5 hours of sleep and 6,000-feet-altitude oxygen deprivation.)

Lunchtime. Tika's favorite time as our hostess makes lunch. My favorite time, too--all that hiking made me a mite peckish. Or, in other words, stark ravenous. Yet I managed to avoid having more than one chocolate chip cookie, although I did give in to mint It's Its--the world's most exquisite ice cream sandwiches--at the truck stop both coming and going. (But those have Oatmeal cookies, plus dairy products, plus dark chocolate which is healthy for you, so they're healthy! Yes! Am I right?)

First snowfall. Saturday evening, a wee bit of snow fell and stuck to the deck briefly. Both dogs' first reaction was to bark at all the things they saw moving out in the darkness. Then they checked out all the weird white stuff very carefully. Then they decided that it was warmer inside the cabin and what was I doing taking them out into that cold falling stuff anyway? (They weren't at all fazed earlier in the day at their first introduction to huge fields of existing, icy-crusted snow.)

Wildflowers. Well--wildFLOWER. Saw one buttercup Saturday, saw another Sunday. This one had captured one of the few flakes from Saturday evening and still held it in its petals when we started out Sunday morning.

Camouflage. Where in the world is Tika Miranda?

The whole crew. We tried several shots with a timer, but for some reason the four dogs weren't as interested in smiling for the camera as the rest of us were. Only Boost got into the flow (in this shot, anyway).

Partners. This natural (I think) minibridge makes a lovely spot for portraits.

Styx relaxing. Our hostess brought tons and tons of chews for the dogs, and shared them liberally to settle the dogs after we got back from hikes. (Who'd think they'd want to be playing after all that walking? But yes!)

Everyone relaxing. Three dogs and our host.

Lazy Sunday afternoon. All that exercise is beginning to show on the dogs. Tika found a lovely leather couch and could barely keep her eyes open.

Sunday sunset. The Sierras provided one last photo op for my well-used camera.

AKC Nationals Ongoing

SUMMARY: Partial results

I don't follow the AKC circuit except to know how friends are doing.

Elite Forces of Fuzzy Destruction's post today reminded me that they're going on right now and she posted course maps, too; thanks! First day's results (International Sweepstakes Class (ISC)) are posted on the AKC site.

Our instructor for several years and her super BC, Rachel Sanders and Fable, are competing in ISC; Fable when running clean usually whups Tika's butt by a mile and a half. In 26", they placed 5th of about 60 dogs:

Class Hgt: 26
26667 0 25.228 Voucher Blake 1 QUALIFIED
26638 0 25.847 Scream Braue 2 QUALIFIED
26668 0 26.015 Focus Hernandez 3 QUALIFIED
26662 0 27.087 Jive Jones 4 QUALIFIED
26685 0 27.123 Fable Sanders QUALIFIED

but wow, almost 2 seconds slower than #1? I'm curious what the difference in time came from. That's an amazing speed difference at this level of competition. But, still, 5th in this group is danged good.

Fellow Bay Teamer Jammer Strenfel came back from a torn ACL (I think it was) last year to place 6th in the really huge 20" group (200 dogs?). Fellow Bay Teamer Epic Dunn also qualified with a clean run. Fellow Bay Teamer Thyme Freilich also competed with an excellent time but one disqualifying fault, and kennel-mate Cirque also competed.

In the 18", agility blogger Team Fernandez-Lopez earned a qualifying score. Classmate Luka apparently had a bad day, racking up a few faults, bummer! Oh, well, if you're going to have a fault, you might as well have all of them.

In 16", Bay Teamer Heath had the fastest time but that one annoying DQ fault.

Lots of names I recognize but don't really know; skimming quickly through all those dogs it's easy to miss some whom I might know. Congrats to everyone who did well; here's hoping for great luck to all my friends, teammates, classmates, and fellow bloggers for the rest of the event.

I've Got the Weave Pole Blue(Merle)s/Mountains

SUMMARY: Boost's weaves are broken again!

Doesn't anything ever stay fixed? After last weekend, I expected (for some inane reason) that they'd be good in class again. We warmed up while she was really fresh and excited, doing several angles of approach. She bounced off pole #3 a couple of times making the turn, but held on and finished them.

