Googility

SUMMARY: Another amazingly useful agility site

I don't know how I missed this one: googility, a site chock full of web sites related to agility, organized by type of site, and all in a nifty database that anyone can add more info to, so it will (we hope) never go out of date or be badly organized.

And I don't know how I missed it, because it's made by a blogger whom I read, Agility Nerd. Who also just recently created this nifty course-generating site, agilitycourses.com.

And I found out about googility through this Team Small Dog post. So--thanks, TSD and Agility Nerd!

No Excuse for Not Doing Agility This Weekend

SUMMARY: So many choices, so little time.

USDAA in Dixon.
CPE in Elk Grove.
AKC in Woodland.

It would take you less than an hour to drive to all three sites.

Maybe this is why attendance is down at so many trials!

The Place I Thought I Wanted!

SUMMARY: But alas, the time is not right.

Workin' Paws is for sale--alas for the agility community, unless another agility person buys it. They host seminars and fun matches and ASCA trials and much more.

And alas for me. It's in an area I've thought about buying into in the past. It's a gorgeous site with beautiful views.   It's agility-ready!  And, if I could sell my house for what it recently appraised for, I could probably afford to buy it. BUT.

Here's what I've learned from knowing agility couples who own and run agility facilities: It's a frigging lot of work and money. And I'm not keeping up with the maintenance (let alone improvements) on my own, much smaller place. And I have only one income. So, alas, the time is not right for this for me.

However, if you want an agility place in Hollister, please buy it so the rest of us can keep using it!

Seller's description:

5 Acres with Mountain Views.
North County Ranch Style has 4 bedrooms 3 baths
3250 Sq. Ft of living space
Large Loft
Formal Dining Room
Tile Fireplace Hearth
Central Air Conditioning
Wood Burning Fireplace with Gas Starter
3 or More Car Garage
All Fenced and Crossed Fenced with Mare Motel
Blue Value Water
Walking distance to the most desirable elementary school in San Benito County.
Two grass agility fields: 90 X 150 and 98 X 98, all on Blue Value Water!
Evening lights for fields
Arena area
Over 90 Jackson and Perkins Rosebushes
Many planted trees
Parking area for events and matches
Plenty of room for sheep and horses

Will be priced in the $600,000's

Thanks,
Susan Paulsen
510-708-0723

We Coulda Been a Contenda

SUMMARY: The successes and the almost-champion-of-the-universe-but-nots.

HEALTH: I remained symptom-free after about 8 p.m. Saturday night. Slept mostly OK until actual hunger pangs and hunger headache woke me middle of the night. A banana and a can of Diet Coke(R) with caffeine took care of those, respectively. In the morning, got up to the alarm and went to the trial without incident.

Early on, stuck to the bananas, pretzels, and 7-UP that seemed to have worked the best over the last couple of days; felt fine. At lunch, I headed to to the vendor fully intending to order plain rice and chicken (hey, works for dogs with upset tummies). BUT. Well. They had BLT on the menu. And that got my cravings moving, so I ordered one dry and on a whole-wheat pita. It was delicious, and I continued to feel just fine. So I guess I'm done with whatever it was. Whew!

DUST: I crated in the limited crating area in the arena, which we reserved for trial committee. I might never do that again--there was so much dust that I'm going to have to dismantle everything I own now that it's home and clean them individually to get rid of the grit. Horked up dust for half an hour after packing up. In the future, would rather walk the extra 40 feet and set up my canopy on the grass. Too bad; it was very convenient there.

Coulda been a contenda #1: I forgot that we (and many other CPE events) offer Perfect Weekend awards: If you Q in all available classes, you get a special ribbon. Tika Qed 8 out of 8 this weekend, but because I wasn't there for the first two classes Saturday, we didn't qualify for the special Perfect Weekend ribbon. Drat!

Coulda been a contenda #2: I'm not too ashamed to admit that I love CPE because of the opportunity it provides to bring home a lot of first place ribbons for us. Tika especially. But, as I noted earlier, we still have to be on top of our game for that to happen. Like yesterday, where we took two firsts but overhandling her on the weaves in Wildcard caused a miscommunication and we ended up in 2nd place.

Today, out of five classes, Tika and I managed to pull down only 2nds in the first four, losing to our usual top competitor Chaps in three of them (due to handling issues in two of them and one, just, well, chaps was .3 seconds faster) and, oh, the angst, losing to Boost in the other! (The only class today in which they competed directly.) Finally pulled it out in Jumpers with a really nice, smooth, fast, bobble-free run for our only 1st.

