On Judging and Tika

SUMMARY: Last weekend and through the week.

Friday May 18

Friday before my UKI judging trial, we did the Stairs From Heck as usual. Tika was even more reluctant than usual to go up the second time, but I insisted.

That afternoon, out in the yard, I thought I saw a little limp. Or, no, no limp. Or, maybe? No, definitely not. Wait--maybe?

She was perfectly happy running full tilt around the yard to play, so I didn't think more about it.

Saturday

Saturday morning, we weren't starting until 9, so it was actually lightish out when I hit the highway, and I felt as if I had actually gotten enough sleep.

On the freeway as I was crossing the central valley, I passed a string of old but beautifully restored cars obviously on their way somewhere together. They made me smile, but I regretted that I couldn't take any photos.
To my delight, when I got to Turlock and pulled off the freeway, there were a ton MORE old cars at the coffee shop next to the freeway exit, and I had plenty of time, so I stopped and took a bunch of photos. Will have to post them separately later. They just don't make cars like this any more!

At the trial site, Tika stretches fine, she runs fine in the open field, she walks fine, but when she moves up one pace (trot? I'm so bad at paces), there was a bit of a limp in the front. Didn't slow her down. She looked eager to do agility. We were signed up to compete in only 3 runs on Saturday. She had a great jumpers run--pretty fast, happy, jumping well, grabbing my feet at the end. But when I got her out of her crate for the next run an hour later or so, the limp had become very pronounced (although still only at that slightly faster pace, and she still stretched fine, etc.)

Even though Tika had been on rimadyl since friday, the limp at that one pace showed up periodically all weekend.

So I scratched her from her remaining two runs.

Dustin judged Saturday--this was only his 2nd time judging--and he's a natural. So calm and in control, good sense of humor. Good courses, too. He's a frequent chief course builder, so that helps, I'm sure.

Boost had a great jumpers run--and she actually Qed and won, compared to Tika, whose handler (yeh, me) walked the course wrong and neglected to do a serpentine between two jumps instead of a 280. Boost's Standard and Speed Stakes courses were messes of bars down, runouts, and the like, but boy her jumpers was gorgeous. I offered to trade it for a USDAA Jumpers Q. Sigh.

We were done on saturday at 1:30, then a bunch of us sat around at the picnic table in the shade and snacked on chips and fruit to avoid the heat (90s maybe) while some of the dogs played in the water. Tika kept a close eye on the snacks on the table; Boost kept a close eye on the other border collies. Bump, as usual, had a lot to say.

After that, we drove 45 minutes--halfway home!--to Ghirardelli chocolate's factory outlet for hot fundge sundaes. And that was lunch.

Sunday

On Sunday, I judged. A very busy day--there were so few competitors in each class--about 7 on average--that we couldn't keep up with the course building and tweaking in the other ring, so there was a lot of sitting around waiting for me to be available or the course to be built (with only about 20 people on site, half were working at any given time and half were running their dogs--a great group of people!). We started at 9 a.m.; I judged 10 classes (2 standards, speed stakes, jumpers, gamblers; 2 levels each); and we were done by 1:30.

I actually ran Boost on my novice speed stakes and my senior jumpers courses because they looked fun. We did OK but not perfect. I also got Tika out, because she kept voicing off when I'd take Boost out (which means she wants to go, too, which she doesn't do when she's not feeling well), so I ran her at 12" in a circle and off the course again, and she seemed happy about that--ran great again, but that pesky limping-when-at-a-trot was still there.

I had a good enough time judging; everyone was really nice. I think my courses were too easy--almost everyone qualified in almost everything, especially the gamblers, where only knocking bars or being out of position disqualified people. Oh--I should say, almost everyone who actually competed qualified--I'd guess that 5 out of 7 runs all weekend were NFC (Not For Competition) because people wanted to practice, so it was a like a fun match with the option to actually compete for points and ribbons.

Here you can see the ENTIRE crating set-up for everyone at the trial. REALLY small.

I learned that I shouldn't put all the high point gamble obstacles on one side of the field--too easy to get all those points! Although people appreciated it.

I loved watching some really good handlers with really fast dogs do amazing things on the course, from right up close.

I sometimes had trouble remembering what I was supposed to be doing--wasn't in the right place for a couple of contact calls, for example, but otherwise I was there. Because the rounds were so short, I'd just get into the swing of where I was supposed to be and how to get there, and it would be over.

