Hopes Are Up

SUMMARY: A good evening in class.

I love going up in the hills to class at this time of year.

A few pointers from the instructor.

Sunset over the south Bay Area. South end of san Francisco Bay
is the light area near the horizon on the right.

The only bar that Boost knocked all evening came while I  struggled to get my handling correct for a tight backside/wrap and she pretty much crashed the jump and jump wing; not her fault. She ran fast, worked away from and ahead of me, had lovely contacts. And I mostly got to where I needed to go, but boyyyy do I need to start doing some sprints at home (have I said this before?). It felt great.

EXCEPT for the dang left turn into the weaves. Yes, her long-time bugaboo has returned in force. I finally took her off to the back field for a bit of remedial weave entries and she was starting to get it again. Otherwise, her weaves were their usual amazing speed and she stayed in them even when I moved a long way away laterally. And entrances while bearing *right* were awesome.

Tika got one practice run at 16". She's just not confident about her moves when she can't hear me, but she looked happy to be doing it, and that was the point.

Waiting our turns.

Funny things-- I hooked the Merle Girls' leashes to a pole and went to walk the first course. A minute or two later, a classmate came hurrying by with Boost pulling on her leash... Oh, no, wait, that was Boost's sister, Tcam. So funny, they pull in exactly the same way and their stance and markings are so similar.

So, halfway through the class, I finished an exercise and put Boost in a Down facing me with her back to the end of the exercise. Tcam's mom had already run Tcam, then went back a few dogs later and ran her other dog. When she finished that run, she started towards me, stopped, pointed to Boost (whose back was towards her), and said, "Is that mine or yours?" She thought she had left Tcam in that exact spot, and from behind, they are REALLY hard to tell apart! Yes, Tcam had wandered off a dozen feet or so. So clear that they are sisters! I think Boost is inspired after Tcam's amazing showing at the World championships and at the AKC nationals finals recently.

All in all, a pleasant evening, cool but not cold, good friends, the usual discussions about agility shoes (should one care more about the treads or about the fact that you can get a style that's blue and purple? Tough call), and beautiful views.

Same view, 90 minutes later

Agility Tongue Twisters

SUMMARY: Fun with running orders.

Sometimes just noticing patterns in the names in the running orders can be fun.

Sometimes it's the sounds.

While we're waiting to run, I often chant the names of the dogs before us in order so that I remember exactly who we're after. This last weekend, Boost most often ran directly after Kist and Kick, so I chanted "Kist, Kick, Boost!" while tugging with Boost, waiting our turn. I discovered quickly that that makes a fun tongue twister:

• Say all three names in a row.
• Say them faster
• Say them as fast as you can.
• Now say them as fast as you can, multiple times in a row.

When I speed up, I can't get past a couple of times. Now you try.

P.S. Another fun factoid: In this list, Beck and Bette are Boost littermates; Roulette and Quas are half-siblings from mom Tala; Sweep and J.B. are nephews. In the 26" (not shown), Rowdy and Quik are half siblings; Tonic is full sibling from different litter. Other close relatives were there, too, and maybe even some in this list but I can't keep them all straight. Boost has a squillion more close relatives than I do!

Agility Olio

SUMMARY: Friends and families and foods and fun.

Yessss, agility trials are about the agility--

Like switching out of one's mild-mannered, everyday persona shoes into your secret identity as Super Duper Fleet-Footed Agility Handler Extraordinare shoes.

Like basking in the glory from previous agility incarnations, such as our 2000 USDAA Nationals Grand Prix semifinalist shirt from Jake and I ran in Del Mar.

Like seeing both dogs looking eagerly out at you--can we run NOW, huh can we?

Like seeing both dogs actually really there in the final round of Steeplechase.

And seeing that Tika is guaranteed some Steeplechase actual cash moolah if we don't go off course. Thanks to everyone else who Ed in the first round or scratched from the second round! Bonus! Boost was seeded 10th going into this round, but ended up placing 6th mostly because we didn't go off course.

And like taking home some cash when both dogs did well enough in that Steeplechase round.

