Waiting for that Lifetime Platinum...

SUMMARY: It's tiny in the grand scheme of things, but still--

--I did so want to get there. Particularly now that I'm unlikely to compete again, ever, let alone enough to earn all those Qs with a single dog. [I'm not heartbroken about that not-competing thing. But, you know--yes, about that award. ]

  Tika was only a few short of the 500 required when her heart decided that she was done. 

Tika's LAA Bronze (150 Qs)

But then, in January 2020, USDAA announced:

With new crossover rules in effect, these qualifications [counts for Lifetime Achievement Awards] may come from either the Championship or Performance program, and are limited on a combined basis to no more than 3 qualifications per class (the number to earn a class title) for a maximum of 15 qualifications at each level (i.e., Starters and Advanced), for an overall maximum of 30. This is in keeping with the definition of “Lifetime” and recognizing performances from the beginning of a dog’s career to retirement. This change will be reflected at a later date, following implementation of other programming changes. (https://www.usdaa.com/regulations/upload/USDAAChanges01_10_2020_announcement_Update01_23_2020.pdf)

Translation: Starters and Advanced Qs that didn't used to count towards LAA awards now do. And they'll retroactively update the records and titles for all affected dogs... and Tika had 13 Starters  and 11 Advanced Qs!

Tika's LAA Silver, 250 Qs

And then--COVID hit. So, I waited.

A year after that announcement, I finally asked USDAA In January 2021:

Did this actually go into effect? Specifically, my dog Tika had to retire just 12 short of her LAA platinum, but I see that none of her Starters or Advanced Qs are applied to her award.  Is there any action that I need to take?

Tika's LAA Gold (350 Qs) 

The response was:

Thanks for your patience  - we are still completing the work to update the formulas from the January 2020 updates. The pandemic and cancellation of events nationwide required that we shift all programming energies to the USDAA@Home platform.

LAA awards formulas should reflect the change this quarter. Dogs that were competing and earned an LAA at the time of the change will be awarded their plaques automatically.  We are working on a case by case basis to recognize dogs that have earned these retroactively and are no longer with us. Certainly a great accomplishment in either case.

Last year was a rough year for everyone, I understand that. Her record is still not updated on their web site. I am still trying to be patient. Sigh. I wonder how very many dogs are in a similar place with their LAAs of all 4 levels? (oh--wait--now there are 2 levels even higher!)

She was an amazing dog and gave me just about everything I could've imagined in agility.  But, yes, I greedily want just that little tidbit more.

-----

(See previous blah-blah-blah-agility-awards posts on the topic of Lifetime Achievement Awards)

Tika, 2006
Photo by Erika Maurer

Agility in the Autumn Recap

SUMMARY: Sometimes nothing goes the way you expect it to.

Picking up from where I left off--Tika again coughed most of the night Friday night, so even though I had no trouble drifting off because I was so tired from lack of sleep Thursday night, when 4 a.m. rolled around, I was then operating on two nights of sleep deprivation. Still, when I headed out on the road, I felt pretty good and even looking forward to the weekend.

The trip to Turlock was uneventful and I arrived half an hour earlier than I had anticipated, so turned on my alarm and napped in MUTT MVR for half an hour. First time I think I've ever done *that* (although I have often stopped & napped on my way home from trials).

The weather cooperated nicely. Cold and crisp on Saturday, with no rain at all. Tika in particular likes the cooler weather, so I figured that we might get some good fast runs. (Sunday was a bit warmer but still nicely cool for the dogs.)

We started the morning with Pairs Relay. Boost and her partner did great--her partner (a half sister) knocked a bar, but Boost was spot on perfect and I felt great running, knee again not bothering me, felt faster than I've felt in a long time. We had THE fastest running time of all 16 teams, wooohooo! but the 5-second penalty for the bar knocked us into 2nd place. That's very cool; Boost very seldom finishes with a placement ribbon even when we Q.

Tika and her partner did good, although once again Tika stunned me by popping out of the middle of the poles. I always made a high-pitched "brrrrrrrrr!" noise as she did the poles, and so now I'm wondering whether she's not hearing it so is thinking she's in the wrong place. But we still Qed and placed 2nd of 6 teams! A great way to start the morning, and Tika looked quite happy to be out there.

Next up, Standard, and OMG OMG OMG Boost and I had *another* spot-on perfect run! I felt fleet and fit; she did everything right, and placed 4th of 26 dog with a Q! Like, truly, WOW! On only 4 other weekends, ever, has she placed in the ribbons in 2 runs the same weekend! Happy happy happy, we both looked pretty pleased coming off the course. I also decided this weekend to do quick releases off all the contacts rather than stopped and telling her she's good. I liked that.

I'm thinkin'--oooh, this COULD be our day for a Super-Q in Snooker! Everything is clicking!

In Standard, Tika took the first jump and started coughing. I kept going, because on the few times she's coughed while running, it's gone within 3 or 4 coughs. She kept going, doing everything perfectly, but still coughing coughing. By the 10th obstacle--a chute (collapsed tunnel), she was obviously slowing. Next up, the dogwalk, and I decided that if she was still coughing on the dogwalk, I was stopping. But, you know, Tika doesn't stop on the dogwalk.