I'm not sure that I'm cut out for standing in the sun all day and judging. I did slather on the sun lotion and did not get burned. I wore my street shoes at first, thinking, what the heck, I'm not doing that much walking, right? Wrong! Blisters on both toes by the time I realized that my feet were uncomfortable, so switched into my agility shoes and my feet were happier.

It was a nice enough, pleasant day--much less stressful than competing, that's for sure!--but I also didn't come out of it thinking, oh YEAH, I LOVE judging! Especially not with the hours of course design work ahead of time. I'm signed up to judge again in August at another UKI. Will see how I feel after that.

Monday and the rest of this week

So, come Monday, I didn't do the stairs from heck because I didn't want to go for along walk without the dogs, and I wanted Tika to rest some. The way it worked out was--we didn't do ANYthing ALL WEEK, didn't do the stairs even once, and only one short walk. But playing in the yard, yes. And Tika was fine fine fine. Until we got to class Thursday evening, where for jollies I put her over two 12" jumps, and she moved slowly, knocked both the bars, and came up short with a yelp. Remained hunched over, circling on her leash, for the whole evening. Yelped periodically when something would happen.

Does this dog look sore to you? Other than that the wind keeps blowing the door shut on her?

Mostly her circling kept wrapping her leash around the stake to which she was attached, but I watched from afar with disbelief at one point as she circled Boost, neatly wrapping her leash around three of boost's ankles, pullling it tight, and knocking Boost over onto her side--no rodeo cowboy roped a calf more neatly than that! But as I ran over, both dogs started to panic and Tika yelped some more, so after that she went back into her crate in the car.

Gave her a rimadyl before we left the site, and 20 minutes later at home, no hunching over or anything. But she remains in a want-to-run, want-to-play-tug, no apparent problems mode, and then briefly a little limp, briefly a yelp and then she's fine again.

Trying to find one of the chiros who might be able to give her a work-over before we compete this coming weekend.

Ratz ratz ratz.

Gratuitous dog photos

Paula (Dustin's dog)

Dig (Bump's "sister")

Booster!

Fitness for Agility

SUMMARY: How we're all doing, and preparing for the UKI judging weekend.

I'm gone this weekend to the UKI trial in Turlock. Judging on Sunday (but I also get to run my dogs on a couple of my courses to try them out--Laura says that the judges in England do that all the time).

Competing a little on Saturday mainly to support the club and my fellow Bay Teamer Dustin who is also a newish judge. So I'll "judge" him while he runs his dogs on his courses and he'll return the favor on Sunday. (We can't compete on our own courses, but even Not For Competition runs must have a judge on the field.)

Wednesday on the Stairs From Heck (some days they feel much worse and are obviously From Hell), the second time up I did them in close to 3 minutes, give or take a few seconds. I think I did them more slowly than the first time up. Wish I'd timed them the first week I was doing them to see whether there's been an improvement. Off to do my Friday attack shortly.

Last night in class, Boost could NOT get a weave pole entrance approaching with the slightest turn to the left--ALWAYS skipped the first pole. Jeeeeeezzzzz! Before class, I was just doing a little warm-up and she couldn't get it, so I softened the angle, softened, softened, softened--and as soon as it was straight on, fine, but one step to my left and she skipped the first pole again. This flashes me back to wayyyy back when i first couldn't figure out why so often she couldn't make her weave entries and other times she got even really hard ones--and realized in another flash of insight that it was always the approach to the left. The approach that's supposed to be easier because the dog can wrap around the first pole. Nope, couldn't do it in practice, couldn't do that entry in class, either.

Back to square 2 again.

Tika looked fine, eager to go. She sure does loaf around the house more these days--although, must say, when the leash comes out for a W-A-L-K, she still catches some air leaping straight up in the hallway for joy.

This weekend I'm hoping we'll be done by, maybe, noon both days. Wouldn't that be a treat! And looking forward to the experience of judging. Have to remember some differences from other venues:

• In Gamblers, teeters are 3 pts, Aframes are 4 pts, and only the dogwalk and 12 weaves are 5.
• In Snooker, there can be 4 reds but dogs may *attempt* only 3 of them.
• No up contacts judged.
• In Gamblers and Snooker, you MUST stop the clock or you lose all your points!
• In Gamblers, whether there is a "no loitering" rule is at the judge's discretion!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Judgement Day Is Coming

SUMMARY: My first date.

Looks like I'll probably be judging one day at a UKI trial in August. Designing courses and everything. So those 4 days of judging clinic won't entirely go to waste, although I'm sure USDAA hoped I'd judge USDAA events. Maybe I'll do that eventually, too. This was offered to me, it's fairly local, it's only one day, and what the heck.