But it's also about toys! Tika really loves to tug on these. So do lots of other dogs. There is a lot of tugging in agility. And so there are billions of these lying around everywhere you go with agility people now, and people always seem to pick them up thinking that they're theirs, so about once a year I need to buy another five Udder Tuggers.

And it's about food!

And of course it's all about friends AND all about clothing!

This is Arlene who, when she's not Super Duper Agility Corgi and Sparkle Handler wearing agility Corgi tie dye, goes to movies with me most nonagility weekends.

This is Kathy and little Millie. Millie wasn't too sure whether she liked agility for a long time, but she has apparently decided that she does, because she had some really nice fast runs this weekend. Millie is five. Most people in agility except me wear shorts when the weather is nice.

This is Mike and Trane. Trane, like many agility dogs, loves to tug, and the leash makes a convenient toy. Mike has many pieces of clothing and baseball caps that say "Trane" or "Nothing Stops A Trane." Mike and his wife raise sheep. His wife spins and dyes yarn (and sells it), weaves and knits and all kinds of clever things like that (and sells the results). Mike is a good spouse and demonstrates the very entertaining hat that his wife made, even though it is quite sweaty under there on a warm day. He thinks maybe November would be a better time to demonstrate it. Maybe his wife should knit one that says "Trane". 

And then, of course, agility is all about family!

This is Boost's littermate Bette and "Auntie Mary," who calls Boost "Boostie." Bette is very fast and very accurate. Mary also teaches agility classes and is fast and accurate, too. Bette is her third agility dog--her first was a Golden Retriever who was not too fast but did good anyway. Her second was the super-reliable Skeeter, an Australian Cattle Dog, who was one of Tika's teammates the year that we made it to the USDAA Nationals Team Finals. We were all very excited.

This is Boost's littermate Beck. She is not blue merle like so many of their relatives are. But she loves to do agility and to get up close to see that silly human who is making silly noises at her.

This is Donna with Boost's younger half sister Quas. Quas is the sweetest, gentlest, most loving dog you could imagine. And unlike most border collies, she actually brings any toy that you throw ALL the way back to you instead of dropping it ten feet out and assuming that since you've got two legs, you're capable of walking to it. Donna is a score table wonk like me and also show secretary extraordinaire. There's a lot of extraordinaireness in agility. There is also a lot of tugging on leashes.

This is Boost's half brother and Quas' littermate, Rowdy. Rowdy jumps 26", while Boost and most of Boost's relatives jump 22". Rowdy had an amazing weekend this weekend--he won 9 out of the 11 classes and, alas, placed only 2nd in another one. His person, Cheri, was understandably pretty happy.

There is also leash tugging among dogs who place first in 9 out of 11 classes.

This is Roulette, who is sister/littermate to Quas and Rowdy. She's also a fabulous little agility girl, and blue merle, and has that half blue, half brown eye similar to Boost's. She certainly has Boost's ears, AND she wears exactly the same style of blue-leopard-print slip lead that Boost does when going to the start line to run agility. Because it's just perfect for a spotty blue merle dog.

I somehow never got a photo of Quas' and Rowdy's and Roulette's littermate Quik, who is Boost's half brother and who was also there and who is also pretty darned fast and talented. His handler is the one who was Mary's and my third teammate, with Brenn, when we were in the Team Finals.

This is Kiwi, who is Boost's older half sister. Kiwi is one of those blazingly fast dogs whose run you'll miss if you glance away for even a second. Kiwi's handler is the wife of Beck's handler.  Lots of family there. Kiwi is also black and white and has those special pointy ears. And she has a red tug toy that if stupid human would pay more attention would understand that toy want tugging NOW! Because agility is all about tugging! (And Carol in the background has amusement.)

This is Ruthie, who is the daughter of Smarty Joanz who is, OK, older half-sister to Boost and littermate to Kiwi. So I guess she's a half-niece? Ruthie is very young, just starting agility, but like so many of Boost's relatives, is a blue merle with heterochromic eyes. She wishes that stupid camera would get out of her way so she can see where her Human Dad is out there on the agility course. She runs with the same man who runs Beck and who is married to the woman who runs Kiwi. Yes, LOTS of family here this weekend.