She didn't this time, either, but she was very slow, took a couple steps off the end, stopped completely, and stood there silently with her head down as I moved quickly in.

She took a step and staggered. I grabbed her. Head still down. I gently tried to turn her around to leave the course, and she stumbled against me. I held her still for a moment, scared down to the pit of my soul. She took another step, stumbled, then another step, and another, and her head came up, and her ears came up, and she trotted off the field like nothing had happened.

I checked her gums, and they were white.

White gums was how I always knew that Remington's tumor was bleeding internally, so I know about white gums. And, because of Remington, I have checked Tika's gums occasionally since she started the coughing, and they've never been white.

Much quick consulting with the many season vet techs who are also agility addicts around here. Tika still acting like a completely normal Tika, ready to go, eager to eat, bright-eyed. Got info about the 24/7 emergency clinic and headed off with both dogs.

So.

By the time we got there, Tika's gums had a little pink to them. They did a triage check and said, nope, her gums are fine, and so we went on the end of the queue of not-in-immediate-danger pets spending their Saturday at the emergency clinic.

Eventually, we met with the vet. By that time, Tika's gums were the usual bright pink. And aside from occasional coughing, looked and acted completely normal, including being quite stressed about being at the vet's.

They did a blood test at my request, and her blood cells were normal, no sign of anemia. The vet also kept listening to her chest over and over, and we finally decided to do chest x-rays (w/out sedation--Tika was very good!). Now, I've known for a couple of years that Tika had a heart murmur, and that it had gotten slightly worse by this summer;  at our most recent visit, our vet discussed a little bit about how Tika was likely headed down the road sometime to congestive heart failure. He said to let him know if she started coughing. She had been for several months at that point, but he seemed to think that what I was reporting wasn't significant. But it did prepare me for this diagnosis confirmed by Saturday's x-rays: Congestive heart failure.

Her heart is enlarged, and her chest had accrued extra fluid, all putting pressure on her blood vessels and bronchial tubes, which is what causes the coughing (same in people as in dogs). Most likely what happened on the field was that she simply was not getting enough oxygen to her brain.

Why she was fine during frisbee that morning and during her pairs relay run, but then started coughing during Standard, dunno.

But obviously in those preceding 48 hours, her body had crossed some kind of threshold that had made everything suddenly quite worse.

Do you know how strange it is to think, "Oh, thank Dog, she only has congestive heart failure!" ??!

Got some diuretics for her to reduce the fluid in her chest (standard treatment for humans, too). And returned to the trial, 4 hours after we'd left.

Anyway.

Scratched Tika from the rest of the weekend.

When we got back, Steeplechase Round 1 was in progress, so we had completely missed Gamblers and Snooker, dagnabbit. Everyone was very nice and let me get a quick walk-through at a jump-height change so that I could still run Boost in the Steeplechase.

I still felt fast and fit, but Boost ran past two jumps, wasting too much time when I had to take her back to fix them, so no Q. But parts of the run felt brilliant.

We also were able to run Jumpers. It was a gnarly course (in the negative sense) and the Q rate was low: Only 6 of the 28 dogs in Boost's height Qualified... including Boost! That's Jumpers Qs two trials in a row! Holy mackerel! AND a fourth-place ribbon! (It wasn't a pretty run, way too many turns in the wrong direction, but she kept all her bars up and didn't run past anything.)

So three Qs and three placement ribbons out of four runs! That has never happened before!

Took Tika out of her crate about every half hour and she peed a lot each time, so the diuretic was doing its job, I hoped. Dreaded the night, though--

I was in bed and asleep by 8:30, SO tired from 2 nights of interrupted sleep and the stress of the day. Had to set the alarm for 10:30 p.m. to give Tika her next pill, took her out then for one last pee--

--and then we all slept straight through until the alarm went off at 7. Blissful sleep! And no coughing from Tika! Yay!

On Sunday, Tika and I: 

• Spent time together with her just out of the crate, visiting people, getting treats and affection.
• Wandered around the grounds looking for molecules of goodies in the grass.
• Worked at the score table together--well, I worked the score sheets and she worked the food.
• Played tug-of-war. Vet said no running for a week, keep her fairly quiet. Tug probably isn't quiet, but she was SO happy to get some playing in! And I stopped at the first sign of a cough each time.

Everyone at agility is SO nice; I can't tell you how many people helped me after Tika's meltdown in the ring, even offering to go with me to the emergency room (I declined), or came by later that day or today to ask how she was, share their knowledge or their lessons from their own similar experiences, and to wish us well. I hope I said thank you often enough--you all out there were wonderful, and I'm grateful beyond words.