Have been reading through the rulebook. Probably will want to do that again right before the trial.

Meanwhile I can practice calling out snooker numbers. One! Seven! One! Seven! Tweeeeeet! Like that. I'm very familiar with the tweeeeeeet part.

Time to Get Buns In Gear

SUMMARY: Work on those agility issues before the president comes and kicks my--er--butt!

Once again I'm almost entirely frittered away my huge gap between agility trials during which I was going to Fix Everything Once And For All. Instead, we play some fetch in the yard, run through some tunnels, sometimes go for walks and play frisbee in the park.

Dogs are actually bored; I can tell this because Boost disassembles the dog beds and empties the toy buckets everywhere, thereafter tossing the toy bucket around.

I passed up my chance this last weekend to attend the first actual UKI trial in California, at which some of my agility friends earned, say, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd UKI titles ever given in California. They will probably also earn the first UKI championships ever given in the U.S. Maybe. Who knows.

It's not a venue that seems likely to give me free entries for working the score table, since they do the score table. Maybe crew chiefing, but I'm not very good at that with 2 dogs in different groups (championship & performance, or even 22" and 26"), I've discovered.

Plus I'm trying to do less agility, not more.

Plus do I want to start on the title track for yet another organization? Tika, for example, already has legs towards her NADAC titles (is in Elite in several things, but not everything since we haven't competed in NADAC in ages, but that's maybe ok because), she also has legs towards her ASCA titles (is in Elite in some things, not as many as NADAC because not all the NADAC trials we did earlier were dual-sanctioned). Plus is now maybe halfway to her CPE C-ATE, which at our current pace will take maybe 10 more years at one trial a year.

Plus Bay Team is having trouble finding trial committee for our CPE trials, so maybe we won't do any? We have no trouble getting people to attend and pretty much fill up 2-ring CPE trials, but those of us who wanted to chair/secretary/etc. have pretty much done our share (and sometimes more than our share) and are really ready for a break. Maybe all those people competing aren't actually Bay Teamers and maybe that's why we can't get a committee out of them? We do have someone who seems to like being trial secretary for CPE, so that's lovely. Anyway...I'm seeing NOT more CPE in my future.

We could start AKC, now that mixed breeds are welcome (at some clubs, not all). Tchyeah, like that'll happen.

Anyway--the point was that Boost still knocks bars and has trouble with serpentines and rear crosses, Tika's contacts are getting worse, I'm not doing any running of any kind except in class these days, and in fact am not even getting out for hikes or walks, so I'm in no great shape at the moment.

Where does all the time go?

Time to get a move-on! As soon as I've put in 50 hours at work to make up for all that vacation, sorted all 2700 photos--oh yeah plus a couple hundred more for two nieces' graduations, cleared all the stuff off the table, finished organizing & photographing the ribbons spread all over the living room floor, arranged for a blackberry sorbet party for next weekend and cleaned up the whole yard...

OK, any day now. SOMEone better start kicking my butt or this mess will NEVER get cleaned up.

UKI Birthday Fun Match

SUMMARY: A good time was had by all.

Compared to a regular agility weekend, it was SO much nicer to (a) not have to pack nearly as much, (b) sleep until 6:30 rather than 4:00 a.m., (c) drive half an hour rather than 2 hours, (d) watch the sun rise and the full moon sink (wanted photos but didn't want to stop. Regretting that decision.), (d) be done with 4 runs by noon.

I'm not the best person to comment on the styles of courses; course design doesn't interest me at all; I just like the challenge of how I'm going to get myself and my dogs through in the most efficient way possible, and it doesn't really matter what the specific challenges are. I must say that nothing I saw today looked out of the range of possibility for a USDAA trial (in terms of odd turns or weird positions or that ilk). But all the courses were run on a very small rings; they might have been 70x70 (rather than 100+ square), but I'm thinking they were maybe even smaller than that.

Java Agility has a permanent fenced location set up in one corner of the Swiss Park ("available for rental! Banquet hall!") in Newark. I have no idea what the Swiss part is all about, but the building was pretty cool.

Fun matches are useless for us to work on anything that dogs do only in competition; despite my best efforts, they know it's not real--e.g., Tika did every one of her contacts perfectly. In fact, Tika just kind of glided through the courses, OK, this is fun but not REALLY serious.