Tika's Sunday

So, class by class:

Full House: My favorite CPE class, 30 seconds worth of rabid point accumulation, in which I'm always striving to be the highest-scoring dog out of all entrants at the trial. We weren't. Only 2nd highest. That dang upstart Boost beat her by 3 points!

Standard: I don't remember any bobbles (didn't make any notes on this one). Pretty good run, as I recall, but Chaps usually has an advantage in classes with dogwalks and weaves, and indeed they beat us by .3 seconds.

Jackpot AKA Gamblers--Coulda been a contenda #3: Today's was a nonstandard gamble, which amounted to 30 seconds of rabid point accumulation followed by another 18 seconds of rabid point accumulation that required at least a 1, 3, and 5-pointer and then getting to the table to stop the clock within the alloted time to qualify. I had a course that in theory could've wiped everyone off the face of the planet with our stunning accumulation of points.

Before we ran, I watched superfast sheltie Cory, who has nice running contacts, tear the place up with 76 points. I thought that our course could get at least that much if everything went well, but Cory's flowed better. Problem with Cory's plan was that it involved doing three fast and accurate dogwalks, and Tika can't be counted on for that.

So I stuck with my original plan but mishandled in the opening in the 3 places for time-wasting bobbles in all 3 places that I knew would be tough, so then chickened out of the slightly more aggressive closing. Result: 74 points, which was still way more than anyone except Cory, but 3 less than I had hoped for.

However, Chaps ran after us, therefore knowing that they had to push the limits to beat us, and did, and did. (Really pushed the limits--just a half second under time, getting very close to NQing on time.) They had 77 points, for high in trial to that point. [Follow up with Boost's run, below.]

Colors: ALMOST beautiful in really high-style execution, until I ASSUMED she'd go *out* to an Aframe when I said "climb," but instead came past it while I tried to get fancy and race ahead for a super-fast finish. So had to go back and approach it again. Result: Chaps' handler said, "thanks, that reminded me that I have to do an "out" there," and so we were a whole 4 seconds behind Chaps, although still good for 2nd place.

Jumpers: Smooth and fast and a win.

Boost's Sunday

Unlike yesterday, had no problems with weaves that I can recall.

She continued yesterday's trend of not stopping 2o2o at the bottom of the Aframe, but I just tried to anticipate that and use it instead of trying to fix it. Great for speed and point accrual, like as in Full House and Jackpot. But very bad in terms of having a reliable Aframe. Will fix later. (Yeah, right. Danger Will Robinson!)

Qed 4 for 5 (3 1sts and a 2nd) and had several best-in-trial...except oh wait...maybe not quite...

Full House: Rabid point accumulation. When Boost and Tika are both on and I or they don't muck up, Boost is just faster in ground speed and has faster weaves and dogwalk. (Especially when she's not bothering to stop on the Aframe.) Boost had 50 points to Tika's 47 for a 1st--I believe highest out of all dogs competing. What a good girl!

Standard--The Long Down Count: Here's the danger of the unreliable Aframe: If I'm behind her (which I was), she comes off and *comes in to face me* rather than, oh, say, looking for the next obstacle to do. So now she's in my way and I can't get to the correct handling position. I said "down," she downed, I took a step, she jumped up in front of me. "Down," step, jump up. "Down," step, jump up. "Down," step, jump up, "Down," step, sort of stay halfway down enough for me to cautiously get around her. Yeah, she has a fabulous down except when I really need it. (Have been here before.)

SOOO her time was 12 (!) seconds slower than Tika's, but she was in a different group and that was good enough for another 1st place and Q.

Jackpot/Gamblers--Coulda been a contenda #whatever: [Refer back to Tika's description.] So: I stole Cory's plan because it was smoother than my original plan and Boost can, in fact, handle three fast, accurate dogwalks. And we ROCKED! Oh, man, she was fast, she loved the course, she handled beautifully, everything was perfect (well, except for leaving the Aframes early, repeat "good for speed & point accrual"), I knew that we could be well past everyone else's totals at the entire trial and all we had to do for the Q and the full bonus points to wrap it up was to go over one jump on our way to the table to stop the clock. Aaaaaaaaaaaand she knocked the bar.

So I had to pull her away from the table to the jump beyond it--iffy now as to whether we'd make time, but still had a chance. Aaaaaaand she did the "what jump? this jump? This one? This jump?" crap, and THEN knocked the bar. I knew we wouldn't Q at that point, but we still needed a jump for the full bonus points, so we went beyond that to the last remaining jump in the vicinity, where she repeated the "what jump? this jump?" dance and finally, with me standing there as calmly as I could and just saying "hup!" she finally turned around, took a good look at it, and went over.

All of that--the speed and the jump drama--entertained the sympathetic crowd mightily. We did in fact end up with a trial high 79 (yowza) points, but no Q. Doh.