There were also some other people there with dogs who were not related to Boost in some way. At least, I think so.

Go, Sister Dog and Team USA!

SUMMARY: Great results at the worlds.

[One of the] World championship of dog agility is taking place in Prague this week.

The first event was Big Dogs Team Jumping. Boost's sister Tcam (Bay Teamer) is on that team, as well as another Bay Teamer dog, Icon, and two others.

And they won! Just tenths of a second combined score ahead of Slovenia's team! And looks like Tcam was 3rd out of well over 100 of the best dogs in the world! Whoooo! There she is in the very middle on the top step of the podium.  (Team flanked by coaches Nancy G and Kathie L, also Bay Teamers.)

(Thanks Jennifer V for the capture off the video feed, I believe.)

(And a more official photo; not sure who took it. Tcam's the blue merle, of course.)

 

Saturday at Agility On The Green

SUMMARY: Some Qs but not the ones I wanted. But a blue ribbon!

We started the day with Snooker:

• Boost skipped a weave pole in the opening, giving us 0 instead of 7 points, so we wouldn't have gotten the super-Q anyway, but to make absolutely sure, she ran past #2 jump in the closing.
• Tika, after the 2nd obstacle, I needed to pull her past an offcourse obstacle and she didn't pull.

 Soooo 0 for 4 in a row with Snooker. Gads.

Tika looked happy and healthy today on course, at least. The rest of Tika's day had its moments--both bad and good--

• Steeplechase: Qualified (4th of 4 qualifiers, 10 (?) dogs in the class). But quite a bit slower than the fastest dogs.
• Standard: After another one of those really long stands on the table before going down, I rear crossed the weaves, badly, apparently, because she turned out of them to see what I was doing. Tried to spin her around and restart and she went in and out again, so we left the course.
• Pairs: She had a very nice run but unfortunately our teammate had an offcourse, so no Q there.
• Jumpers: A couple of wide, slow turns as she figured out what I wanted her to do--I think that's my timing as much as anything. She Qed--but all the Qing dogs in our class I think were between about 28 and 30 seconds and she was at the slow end of that. So not bad, but not in Top Ten Point range.

So I'm happy to come away with 2 Qs, but of course  one always wants more when one is contemplating a dog's possible coming retirement.

Boost spent the day taunting me with ALLLLLLmosts--another one of those sets of classes where everyone says, "But she looks really good and ran really nicely" and yet we still had only one Q to show for it:

• Steeplechase: Pretty fast and smooth. Even though I held her contacts on both passes over the Aframe, she was within 4 seconds of the fastest dog. Unfortunately, knocked 2 bars.
• Standard: Pretty fast and smooth, did a nice down on the table. BUT knocked a bar and then popped out of the weaves one pole early when I started fading towards the next obstacle.
• Gamblers: Really nice opening--she turned the wrong way out of one tunnel which cost us the time to get the highest opening of anyone at the trial, but she ended up with 25 opening pts and the highest achieved by a few dogs was 26. Unfortunately, did not get the gamble--Tunnel Suck took her after the 3rd obstacle.
• Jumpers: The dog right before us ran past jump #4 on the outside--a hard pull was needed. I commented to Boost, "That's exactly the sort of thing that you would do right there, so we are going to make sure that you don't."  Of course--she did anyway. It really hurt because the rest of the run was gorgeous, no bars down, no refusals, nice turns. 
• Pairs: Fast and pretty accurate, nice tight turns. Knocked a bar, which I thought would keep us from placing. Teamed with her littermate Gina from southern California who's up for the weekend, and Gina is an amazing dog with an amazing running dogwalk and a talented handler, and between us and a really fast baton hand-off, we had the fastest time of all teams. In addition, everyone else had at least one error on the course, and -- so -- even with the bar down,  out of 31 pairs, we won!  She has only ever won two other Masters-level classes, so this was nice, and doing it with a littermate was fun.

Gina has gotten so much darker since she's had her two litters of puppies. I think she was always a little darker than Boost, but now she's really quite a dark merle. Interesting.

