The Postal Person Brings Some Cool Stuff From CPE!

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

Weekend's End

SUMMARY: The aftermath.

Am still so glad that I'm just done with Boost's C-ATCH and Tika's C-ATE. Now I can concentrate on other things. Like USDAA, like making progress on my new dog Boost's issues, which are just as rampant in CPE as they are in USDAA, just not penalized as much.

This weekend was quite freeing in a couple of ways:

First, none of the runs except Boost's Saturday Colors felt like they counted for anything--in a good way. I'm not going to try for 230 more Qs for Boost to get her C-ATE or another 230 for Tika's C-ATE-2, and there's really nothing in between. So all of our runs were strictly for fun--and ribbons and glory if we could get them. That really did make them all seem much more fun.

Second, really acknowledging that Tika's hearing problems are responsible for a lot of what's going on on the courses made me feel that I could just concede everything that went wrong to Tika's aging, not to any training or handling issues, and enjoy her just for still being here and having all those years of experience.

I'm sure that this won't all carry over to USDAA, but I do want to keep on doing USDAA and see how well and how far we can go.

Meanwhile, here's Boost's C-ATCH Colors run. You'd think it would be easy to Q on a course with a mere 9 or 10 obstacles. But it has taken us a while. Bars finally stayed up!


And our victory lap. Woohoo! Boost was a little freaked out by the whole abnormal way her time in the ring ended, but she does love running, especially when tunnels are involved.


Other videos are still uploading to YouTube, so maybe more tomorrow.

I had a whole lot of other things that I was going to say, but at the moment I'm thinking strictly in terms of how quickly I think I could fall asleep if I put my head down on my pillow. With visions of Boost's C-ATCH pole and Tika's C-ATE pole dancing in my head.

Filling In the Blanks

SUMMARY: CPE paperwork.

Background:

• CPE has 7 classes: Standard, Jumpers, Wildcard, Colors, Jackpot (aka Gamblers), Snooker, and Full House.
• CPE has 6 levels (1 through 5, and C)
• Dogs who have earned titles in other organizations can start at Level 3, which is what I did with Remington and Boost. (More on Jake, below.)
• Currently, to complete a numbered level (e.g., level 2), you need twice that many Q[ualifying score]s (e.g., 4)  in Standard and that many Qs (e.g., 2)  in each of the other classes. 
• Variant: It was different when Remington, Jake, and Tika were working on their C-ATCHes--fewer were required at each level--but it changed to this current system while Boost was only halfway through her Level 3 titles.
• Completing your Level 5 is your C-ATCH.
• After completing Level 5, you can optionally move to Level C, the level with the most strict qualifying requirements, to work on your C-ATE. (You can also opt to stay in level 5 and earn multiple C-ATCHes. Lots of people do this. We, however, think that we always like the highest level of challenge.)

Here are the trusty pieces of paper that traveled around in my trial gear for a very long time, to show how many Qs we've had to earn to get to where we are.

Jake's C-ATCH:
When CPE first started, if your dog had a championship in another organization, you could start at Level 4, which is what I did with Jake.  So, between that and the lower number of required Qs, Jake needed 48 Qs to work his way up to his C-ATCH.

Tika's C-ATCH:
I made the mistake of entering Tika in Level 1 at her first-ever CPE trial because I didn't realize that, once you had a Q at that level, you had to complete everything at that level. So she had to work through all the Qs at level 1 and 2 to get to where my previous dogs *started*.

As a result, she had to earn 88 Qs to get to her C-ATCH. At least the level 1 and 2 courses were pretty easy.

Tika's C-ATE:
Completing 5000 points (up to around 250 Qs) at Level C is your C-ATE. Tika did it with 229 (this sheet has 2 more listed beyond her C-ATE).

Boost's C-ATCH:
I was smarter with Boost and started her at Level 3.

Here's her sheet--still minus that one dang Colors! Two chances this coming weekend to fill in that teasing blank.