Colors--Coulda been a... you know...: A really, really nice run, except that she came off the Aframe early so I couldn't get a front cross in that I needed for a smooth finish and we had a spin and then a turn the wrong way on the two following jumps. However, she still pulled out the 2nd-fastest time of all dogs who ran the course (Chaps was fastest), 17.28, for a 1st and a Q; only 2 other dogs besides chaps and Boost even broke 20 seconds. Without the bobbles, I'm sure she'd have been fastest. But, in her specific group, good for a 1st and a Q.

Jumpers--Coulda been... A really lovely, amazingly smooth run, even better than Tika's, which is saying something. She was almost 2 seconds faster than Tika, in fact, and was indeed the fastest of all dogs on that course--but naturally, sighhh, had a bar down. At her level in CPE, that was still a Q, but not a 1st place.

Wrap-up

Home, no photos (didn't want to leave my camera in that dusty environment so it stayed in the car), pile of ribbons, back to eating comfortably; and now back to our regularly scheduled life.

Demo, Bars, Boot Camp Results

SUMMARY: Filling in some updates.

Demo and possible agility site

Saturday's demo was well-received by the horsey set. They burst into delighted laughter and cheers and applause when a dog did the weaves or the teeter. Cheering and applause for every run. A good group to demo for.

On the down side, the arena was a bowl of mush after rain the night before. So now we know that these arenas won't do after rain. And that was only one day of not-too-awful rain, too.

Took us a while to find someone who could tell us where we were supposed to be. After we found someone who could send for the correct someone who was responible for us, we had much discussion and exploration about where the footing was good enough to do agility, so wasted more time. Our trailer ended up in the wrong area of the horsepark, blocked in among horse trailers, trucks, and so on (thinking he'd be staying there for a while) and, once we finally found where we were supposed to be, he took 10 minutes to figure out how to turn around and get to the proper spot. As a result, instead of doing an hour demo, we did about 25 minutes. And about 30 dogs showed up, so we each got exactly one run.

We trashed our plans for a full course and came up with something on the fly that was interesting but that fit into the only usable, reasonably firm footing (among gooshy areas), about 60 feet long by 15 feet wide. We didn't use the A-frame, dogwalk, or chute.

Both my dogs went into the weaves at full speed and then pulled out and dashed in front of me to tell me in an excited way that they didn't understand the footing. I made them try again and both did fine the 2nd time.

I had said that I'd come if there weren't enough dogs, and the organizer said that they always need more dogs. Huh. To me, 6-8 dogs, maybe 10, is a good demo group. So I drove 45 minutes, spent an hour futzing around, waiting, and setting up, got in one run with each dog, packed up for the next half hour, then drove home 45 minutes. I'd have never taken the dogs for one run. Oh, well. And they insisted that we finish up at 6:30 as planned, although there was nothing after that. Probably issues with closing the park at sunset or the equivalent.

Boost weaves

But I did make them leave the weaves and one tunnel set up just long enough for me to put Boost through the weaves twice more, and sure enough, the 2nd time she popped out early as per last weekend. So I grabbed her under the chest, raised her front feet off the ground (she was coated with horse-arena sand so I didn't want to pick her up), told her that she shouldn't do that, and redid the weaves, which she then did correctly.

OK, so if that fixes THAT problem again, then the trip was worth it. But the dogs were both rarin' to go when I got home instead of having any steam worked off, having been in crates for the better part of 3 hours.

Boot Camp

I filled out an evaluation for the first week of Boot Camp, giving it 10 out of 10 on pretty much everything. Drill instructor is good, workout is good and pushes my comfort level, we keep moving in a variety of things, so just when you think you can't take another ab exercise, we move into something else. And the final few minutes, lying under the open sky and doing cool-down stretches, feels like heaven.

On the down side, all my weak parts are taking notice. Bursitis in my shoulders, which hasn't bothered me in a year, flared up Friday. I wasn't aware of doing anything in Friday's session that aggravated it, but both Friday night and Saturday night I had trouble sleeping from the pain in the left shoulder. Today I discovered that it's apparently the push-ups that did it--as soon as I tried one, it hurt immediately. That's disappointing, as upper-body strength was one of my reasons for wanting Boot Camp. Plus pushups are one of the two measures they use for your progress during camp. He had me do other types of exercises while the others pushed up.

I guess I need to do more work at home with resistance bands at a lower intensity. Sigh. That's what they had me do for physical therapy when I first hurt the shoulders--using crutches improperly about 10 years ago. Of course I stop doing the exercises when the pain finally goes away. Duh. But it's just BORRRRINNNNG--

Knee tells me that it doesn't want to jog first thing in the session, but after I'm well warmed up, it doesn't bother me much and I can jog fairly well; it's still the knee and not the cardio that's keeping me from pushing myself on the running.