So, tomorrow, a bit more of the same. We have to be there early for Tika's Round 2 Steeplechase and hope that we can win a few dollars out of that. Then 4 other classes in 2 rings, so I'm hoping we'll be done by midafternoon.

Left the trial site around 6--I was actually done a little earlier but schmoozed just a little before leaving--had to get gasoline, groceries, and money from the bank. Home, had a light dinner of crackers and hummus, typed this up, and, wow, it's 9:00 already and time for bed.

(PS I have to note that one fast team ran clean and might have knocked us out of our 1st place, but there was a timer malfunction of some sort and they elected to just take standard course time.)

Off to Turlock Again

SUMMARY: Hot weekend; hopefully in more than just temperature.

Current prediction for Turlock's temperature for this weekend's USDAA trial is 92 both days (33.3 C). Has been worse. Could be better.

Not exactly sure why I'm going except habit. The June trial is usually hot, usually fairly small so no great Top Ten points (even if I thought Tika could get some), Sunday is only Team and neither dog needs team Qs, and although I love the people and the site, stilllllll, why did I sign up? It's so hard to NOT sign up for things that I usually sign up for. Ah, well, I'm sure I'll have a fine time.

It's actually a 2 1/2 day trial; I didn't sign up for Friday, which is the only masters Jumpers for the weekend--and Boost still needs those Qs desperately, and that's one of only 2 classes this year that I think Tika has a chance of being Top 10 in, maybe if we can hang on by a thread through the year. So we're missing that.

There is a Snooker on Saturday, along with five other classes, but signed Tika up for only 4 of them. At least Boost and I get another chance at a Snooker Super-Q and Tika gets a chance to fill in one of her missing 5 Snooker Qs for her Gold PDCH.

That would be about the only reason we're going, and if I had thought about it more a month or so ago, I might've backed out of it.

But I do like the teams I'm on; Boost with her half-sister Roulette and dog-friend Deenie--team name "BooDeeRoo"; and Tika with our long-time partner Brenn as "Here We Go Again" (again). Both Tika and Brenn are supposed to be retired from team now forever, but, what the heck, here we are doing it one more time. Always fun to team with fun and familiar friends.

Hope you all have a lovely and not too hot temperature-wise weekend doing whatever you're going to do, but that it's a hot weekend for you with some hot things to do and that you're really hot as in getting a lot of Qs for a change or maybe winning the lottery.

Goodbye, Tala

SUMMARY: Boost's amazing mother is gone. (11/1/00 -5/22/2012)

I learned last night that Boost's mother, Tala, died Tuesday at only 11 and a half.

She was diagnosed very recently with leukemia, and apparently it was quick and aggressive, because just like that, she's gone.

It was less than two months ago that she competed at the AKC Nationals, at her age, doing very well against much younger dogs in the regular classes (as I noted with video here).  And Greg was conceding that maybe next year he'd enter her in Preferred instead of the Regular classes.

She was an amazing competitor who, after a rough early start (knocking bars and running past jumps, things like that) became the Dog Who Could Do No Wrong--she'd even run for just about anyone and do very well, although I think she really sparkled with Greg. Through her career, she often had highest score (as mentioned in this post and several others) or fastest time on the courses she ran. She appeared in the USDAA Nationals finals multiple times.

She wasn't a doggie dog--f'rinstance, once her puppies were grown and out of the house, she was done with them. She was into having a job, and whether that job was running agility or obsessively bringing back a toy--any object will do--she didn't much mind. And she was as reliable off the field as on. When I attended the judge's clinic in 2010, Greg was doing some remodeling work on the multi-acre site, and just turned Tala loose for the day. If there was activity, she'd be there to check it out--some of us ran her on the test courses for judges, because she was there, wanted to work, and never got tired--or if there was no activity, she just hung out quietly in the shade.

One of the tests for the judges was to examine a course to make sure it was ready for competition, and one of the "traps" that you were supposed to notice was a water bottle lying on the field. Whenever someone was out wandering around the field, Tala would trot out to the water bottle, pick it up, and drop it at your feet to be thrown. Tough to convince her that it wasn't actually a toy!