Because of the rules change while Boost was still partly in Level 3, she had to earn more Qs in some level 3 and all Level 4 and 5 classes than my other dogs did. When she gets that final Q, she'll have needed 90 Qs--more than Tika needed going all the way up from Level 1, and all at the higher levels.

And Then...
Tika's C-ATE-2 sheet now has 7 Qs on it. Only 220 more to go. :-)

And Boost's C-ATE sheet already has 19 on it. Hmmm... with Boost's lower Q rate, could Tika earn her C-ATE-2 before Boost earned her C-ATE? Hmmm... .... .... but noooo, move along, nothing to see here.

Another Pretty Darned Good CPE Weekend.

SUMMARY: In which we bring home a pretty darned big ribbon.

As we headed out to Elk Grove very early Saturday for another 10 runs (per dog) of CPE, Boost needed just one Colors for her C-ATCH...and since we'd gotten the last 5 Colors in a row, and since Colors courses are only about 10 obstacles long, I figured our odds were pretty good.

Meanwhile, Tika needed to Q in all 10 classes for her C-ATE, and since she's only managed to do that in CPE once ever, I figured that our chances were pretty slim.

Either way, for either dog, I wasn't too worried about things, since we have two more weekends of CPE coming up in the next two weeks, and we *will* finish those titles. 100% probability.

Tika's Saturday was pretty good. She was sometimes fairly fast and sometimes not; sometimes blasting through tunnels and sometimes not, and a couple tunnels quite slow again. She breezed through her two Standard runs like they were nuthin', did her favorite class (Jumpers) smoothly but not spectacularly, did her traditional-style Jackpot (Gamblers) without even thinking twice about it. In Snooker, I picked a conservative course rather than an aggressive one, and although she popped out of her weaves in the opening sequence--very odd for Tika--she looked more excited than confused, and we picked it up and got the Q anyway. So--5 for 5.

Boost had the usual mixture of speed and brilliance with the all-to-frequent refusals, runouts, and bars. Her first standard was somehow a Q despite running past a jump (same one twice, in fact) and missing her weave pole entry. In her second standard, she turned back before a jump in front of her but all of it looked pretty good until she knocked the next-to-last bar, for an NQ. In the Jackpot, she did beautifully in the opening and placed higher than Tika; in the closing she had a little thing where she came to me instead of finishing on the table but, in the end, completed it, so another Q. I did the same conservative Snooker run with her, and she did it, but only after running past a jump on a lead-out pivot at the beginning.

In Colors, however... Well, there were two options: One course with 7 jumps and several turns; one with only 5 jumps and only a couple of turns. I picked the latter. Just to prove that she really didn't want her C-ATCH this weekend, she knocked *TWO* of those 5 jumps (and ran past one of them).

So, 3 of 5 for Saturday.

At the end of the day, we had enough time to go a-birding, so three of us (Quas's mom (Quas is a Boost half-sister) and Chaps' mom (Chaps is our sometime partner and frequent close competitor on course--I've mentioned him before)) drove out to Cosumnes River Crane Preserve again and went looking for cranes. We did finally see some in the distance and saw quite a flew fly overhead as dark silhouettes, but in the meantime we saw plenty of other birds. This clique of pintail ducks  cracked us up:

On Sunday, Tika started the day with a Standard run that truly impressed a lot of people--I got compliments on it all day long for all sorts of people. Well, OK, sure, it was a clean run, but the impressive thing was that, as she approached the top of the dogwalk's down ramp, she found herself nose to nose with a Papillon who had somehow slipped out of his crate, decided that agility looked like a fun thing to do, and had headed straight up the dogwalk ramp. This sweet little Papillon, in fact:

I wasn't sure what Tika was going to do. I knew it wasn't a dangerous dog-to-dog situation, but I wasn't sure whether she'd maybe jump off or try to turn around. What she did was to issue a tiny rumble of annoyance, then the two of them kind of sniffed noses, and somewhere about then, someone swooped in, scooped up the Papillon, and Tika calmly descended the ramp and stopped in a perfect 2 on/2 off position! First time she's done THAT in competition in years! Then we completed our course for the Q.