In class, however, she bounced off that pole a couple more times and then stopped bothering to make the turn between 2 and 3 and just went from 1/2 to 3/4. Or the alternative was to go in at 2/3 and weave correctly from there. Creative problem-solving, I guess, although why she was comfortable doing exactly the same weave pattern but one pole further in remains a dog-brainulous mystery to me. I had her down to starting about 5 feet straight into the poles and she still was skipping.

After class, we practiced some really slow easy entries and she must have missed another 3 in a row. Just where I was vowing that, one more, I'd take all except the 1st 3 poles out, she started getting them.

But today in the yard, wham, she's bouncing off pole #3 and then starting to skip again. I wonder what she has changed in her approach or her stride that all of a sudden she's not correctly making that adjustment to comfortable slide through the weaves?

Back to basics. Thank goodness we've got almost 2 weeks before the Giant Haute TRACS 4-day 4-ring all-tournaments all-classes mondo trial. Maybe I can fix them. And fix the not-going-on problem. And...

Meanwhile, I AM VERY excited; we're going up to the mountains (Truckee area) with agility friends to their cabin this weekend. A fun weekend with dogs off leash and no agility! Maybe even snow! None of my dogs, despite my vows to the contrary, have ever been in snow. I'm taking my camera--hope to get lots of photos.

Until next week: Happy dogginess!

How Danged Refusals Killed Our Snooker Run

SUMMARY: Boost won't go over jumps that are right in frigging front of her.

This is an ongoing problem. There are certain situations on course where she's so busy looking at me that she won't take a jump that's right in front of her. Rear crosses are sometimes the cause, but not always. Drives me nuts. Instructor says her mother was the same way. A friend was shooting photos this weekend and got a lovely sequence that shows her looking back at me constantly instead of looking at the course.

Coming through the #2 tire--we're good, she's fast and ahead of me, which is where you want the dog before a cross-behind. (Although I see in the photo that she caught the tire coming through.)

Uh-oh, already halfway to the blue jump she's looking back at me instead of looking at where she's going.

She's still looking at me instead of looking for an obstacle. Can you believe that she actually finally took that jump without knocking the bar?

As she's taking the jump, she's STILL looking at me and not picking up that I want to go to the left. I think I must have taken the extra steps past the jump to keep her from backjumping it after this point.

And now I'm on the wrong side of jump #3, she's facing me, and we have nowhere to go. She's jumping around in front of me, looking at me, instead of thinking about obstacles.

On this snooker run, we had a lovely lovely opening with me being able to send her a bit over jumps and back through a straight tunnel. She was so good, and kept her bars up, and didn't run around the first jump when I led out quite a ways. Then we rounded the very wide 180 from the tunnel exit to the tire, and that's when the trouble began.

I wanted to send her ahead of me over the blue jump (#3) so that I could rear cross and pull her back over #4. But she'd glance at the jump, then look back at me, so she was running kind of half sideways at the jump, repeatedly. And I'm holding my arm up and saying HUP! and running at the right side of the jump. Instructor said I have to keep going, don't try to cut across behind her until she's committed to the jump. Which, in this case, wasn't until after I was PAST the jump, so now she's between me and #4 and I have no way of getting her there because she's still facing me instead of looking around for obstacles.

When she finally turns, she turns to her left and the wrong end of the tunnel is the first thing she sees, and in she goes, for an offcourse.

And it was SUCH a nice opening, too!

It's All About the Titles (2007)

SUMMARY: 2007 agility titles earned.

On any given day, I might tell you that agility is all about the clothing, all about winning winning winning, or all about having fun with your dog. But those are days on which I am not thinking clearly. Obviously, agility is all about how many titles you can earn. Because there are a lot of them. And because you get lovely certificates, suitable for framing, and sometimes even cool plaques to hang on your wall that are easier to dust than ribbons and that don't require that you hunt down a frame in which to put them.