Blackwatch Hi C-Era Tala had both her USDAA championship (ADCH) and her AKC championship (MACH)--which I noted here--where you can also see how much she and Boost looked the same doing the teeter.

She'd have probably done a lot more if she hadn't taken time off during her career to have four (?) litters of puppies, all of whom have been amazing dogs, and many of whom look so much like her--here's a comparison of Boost, Tala, and Rowdy, for example.

My apologies to all those who have patiently explained through the years which litters their dogs came from, but here's who I can remember (who can help me out here?):

First litter?: Wyn...who else?

Second litter: Boost, Beck, Bette, Gina, Derby (and two other dogs who I believe don't do agility)--all of whom (other than Boost) have their ADCHs and I believe at least one other championship (MACH or C-ATCH). Gina and Derby have competed at the national level in USDAA and AKC and have done very well; all are smart, super dogs who want to work.

Third litter: Quas, Quik, Rowdy...is Roulette in this group? or Smarty Joanz in this group?--I believe that the first two have their ADChs, don't see enough of the others to know.

Last litter: TCam, who at 3 already has her ADCH and MACH and won her way onto the world team; also Tonic, who doesn't compete that often but who looked like a pro even as a novice--and I should know who else but don't remember.

And some of those pups--definitely Gina and Smarty Joanz--have already produced some amazing Tala grandchildren who ALSO look a lot like Tala (and Boost)--f'rinstance, as shown in this post.  If you have links to your Tala offspring or grandchild's photos, let me know, and i'll post them here.

So although she is gone, and way too young as too often happens--she lives on and on and on.

Thanks to Tammy and Greg for letting me have one of her puppies.

Boost

Tala

To post here later: Gallery of the tala photos that I already have...

Name Dropping

SUMMARY: Maybe we can't do jumps, but guess whom we're related to?

Last night in class, we had a celebration. Here they are--the AKC World Team Coach (aka our instructor) and the winner of the World Team tryouts who is now on the world team (aka our classmate / Boost's sister TCam--4 years younger, same parents).

This is now the third dog with whom TCam's handler has been on a World Team. Talented and really really nice lady.

I'm impressed and delighted. Boost is more interested in what's going on in the ring right NOW and Tika is more interested in catching the scent of the cake or other possible edibles.

Do you think they're related? (Other than one is in the light of the setting sun and the other is in the shade?)

Another USDAA Day One of Two

SUMMARY: Lots of news.

For a while for a year or so, I'd been giving Tika rimadyl before & during weekends, but she hadn't seemed to need it in so long--after last weekend, and with the toenail dragging thing, although mostly she's looked happy and active and healthy all weekend, I gave her one last night and one this morning. Not sure whether that's the operative event, but she ran really nicely today. Fast, happy, perky.

That didn't necessarily equate into Qs:

• Jumpers, because of the angle of a jump, she apparently misread my being behind her as a rear cross when in fact I was going straight, so a turn in the wrong direction and a refusal at a tunnel. Her time was still pretty nice despite that extra yardage, but no Q.
• Snooker, because of the angle of a jump, she apparently misread my being behind her as a rear cross when in fact I was going straight, so a turn in the wrong direction and I could see it coming in slow motion in my mind as she backjumped the jump, so a quick exit with only 8 points.
• Steeplechase, knocked one bar, not sure why (it wasn't a cross or anything odd), and her time would've Qed without the bar but we were 3 seconds over with the bar. Didn't help that two dogs scratched so we again had to be combined with the very-fast 16" crowd.
• Standard, went mostly nicely. Still a lonnnnnng down on the table despite practicing a whole lot of downs before our run. She was 10 full seconds behind the winning dog as a result, but everyone else crapped out and she was still under time, so our only Q for the day and a 2nd place.

Speaking of rimadyl, our dog-friend and often partner Chaps, whom I mentioned last week had decided to scratch the entire weekend because he was randomly gimpy, apparently ate an entire bottle of rimadyl and spent the night and most of today at the vet's with an IV. Fortunately they caught it in time and he went home this evening. Thank Dog! The very obedient dog who won't even take food from the floor without permission, somehow decided to take the bottle off the counter and help himself.