Updated March 18 with a correction from the Papillon's person: "Hi There.... I am the owner of the errant papillion. The dog in the picture is not the rascal who climbed up the dog walk with your dog. His name is Cassie and he is my C-ATCH pap. (He says he wants to clear his name!) The culprit was my little 20 mo old level one dog, Wiki, who didn't escape from his crate, but went through a whole in the fencing between the two rings when we were running jumpers. My husband tried to go into the ring to get him but was stopped by the gate steward. Finally, he just sort of pushed past and said "THAT'S my dog. I have to go get him". I couldn't get over the fence and stood there yelling for him like an idiot. Anyway, a friend said she say my pic on the blog so I had to take a look. Not a bad pic. (I usually take terrible pics!) Anyway, thanks for being so gracious about the whole thing."

Her Jumpers was another nice, fairly smooth but not fast course, for a Q. (Yet Another Ellen in attendance and her dog Pepper earned THEIR C-ATE on that jumpers run. Go Ellens!)

Tika's Snooker...well, the smoothest course I could figure out involved three 7s in the opening and due to a couple of wide turns, we missed completing our final seven by, I swear, one weave pole. But it was easily a Q anyway, so happiness reigned.

At this point, we were looking at 8 out of 8 with two classes to go.

Tika didn't seem too concerned about it.

Meanwhile, back at the Boost--she continued with a mixed bag--her Standard run was really nice except where she turned back to me before a jump, so when I spun her around for a second pass at the jump, I was in the wrong position to prevent an off-course at the very next obstacle. Even with that extra obstacle, she had something like the 4th fastest time of the 60ish dogs who ran that course.

Her jumpers run was mostly nice--no bars down--but, sigh, ran past a jump when she locked onto a tunnel that I then barely called her off of, so her time looks really slow. Still, it was a Q. In Snooker, I couldn't get into position quickly enough on two occasions so we had bobbles that slowed our time, but again, she Qed with no bars down and completed the three sevens plus the whole closing.

I had said that I wasn't worried or nervous about Tika's title, but I found myself getting a little  tense around then. The next class was Jackpot, and it is possible for Tika to miss the gamble part. And I couldn't remember what our 5th class of the day was, and so of course we could maybe knock a bar or do something else to disqualify us.

Then--I looked up the last class. Full House! *My* favorite CPE class. It's all about accumulating points.  And--well--in 50 other appearances, Tika has only NQed twice. Once, she came out of a tunnel limping (long time ago, and had already acted sore earlier in the day), and wayyyyy back our 2nd-ever one, she was listed as doing only 2 of the required 3 jumps, the judge couldn't remember, and they can't accept video to prove that she actually did it.  (This is why I now always plan at least 4 jumps in my Full House runs.)

So, in other words, that's a guaranteed Q.

THEN I looked at the Jackpot course--OMG, it's a nontraditional, and in this case, it is a strictly point-accumulation class! Bingo! We just cannot NOT earn a Q on a point-accumulation course...well, unless I get greedy and end up going over time.

So, what happened was-- Boost and Tika both  Qed in Jackpot and both Qed in Full House with a zillion points, and, Huzzah,  Boost was 4 for 5 for the day (7 of 10 for the weekend), and Tika was 10 for 10 for the weekend, and we came home with a REALLY REALLY huge C-ATE ribbon--thank you, Haute Dawgs!

We didn't come home with as much Blue as usual--Chaps and Tika have historically typically ended up trading off wins, but there's no doubt that Tika has slowed and Chaps is two years younger.  Throw Boost's speed into the mix, and--Tika won the 2 classes that Chaps wasn't in, and came in behind Chaps 8 times and behind Boost 5 times (and behind a couple of other dogs a couple of times), thereby pushing her into 2nd or 3rd place mostly. But still, out of 9 to 10 dogs in their Level C height class, that's nothing to be ashamed of.

Guess I'm not unpacking the car tonight--this took longer to type than I thought. G'nite, all.