I don't feel nearly as tired today as I did last Friday. In fact, after my usual nap, I was thinking about walking with the dogs, but it has started raining again and I'm a wimp. Hmm, wait, maybe it has let up.

Knocking bars

We did get in a couple of good agility practice sessions today, once after Boot Camp and again midafternoon. Boost knocked bars like crazy again. Last week we got in a couple of bar-knocking drill sessions... have done quite a few lately and The Booster didn't seem to be getting it; then at the last session, again, something seemed to click, and I couldn't get her to knock a bar fer nuthin'. But, today, we were back to the beginning. It's always something.

Agility Demo and Possible New Site

SUMMARY: Agility demo with the dogs at the Woodside Horse Park.

The weather is absolutely lovely today. Knee is much better, although not perfect (may never be again, of course). We're driving up to Woodside this afternoon to give an agility demo at the Horse Park. Some sort of Horse Show is going on during the day, and we're the wrap-up event while the horse participants and observers are sipping champagne and eating strawberries. Or something like that.

For us--just a fun, free chance to practice. One member has his own small trailer with equipment and designs a course that encompasses both a novice path and a masters path. Long gone are the days when we were eager to do demos just to promote the sport of agility--back when I started, almost no one had heard of dog agility; now, almost everyone has seen it on TV or knows someone who does it. Sure, we still promote the sport as a healthy activity with one's dog, but now it's as much for our own benefit.

A couple of our members have been giving classes at the horsepark for several years, but on a small patch of hillside that's only about a quarter of the size of a single ring. We've had a seminar or two and have done previous demos up there in their main arena, but supposedly it's been completely redone and they're under newer management and eager to sign us up to do major agility events there. We'd love it if we could switch from Twin Creeks, which is so expensive with such restrictive rules. USDAA now requires the regionals to be on grass, and this arena is dirt, so we couldn't do the Labor Day Regionals there.

We're pondering doing other trials, there, though, if the surface looks good enough (and they'd wet it and compact it before our events, anyway). This is a chance for some of us to give it a go.

Out of Condition

SUMMARY: Many muscles sore from fun match.

Dang, why do I never think of taking photos until after I'm home?

The fun match was at Workin' Paws in Hollister. This is Susan Paulson's back yard, but not a back yard like you find in most of Silicon Valley. All of the houses in the neighborhood are on their own giant lots--I'm guessing at least 2 acres each, maybe more like 3 to 5. Many people have horses. Workin' Paws has a duck coop (what do you call a building in which you keep ducks? Chicken coop, dove cote, turkey trot--or something--), a huge fenced area for pottying and running dogs that's larger than my back yard, a pretty-close-to-full-sized agility ring in grass, and another ring under construction, plus their house and personal yard. And I have no idea whether the neigbhoring pastures with sheep and llamas were theirs or other neighbors'. Pretty cool. But a long commute from most jobs up here (just under an hour from my place in south san jose, so estimate at least one and a quarter hours--in good traffic (ha!)--to Sunnyvale or Santa Clara).

I ran Jake in 3 Jumpers runs and he seemed pretty happy to be there. I believe that I did 4 Jumpers runs each with Tika and Boost, and two or three Standard runs each. But they weren't straight through--they were most like practices, and we were allowed up to 90 seconds each in the ring, so I redid sections that I felt would be productive.

So I did quite a bit of running with my knee brace on, and my right knee got to feeling pretty tired by noon. Today, all the muscles in all of my legs (at least 2 of them) are bone-tired. This is bad. This means that I'm really very much out of condition. That's really not a lot of being on my feet for me normally, but apparently it is a lot for me NOW. I realize that I haven't been going for my daily mile walks for quite a while now, and I'm doing less and less with the dogs overall, but boy, I'm going to have to be careful after the surgery to remember that I'm not going from peak condition to surgery to peak condition.

Boost and Tika both didn't want to carry on to the end in the Jumpers courses with 4 or 5 straight jumps in a row. Bother! Something I worked on with both of them a lot and just assumed that they'd do. So we worked on that a bit. Worked with Boost on going over jumps and not going around them when she's trying to catch up to me. Worked with Tika on the start line stay. And worked. And worked. She got up and ran only once, but boy, she skootched and skootched and SKOOTCHED and skootched--

I've toyed with the idea of putting her in a down, since that's what she seems to want to do as an alternative to taking off early. Seemed to keep her in place better, but in fact she went into full relaxed position with one front leg tucked under, which isn't what I want, either.

So much to do--