Some vets whom I know are very much against chewable dog drugs exactly because of this sort of thing. A blessing and a curse--i can just toss the rimadyl pill to Tika and she eats it, no cheese or monitoring required.

Boost's day started out nicely when our customized C-ATCH ribbon from February was delivered--and what a huge ribbon! But our agility  day was the usual mess.

• She once again killed me on Snooker by getting through a nice 4-red opening and most of the closing and then not coming in over a very easy serpentine at #7...again almost in slow motion I could see her shorten up her steps shorter shorter shorter trying to decide whether to take the juuuuummmmmppp...and no. I almost had to shoot myself later, though. I was gasping for breath from running and frustrated, so I walked to the finish line instead of running, despite people yelling "run to the finish line!" I figured, why bother, we had only 48 points and others were getting more than that. But until almost the very last of the 30-plus dogs ran, it looked like one or two of the 48s would actually get a super-Q but, because I'd walked off, we were the slowest by a second or so and wouldn't have gotten it. Thankfully, enough dogs got more than 48 to save me from having to kick myself repeatedly.  So--yet another Q but not a Super-Q.
• Steeplechase was a mess. But someone complimented us on a fantastic lead-out.
• Jumpers was a mess. A four-jump lead-out and she did that nicely, too. OK, so lead-outs are a strength at the moment.
• Gamblers opening was fine until she ran past a jump that she had to take for me to go on to the Aframe--three times! As a result, the whistle blew while we were on the wrong side of the field and I had to stop and think about how to get to the gamble from there. She actually did do the gamble, but not only were we over time, she knocked a bar as well.
• Standard, argh, I don't remember. Not a Q.
• Pairs, missed her weave entry, then I did a front cross to try to keep her out of the wrong side of a tunnel and she wrapped so far around me, or something odd, that she took the wrong side anyway, for an E.

Speaking of Boost not being able to get a Q--our classmate and Boost's full sister (but 4 years younger), TCam, today at the AKC try-outs won the first 26" position on the World Team for this year! Are you listening, Boost? Just take obstacles in front of you!

I still felt surprisingly chipper despite our Qing failures today--weather was great, surrounded by good friends and hard workers-- and we were done pretty early, so took a break to snap a few photos of wildflowers on the hillside next to the agility field.

Plus a gratuitous photo of Team Small Dog's Otterpop and Laura because that's the only photo I took of anyone else all day. Otterpop has an amazing "Bang!" drop and roll on the run. Plus loves her frisbee.

Boost's Mom at AKC Nationals

SUMMARY: Tala is looking good.

At 11 and a half, Tala is around Tika's age.

Dang bar.



Looks like she was around 30th-40th out of 230 dogs in the rounds where she ran clean, and 53rd after 3 rounds even with the bar down. Pretty good for an old girl competing against a zillion top-notch youngsters.

And I might as well mention some siblings.

Boost's full sister (but 4 years younger), Tcam, also competing in the 20" class of 230 dogs, finished 5th in Round 1! (I'll have to find out what their faults were in the other two classes.)

Boost's littermate Derby, competing in the 24" class of about 90 dogs, finished 2nd in Round 2 and 1st in Round 3! Don't know what the fault was in Round 1. Placed 3rd in the challenger round, which wasn't quite enough to get them into the finals.

Littermate Rivalry

SUMMARY: Top Ten, Sigh.

First, let me tell you this. There are eight different height groups in USDAA in which you can compete: Championship 12", 16", 22", and 26", and Performance 8", 12", 16", and 22". In number of competitors, Ch 22" is by far the largest, followed fairly closely by Perf 16" (which is the same height dogs moved down one jump height).

For example, at this weekend's trial, there are roughly--in order from most populated to least:

Ch 22": 50 dogs (Boost's group)
Pf 16": 23
Ch 26": 14
Pf 22": 9 (Tika's group)
Ch 16": 8
Pf 12:" 5
Pf 8": 4
Ch 12": 2 (Well, that's an interesting switch between Pf and Ch at the lowest heights!)