CPE Was Very Very Good To Us

SUMMARY: A pretty good quantity of Qs.

Tika was a good girl, looked pretty healthy all weekend, Qed 11 out of 12 runs. Her only non-Q was a crash on the next to last jump in her jumpers round where on the video it looks like she completely misjudged it, but from my perspective running with her, it looked like she stumbled before the jump. I can't see that in  the video.




That, plus the one time that she stumbled getting out of the car, plus these "tunnel episodes", are among the things that make me think that her agility days are numbered on the shorter side rather than the longer side. On these two videos, her time in the one tunnel (per video) doesn't seem long at all, but on the ground, where you're expecting the dog to blast out of the tunnel, it seemed like forever.

In this Standard run--the tunnel after the dogwalk. You can see me stop and wait for her to come out.


In this Jackpot (Gamblers) run--yellow tunnel that I was trying to layer and send her to the jumps behind it. She apparently stopped and came back out the same way, which is really odd for her.




In all her runs, even when they went pretty smoothly, she looks like she's taking tiny strides, not long stretched-out strides. She definitely doesn't feel fast to me. But then--I'm also taking little tiny strides and I probably don't feel fast to her.

The other Standard run from today:


And her Wildcard run from today:




Boost Qed 8 out of 11, even though she's now moved up to Level C (championship) in everything except one class and they don't allow any faults in level C. (Remember that CPE doesn't count refusals.) Still, despite that, she had only one one run all weekend that I'd call really nice--her first Standard run from this morning. And even in that one, she stopped off the SIDE of the teeter and I had to tell her "touch" a second time for her to slue around front.


All of her other runs had problems. Sometimes, watching the vids, I can see that I stopped or peeled off sooner than a should have, but in others I am just bloody well running at an obstacle that she's running at and should just dang well take but doesn't.

Boost Sat Standard Round 1 Level C, Q and 3rd place--ran past a jump, came off the side of the teeter completely (when she comes in to face me, I try to get her to Down so that I can get a step beyond her and not have her dance backwards in front of me instead of looking at obstacles. She does NOT want to go all the way down on course. I suppose I ought to do something when she doesn't, maybe take her off, but I dunnooooo...)


Wildcard Sunday, Q and 3rd place--I am running straight at that jump, I swear I am.


Colors Sunday, Q and 4th place--lined her up to look straight across the middle of the 1st 2 jumps, led out, and, well--she didn't even look at the jumps. The REASON I wanted to do the leadout that I did was because I KNEW that if I was behind her when she went through that tunnel, she'd turn back to me instead of going straight into the weaves that are RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER. And--Q.E.D.


Standard Round 2 Sunday, not a Q because of a bar down. Great weave entry. Refusal on a rear cross where, for some reason, I decided I couldn't get in the front cross that I did with Tika (see her video above) and so I overran the rear cross. That was really my fault, but STILL if she'd only, you know, take obstacles in front of her...  And that tunnel that I tried sending her to just because I wanted to prove that she could send to a tunnel--but apparently she can't--


Jumpers Sunday, Q and 3rd place-- I am running straight at that jump, I swear I am.

Wrap-up

Tika now needs only 225 points for her C-ATE. Next weekend's trial, if I counted right, offers 235 points. That still means that we'd have to Q in everything next weekend to get it, but we always seem to have just one or two runs where there's one blip (like her Jumpers run this morning).

Boost now needs only one Colors run for her C-ATCH. Next weekend there's one Colors offered. So it could happen.

It'll be nice to get these out of the way!

USDAA, CPE, Precious Weekends, and Precious Dogs

SUMMARY: Big decision #1. What to do?

Here's what I'm thinkin'.