Herewith¹ are my dogs' titles earned during 2007 (I don't seem to have all my cert's yet--dang--)

Boost

2	USDAA Starters (novice level): SSA (Starters Standard Agility: 3 Standard) AD (Agility Dog: completed novice level, at least 3 Standard, 1 Jumpers, 1 Gamblers, 1 Snooker, 1 Pairs Relay)
	USDAA Advanced (intermediate level): AG (Advanced Gamblers: intermediate level, 3 Gamblers) AS (Advanced Snooker: 3 Snookers) AAD (Advanced Agility Dog: completed intermediate level, at least 3 Standard, 1 Jumpers, 1 Gamblers, 1 Snooker, 1 Pairs Relay)
	CPE: CL3-S (CPE Level 3 (intermediate) Strategy: 2 Snooker and 2 Gambler/Jackpots (under the old rules)) CL3-R (Level 3 Regular: 4 Standards (old rules)) CL3-F (Level 3 Fun: 2 FullHouse and 2 Jumpers (old rules))

Tika

	USDAA ADCH (Agility Dog Champion: 5 each Masters Standard, Gamblers, Jumpers, Snooker (including 3 Super-Qs--top 15%), and Pairs Relay)
	USDAA Snooker: SM (Snooker Master: 5 Masters (top level) Snookers (including 3 Super-Qs--top 15%)) SCH (Snooker Champion: SM + 5 more Snooker) SCH-bronze (SCH + 5 more Snooker)
	USDAA Standard: SACH (Standard Agility Champion: 10 Masters Standard) SACH-bronze (15 Masters Standard)
	USDAA misc: GCH (Gamblers Champion: 10 Masters Gamblers) RCH-bronze (15 Masters Pairs Relay) JCH (10 Masters Jumpers)
	USDAA TM-silver (Tournament Master silver: At least 25 Grand Prix, Steeplechase, and DAM Team, with at least 5 of each.
	ASCA: GS-O (Gamblers Open (intermediate level) title--3 Gamblers) RS-E (Standard Elite (top level)--3 Standards) JS-N (Jumpers Novice (novice level)--3 Jumpers)

---

¹ Yes, another useful everyday word in the Here clan, which has many aunts, uncles, and cousins, many of whom are in the legal profession, and which also includes hereabouts, hereafter, hereaway, herein, hereinabove, hereinafter, hereinbefore, hereinbelow, hereto, heretofore, hereunder, hereunto, and hereupon. Now go read a dictionary and stop bothering me with these questions.
² Today was Fun with PhotoShop day, not Fun with Photography Day. The light level was too low, I didn't use a tripod or a flash, so pictures are crappy. Yes, all the USDAA certs are exactly the same pale ivory color, not assorted khakis and blues. But cropping out backgrounds is so much fun, and doesn't it look so much cooler! I mean, were you going to read the certs anyway? (If so, click on an image to enlarge it.)

CPE Weekend Wrap-Up

SUMMARY: Mixed bag again. OK, it's almost always a mixed bag.

Tika ran nicely, for the most part. She really is my reliable agility dog. Finally! At age 7!