Standard agility ("agility") was your basic numbered course with all obstacles but no table. Jumpers is jumpers-with-weaves, different from USDAA but same as for AKC and international. Gamblers has an interesting variation; someone said it's sort of a combination of AKC FAST and USDAA gamblers; I'm not familiar with FAST so dunno. The gamble always has an option of going over the line to do it but for fewer points, which is nice.

Their Speed Stakes is just a Jumpers course like USDAA (no weaves) but set up for speed like a Steeplechase would be. We finished with that and both dogs loved it; Tika even got excited enough once she caught on to what kind of course it was that she zoomed in and grabbed my feet at the end, which is normally an only-at-trials behavior.

Boost knocked bars but her contacts and weaves were lovely. I was trying to concentrate more on having her keep moving out ahead of me and taking obstacles rather than checking in before every one. We had some success with that, but still a ways to go.

Tika waits her turn. (This is my 4/52 in my 52 Weeks For Dogs photo group.)

On the way home, the lighting was so interesting (sunny but muted by faint cloudiness) that I stopped and took photos. These are the mountains east of Newark rising above the NUMMI plant (New united motors), a joint venture between GM and Toyota for the last quarter century that employs 5500 people--until GM announced that they're pulling out, and Toyota isn't going to keep it running by themselves, so in 2 months it's shut-down and outawork.

It's amazing what you can see while standing at a freeway overpass in the business/industrial part of town on a spur-of-the-moment stop to take photos of the mountains.

 

Marsh grasses surrounding a reflective pond.

Purple flowers (duh!).

 

Bird of Paradise

 

These guys cracked me up. It was clear they were talking about the neighbors.

  

But when they took off, pure grace.

Seagulls may be the rats o'the sea, but they sure do look nice against a bright blue sky.

Agility Activity

SUMMARY: Class, fun match.

Halleluia, it was not raining yesterday so we had class last night! Dogs were happy to be running. Tika did beautifully, she's such a good experienced girl--and seems so slow in comparison to Boost. (Although she's not by any means a slow dog.)

Boost did pretty good. Did all her weaves beautifully, even when I cut away toward the end to get to another position (the thing she COULDN'T do correctly 2 weeks ago in class, and no, I haven't worked on it since). Knocked a bar almost, but not quite every, run--hmm, ok, I think I did three exercises with her and 4 with tika, so that's not a great sample size.

There were only 4 of us in class last night, so we all pooped out on the early side and headed home in the dark.

Sunday is Boost's and my birthday! Boost will be 5--gasp, how is it possible?--and I'll be older than that.

To celebrate, we've signed up for a UKI fun match. UKI is a creation of Greg Derrett and Laura Manchester-Derrett, and Laura's from our general agility area originally before she moved to England for a while, so it's fun to see her back again. If you haven't seen the buzz about UKI agility, here's their web site. It's up in Fremont, only about 45 minutes from home, and has limited entries and 4 classes, so we don't start until 8:30 and expect to be done by 12:30, a huge difference from regular trials.

And it's supposed to rain a bit between now and Sunday, but Sunday itself should be clear. Happy birthday to us!

nYAAO! Yet ANother Agility Organization

SUMMARY: In case the umpteen variants currently available aren't enough for you, here's another one coming your way.

Noted agility seminarists Greg Derrett and his significant other, the formerly Bay Area local person Laura Manchester [Derrett], are bringing their new agility organization to the U.S. You can read about it on the UKI (UK Agility International) web site.

That's  in case you aren't already flush with conflicting rules and equipment in these other umpteen agility organizations, almost all of which are available here in profusion although perhaps not in your neighborhood (in alphabetic order):

• AKC (American Kennel Club's program)
• ASCA (Australian Shepherd Club's program--rules are what NADAC used to be)
• CPE (Canine Performance Events)
• DOCNA (Dogs On Course North America)
  
• NADAC (North American Dog Agility Council)
• TDAA (Teacup Dog Agility Association)
  
• UKC (United Kennel Club's program)
• USDAA (United States Dog Agility Association)
  

And that's not to mention the Canadian org's if one happens to live in that vicinity. And if you compete internationally, there's the FCI and the IFCS agility venues as well. Eeeegads.

I'm not saying that any existing agility organization is perfect or couldn't use improvement. UKI might be the be-all and end-all of agility that solves every issue that anyone has ever had with agility and people would be willing to drop their lifetime title pursuits in other organizations to start over there. But wait, how about this: Hey, the Bay Team is a big organization with a lot of ideas and experience; maybe we should start our own flavor of agility, because WE know how to DO IT RIGHT!