Tika is doing pretty good for a going-on-11 dog. She still tugs full out, still runs full out after the toy or frisbee. But I'm seeing signs that signal "old dog" in so many subtle ways. First, there's the mixed speed in competition--still not entirely positive whether it's soreness, eyes, hearing, or what. Then, around the house, there are little things: She doesn't always immediately stand up when I do any more. She doesn't always get up out of her bed when there's food offered unless she's sure it's worth her while (and this from a dog whose #1 priority will always be food). She's been reluctant to come upstairs for bed at night--not sure whether that's soreness, tired of having Boost scratching off and on all night (me, too), or really is more comfortable on her bed downstairs for some reason. She sometimes does the wrong "trick" when I give her a command, but if I say it louder, she gets it right. Maybe just confusion or lack of practice, maybe hearing. Dunno.

Just things like that.

So I'm pondering what to chase in terms of titles.

My working theory is that she'll continue to be happy and healthy doing agility for another year, and that then, that's probably it for us. I mean, I could get lucky and she'd keep on going--but here are the statistics from our September trial:

Age	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Total
# of dogs	9	35	31	56	42	41 (Boost)	39	35	27	14 (Tika)	5	3	2	1	340

The odds aren't good that she'll be going a lot longer. Even another year with her in agility would be precious.

So: Do I cram in as much as I possibly can in one year? Remember that I've discovered that my nonagility weekends are also precious; I've been much happier at 14 weekends a year than I was getting to be at 20-some-odd weekends a year. I'd probably be happier with even less.

CPE choice

A C-ATE (CPE agility something extraspecial, or whatever), which is wayyyyyyyy beyond a championship, requires roughly 250 Qs at the Championship level--that means clean runs, unlike Tika's C-ATCH championship, which required only 20ish Qs (at that time), most of which didn't have to be clean. This makes it like a USDAA LAA silver in number of Qs. However, it's also THE highest title you can get in CPE.

Tika currently has 178 Qs, so needs maybe another 70ish-- Actually it's a bit more involved than that--it requires 5000 points and she currently has 3855, so 1145 to go. There are 7 different classes, worth between 15 and 25 points for each Q. Soooo if we could do all 25-point classes, she'd need only another 46 Qs. Of course they won't all be 25-pointers. So, say, 50-60 Qs to finish.

We've been doing only one or two CPEs a year since I cut back on agility. But Tika's Q rate in CPE is generally pretty high, 80-90%. So *if* we could go to all CPEs that offered 5 classes a day (10/weekend), that would be "only" about 5-7 weekends... hmmmm... but I'm thinkin' that most clubs only offer 8 classes a weekend. That bumps it up to 8-10 more weekends.

Either way, that's a LOT of weekends to add to my dozen USDAAs/year. I don't really want to go back up to 20+ weekends of agility in a year.

However, add to that: It would be nice to earn a championship with Boost, and I think we could do the CPE one in about the same amount of time that Tika could get her CATE. For her C-ATCH, she needs:
1 jumpers
2 jackpot
3 each wildcard and snooker
6 colors
8 standard (and most clubs offer at least 2/weekend)

It's doable. The Colors Qs are the ones that are killing me at the moment. But, still, yes, doable.

I just have to decide I want to do a bunch more expensive CPEs (because I don't get free entries at any of them except bay team's). Now that I've actually punched in the numbers, hmmm, maybe I'll go for it. Of course I'm also trying to get Qs in USDAA for Tika's platinum LAA.

USDAA choice

As I discussed in A Woman, A Plan, A Dog, I figure that in a year with 13 weekends of USDAA, Dogs Willing, we could finish her Platinum LAA. That's THE highest title you can get in USDAA.

I'd like to do that, too.

But 13 weekends of USDAA and 10 weekends of CPE in a year, whoa!, that's as bad as my worst year ever--er, I mean, as many weekends as my busiest agility year ever.

It is true that I could work on the CPE title later; she doesn't have to be as fast, and jumps only 20" rather than 22" in USDAA. Hmmm, and maybe (have to double-check the rules) I could move her to Specialist, which actually jumps 16", and keep going, so concentrate on USDAA first and then go back to CPE. But that pulls me out of my tentative plan to just do agility for another year.

Also, that's a lot to expect from a dog's longevity and health. Plus, really would be nice to have a CH for Boost.

Pondering

So--thinking--