• She knocked 2 bars --one in full house that didn't matter, one in Jumpers that prevented a Perfect Weekend of 10 Qs. Back to bar-knocking drills.
• Contacts: Got all of her contacts--barely--but there were almost no contacts all weekend on course! Aframe/teeter/dogwalk in Standard on Saturday (she wasn't entered on Sunday), Aframe in Jackpot on Sunday 3 times, and that's it.
• Most of the weekend, the only dog in her same height and level (24" Level C) was Annie the very fast & experienced rescue BC, who debuted about the same time that Tika did.
• But in CPE, levels 4/5/C run the same course, and sometimes Level 3, too, and even sometimes everyone competing at the trial, all levels. So I can compare against more than just my group.
• Sat Jumpers/no Q: Very fast and smooth, that one dang bar. 6th fastest of 56 4/5/C dogs (faster: Cody the Aussie, Reilly the spotted mixed-breed, Vixen, and Cory the super Sheltie, but not Annie for a change).
• Sat Wildcard/Q and 1st: Really smooth-looking on a twisty course. The fastest of all 44 4/5/C dogs--but Annie wasn't entered.
• Sat Colors/Q and 2nd: Nice but I forgot to call her coming out of a tunnel so she way overshot and had to come back. Still, 6th fastest of 57 3/4/5/C dogs (Annie beat us by 3.5 seconds! Jeez! Also faster: Sydney the Aussie, Cody the Aussie again, Steamer the zippy BC, and some dog named Boost.)
• Sat Full House/Q and 2nd:That's the one where she was a stride away from exiting a tunnel for 3 more points. I thought she had made it, she was moving so fast; had to review the video to assure myself that the scribe hadn't made a mistake. Still, she was 5th-highest of all 114 dogs, with 46 points; Annie had 49 and three had 47 (Django the 24" Border Collie, Sydney again, and Sooner the Papillon, who is fast but also had 5 more seconds than the rest of us).
• Sat Standard/Q and 2nd: One big turn where she headed the wrong way after the dogwalk so wasted time. Still, she was 4th fastest of 49 4/5/C dogs (faster: Annie of course, and Steamer again, and that Boost critter also).
• Sun Jackpot/Q and 2nd: I chickened out when the whistle blew and didn't take one more 5-point obstacle. Turns out that I had 7 seconds left, so I could've easily done it, it was right next to me. I remember that when I ran Boost. So, with 59 points instead of 64, she was only 9th-highest scoring of 114 dogs (all levels same course). (Scoring higher: Annie, naturally, with 61, Boost with 61 (would've had that 64 except she popped out one pole early on her last weaves), Cory the Sheltie again with 63, Chaps the Aussie (who wasn't there Saturday) with 64, Steamer again with 62, and three little dogs who got 7 more seconds--Porsche the Corgi with 66, MeiMei the Corgi with 62, and Beau the mini poodle with 61.)
• Sun Full House/Q and 1st: I thought I had a clever course that would get me 52 points, but it involved lots of tight turns and I didn't call/manage Tika tightly enough. We ended up with 46 points (she knocked one 1-point bar and the wide turns didn't allow time for the one final 5-pointer). (For a change, Annie had only 44--they missed 4 more points on a misdirected jump--but Chaps once again had more with 48, and that Steamer zipped with 49.) So Tika was "only" the 3rd highest of all 101 dogs.
• Sun Jumpers/Q and 1st: A clean, smooth run. Annie knocked a bar and bobbled a jump, so we took 1st again, but there were two other dogs faster among the 55 4/5/C (Chaps 0.4 secs faster, Sydney 2 secs faster).
• Sun Wildcard/Q and 1st: Pretty smooth if you ask me. Don't know that it could've been faster. Annie was over 2 seconds faster but knocked the last bar, so we eked out another 1st. (Others faster in the 64 3/4/5/C dogs: Cory again by 1.1, Steamer again by almost 2.)
• Sun Snooker/Q and 1st: The 7-pointer was a combo of a 20-foot tunnel and 12-pole weaves, but I really pushed her and we made it through the last weave just before the whistle blew, for a perfect 51-point round and a 1st place. Only 3 other dogs out of 68 3/4/5/C dogs got 51 (Chaps again, Cory again, and Ouzo), but Annie didn't run this one, or Steamer, or Sydney--and Boost and I blew it.

Boost had her moments. She's very fast--even sometimes having to repeat obstacles or recover from repeated refusals, she still had some of the fastest course times.