I can only surmise that the proportions are similar throughout the country. So, to say that Tika won a class locally, that's cool. But to say that Boost won a class (which she has done only once, at the last trial), that is awesome.

To say that Tika is in the Top Ten in two out of four possible categories at the moment, and in the Top 25 in 3 out of four, well, that's awesome.

But to say that Boost's littermate Gina is in the Top 25 in 3 out of five categories--in a group that consists of roughly five times more competitors than Tika's group--well, wow, what can I say, except that that is muy super bien awesome! ...and... what the heck have *I* been doing with my dog so that I can't even get dang Qs most of the time? I'm trying not to play What If games. And actually I'm very excited to see that, halfway through the year, Gina is doing so well. Her Human Dad is a great handler and they've worked hard to overcome bar knocking issues and to create an amazing running dogwalk and Aframe.

Ah, well. I'll just have to take my one moment of glory where Tika is sitting, after half the year, at the top in Jumpers:

22" Height Class (from the USDAA Perf Top Ten Jumpers page)

Points	Owner	Dog	Breed
28	Finch, Ellen Levy	Tika	All-Breed
22	Zurborg, Laurie	Gumbo	Catahoula Leopard Dog
21	Keller, Linda	Stewart	Australian Shepherd
20	Danver, Jean	Chaps	Australian Shepherd
18	Brooks, Elizabeth	Finn	Australian Shepherd
18	Scott, Gregory	Skye	Border Collie
18	Ross, Nancy	Spotty	Border Collie
18	Mckinney, Colleen	Dexter	All-Breed
17	Eizember, Joleen	Scorch	Border Collie
16	Scott, Liz	Milo	Australian Shepherd
16	Lieberthal, Kelly	Reggie	Border Collie
15	Hope, Paulena Renee	F5 Tornado	Border Collie
14	Luckraft, Julie	Strider	Border Collie
14	Yarchin, Joe	Pan	Australian Shepherd
13	Plummer, Lauri	Jade	Border Collie
12	McKnight, Bridget	Molly	Border Collie
12	Gooding, Kris	Summer	Labrador Retriever
12	Gregory, James	Pilot	Golden Retriever
11	Elkins, Laura	Keegan	Border Collie
11	Heck, Kathleen	Runner	Golden Retriever
10	Glines, Marjorie	Kash	Border Collie
10	Clement, Kathy	Psyche	Border Collie
10	Closson, Margaret	Brash	Golden Retriever
10	James, Kim	Skillett	Belgian Malinois
9	Herman, Jill	Oso	Australian Shepherd

...AND that she's one of only two nonpurebreds on the list...and we won't mention that we don't even show up at all in the Snooker 25 so far this year.

I know we won't end at #1, so I have to wallow in this while it lasts. Wallow wallow wallow. And, crap, I'm now late for class! C'mon, doggers, let's go!

Class Night

SUMMARY: Everything's normal and the photos are all blurry.

We all went to class last night. I ran just fine, although I did warm up a bit more than usual to be sure I could run. Tika did everything right; Boost did almost everything right--great weaves!--and knocked at least one bar every exercise. Normal normal normal.

Watching the other dogs run is inspiring.

Silvina and TCam demonstrate their pretty new high-five trick.

Silvina brought empanadas and Jim likes that. So do the rest of us.

Nancy never holds still long enough for a photo.

Stacy and Roo (?) are new to our class. That curly tail never stops being curled!

Isn't that just the cutest border collie in the known universe? Now she has FOUR different colors in her eyes!

OK, if Tika can't have the treats on the chair, she'll check between every blade of grass for crumbs, since I never feed the poor thing.

I intended to get a photo of Tracey and Cal coming towards us. Apparently this camera is confused.

Boost loves watching the other dogs run.

Oh--wait--that's not Boost!  Imagine that you and your siblings grew up and moved out and then your parents had more kids. Here's Boost and her little sister TCam, who already knocks a whole lot fewer bars than Boost does. But not zero. They were working on not being rewarded for knocking bars.

Sisters! And then my camera filled up and I couldn't remember how to delete a couple of photos so I could try some better shots. Next week!