• Weaves: Problems again. She's running past them completely again, or ducking in somewhere in the middle, or popping out. Can't they just stay fixed? If I can be there near the beginning and end to manage her a teensy bit, she's good. But I want independent weaves like Tika's! Out of 16 sets of poles, 7 had problems. Back to the drawing board.
• Refusals: Only maybe 3 really bad ones, one of which cost us Snooker on Saturday when I had to run out of position to get her to take the danged thing. I think rear crosses are the worst. Back to the drawing board.
• Go on: At the end of the courses, where judges like to put several jumps in a run for a really fast fun race to the finish, Boost keeps stopping and looking back at me, while I'm running as fast as I can yelling "go hup! Go! Hup! Go! Hup!" and my arm is up and then half the time we end up with a refusal or two because she's too close to the jump to take it comfortably. Known issue. Work harder.
• Contacts and start line: Lovely lovely lovely.
• Bars: Well, she knocked fewer this weekend than last weekend jumping 20" instead of 24", but still knocked enough to make me go back to my thinking that it's a bar-knocking issue, not a height issue.
• Sat Jumpers/Q and 3rd: Ran past 2nd jump on a lead-out so I reset her to get into position, wasting beaucoup time.
• Sat Wildcard/Q and 1st: Missed weave entry so had to come back for it.
• Sat Colors/Q and 2nd: Yay! Kept bars up! Finished Level C! But looking back at me instead of running to end.
• Sat Snooker/no Q: Started very nicely with 3 sets of weaves but in the closing, that stubborn refusal on a rear cross, leading to a juicy tunnel offcourse.
• Sat Standard/Q and 1st: A really really nice run.
• Sun Jackpot/Q and 2nd: I got into the wrong position so we bobbled some things, leading into a refusal, and she popped out of one set of weaves, but our score was 2nd highest of all 112 dogs, so I shouldn't complain too much. Except that the only dog with more points--that lovely Steamer--was in our height/level again, keeping us from a first place.
• Sun Full House/Q and 2nd: Missed weave entry twice, so couldn't pick up the rest of our planned points. Not a bad score, and also, too bad that fast Steamer is in her height and level!
• Sun Standard/No Q: Bars bars bars, missed weaves twice, looking back at me at the end.
• Sun Wildcard/No Q: Missed weaves, and when I pulled her around to try again, took a juicy tunnel offcourse.
• Sun Snooker/No Q: Lovely two sets of weaves, then she didn't go where I wanted after the 3rd red, and I fell flat on my back trying to call her to me. She came over to tell me to GET UP COME ON! and I petted her, stood up, then just took her straight to the table to stop the clock instead of it occurring to me until the next day that what she did was LEGAL and I could've just stood up and gone on and maybe gotten the Q. But I don't think that fast. Dang. You'd think that after hundreds of snooker runs--this was my 305th, if you'd like to know--I'd have that idea embedded in my brain. But no.

But I had a good time, weather was great, judges were nice, friends were fun, dogs were fast and a joy to be on the course with.

CPE Weekend Photos

SUMMARY: Today, some photos. Later or maybe tomorrow, some narrative results info and post-game analysis.

	There is always a workers appreciation gift (WAG--isn't that clever? I made it up back in, uh, gosh, when we were still doing trials up on the lawn between the buildings at Hayward) raffle, and you can get tickets only by working. This is what I really want and why I work a lot each trial. Free-entry certificates. I put in many tickets. Did I win many free entries? Not this time.
	But this looked like it would be a useful thing to have around the house, so I put a ticket in here, too. I also didn't win this. I'm guessing that's a good thing.
	This is what most of the raffle offerings look like. It's exciting until you realize that I already have 60,000 toys, rawhides, and leashes lying around the house, many of them never used ever for anything.
	In the Easter spirit, the pens for filling out your raffle tickets are decorated all flowery. Or maybe that's all the time, to prevent the miracle of the pens rising and walking away under their own power.
	This keychain looked pretty cool but as we saw earlier, my keychain is plenty crowded with useless gewgaws already, so I did not put in a ticket.
	Instead, let's look at some entertaining results for ouir runs on Saturday. The darker horizontal lines separate dogs who are competing directly against each other.
	Compare and contrast Tika's results with other dogs. All the dogs on the sheet are at the same level of competition, just different heights.
	If only she had been one stride further to exit the tunnel, we'd have gotten those 3 points, too!
	This is the only thing that kept Tika from having a perfect weekend (10 Qs out of 10 runs)--that danged knocked bar for 5 faults. Dang dang dang.
	This was Boost's really lovely Standard run Saturday. We went downhill considerably on Sunday.
	Ribbon for Boost finishing her last Level 3 requirement, so now she's earned "CL3".
	Our ribbons for Saturday. They don't fit on Boost's crate, so Tika's crate is kindly holding all of them. On Sunday, Tika had 5 ribbons and more firsts, and Boost had fewer ribbons and fewer firsts. It's nice to have two dogs.
	When I'm eating lunch, I have the crates open to toss them orts (there's that crossword puzzle word again) from my plate. The rule is that you can't exit the crate. Tika isn't big on rules. But it took me about 20 shots to catch her, because every time I raised my camera, she ducked back inside.
	The neighboring Little Black Dogs, Sparkle and Scully, get watermelon cut up specially for them.
	Scully enjoys and Sparkle drools. My dogs get Zukes or maybe cut-up Rollover served from my slobbered fingers. As also previously recently discussed. Not watermelon tenderly and loving cut into LBD-sized pieces and served with a fork.
	Wear sunscreen. Wear sunscreen. Wear sunscreen.