On Sunday, Boost and I:

• Had a not-quite perfect jumpers run--she knocked the 2nd bar, I got in a late front cross for an off course after #4, and then--were brilliant! Oh, what a fun dog to run when everything is clicking!
• Had a PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT Standard run with the 2nd fastest time of all 30 dogs in her class--oh, except for that one little bit where she ran past the first jump instead of taking it. I didn't go back and fix it, no point to that. So we E'ed but I was SO happy with that run!
• Had a SUPER Grand Prix run; 7th fastest out of 29 dogs but 4 of the others had faults and we didn't, so she Qed AND placed 3rd!  In Grand Prix! OMG all over again! The highest she had ever placed before was 5th, and that only twice ever!
• Had...well...a not-so perfect Snooker run. OK, she kept all her bars up! But we had to have discussions about 2 different jumps that she didn't go over, so we ran out of time partway through the #7 in the closing, but the bits between that were SO much fun! Turns out that even if we'd made it, we'd have been 1 point shy of a Super-Q, but still, at least it was a regular Q.

And my knee continued to feel great... oh, except now it's popping every time I take a step. Doesn't hurt (much), though, and it hasn't felt this good in a very long time as it has these last couple of months.  And I've felt like I've really been hauling my own butt around the course, which maybe is why she's doing better. It's inexplicable.

So, for Boost's weekend: Qed 5 out of 8--62%! She has NEVER Qed more than 35% in a USDAA weekend, EVER! *AND* four of them placing in the top 4 out of a large class, when she'd only ever had 2 placements in a weekend before.

Don't tell me that Boost and I are figuring out how to do agility as she's approaching her 8th birthday and Tika is unexpectedly retiring?! That's just ridiculous!

So, is Tika retired from agility? Most likely, yes. Did I really believe that this weekend would be her last weekend of agility, ever? Not really. I expected to have some time to think about it, for her to gradually still get older and slower and more frail, and that I would then make a decision and have a nice retirement agility trial with her, but hopefully not until we'd gotten those last 20 Qs for her Platinum Lifetime.

But today she felt fine all day; annoyed that i wouldn't let her play frisbee; almost no coughing. Tomorrow, we'll meet with our regular vet and talk about the future.

The future-- yes, sometimes, nothing goes the way you expect it to.

Fun in the Sun Even Though We're Not Quite Number One

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

(Thanks to my niece Elizabeth for the photos of us running courses.)

>>  Visit the Wordless Wednesday site; lots of blogs. <<

Gold!

SUMMARY: We did it!

We entered only two classes today, and Tika Qualified nicely on a challenging Jumpers course, then Qualified pretty smoothly (given the handling) on her Snooker course, making it 3 snookers in a row and completing out Performance Dog Agility Champion (PDCH)- Gold!

That's the equivalent of earning the PDCH (or ADCH) 7 times over--35 each of Performance Standard, Jumpers, Gamblers, Snooker, Pairs Relay, and the Tournaments (Grand Prix, Steeplechase, and DAM Team).

The only thing she didn't do (didn't need to) was to earn 7 times over the number of SuperQs in Snooker--you need only to get three for the first championship, then never have to get any again. But 18 of her 35 Performance Snooker Qs have been Super-Qs, so she was pretty close to doing that 7 times over, too.

Yeah! No more pressure!

[Tika: It's hot. Where are my treats? I'm bored. Can we go now?]

I have NO idea where we came up with this fancy Western Regional doodad for taking photos behind. Pretty cool, though. At least *I* liked it, Tika!

More Tika Feeling The Love

SUMMARY: Glory from a year ago.

This year, The Bay Team is doing a fun extra at our Labor Day Regionals: High combined Masters Standard+Jumpers, and High Combined Team scores.

Well, you've already heard that I'm not going this year.

But our secretary used *last* year's Regionals database to test the computer scoring, and sent me the results. Awww! Check out Performance ("Masters PF") 22". So if we HAD had those awards LAST year...

(faults over 100 mean an elimination or absence)

Honoring the Veteran Dogs

SUMMARY: Tika's moment in the sun.

Every few years, one of our clubs does some special event to honor those veteran agility dogs who have participated in the sport.

This August, SMART is making this nice gesture:

SMART's 10 Year Anniversary Honor Run for Veteran Dogs
On Saturday, August 25, SMART would like to honor the agility dogs who have for most of the last 10 years been the reason SMART and its sister clubs exist.

If you have a veteran dog ten years of age or older, please consider participating in this "Honor SMART's legacy" run. This will be an abbreviated agility run without contacts (or if you wish, just walk into the ring with your dog) during which time an announcer will read your dog's achievements over the PA.

Entry is free and each participating dog will earn a certificate of merit and a gift as SMART's way of acknowledging lifetime effort and achievement.

I attended SMART's first two events, which were fun matches, in 2002; Tika participated in their December 2002 match. So Tika's competition career just about exactly parallels SMART's existence.

Therefore, I have submitted the following according to their guidelines (although not sure that they'll have time to go over all of this while she's running the abbreviated course).

Full registered name of dog:

Finchester's Tika

Call name of dog:

Tika

Date of birth:

Feb 14, 2001

All titles achieved (not just agility and not just USDAA, include obedience, tracking, comformation, etc) or special placements:

In USDAA:

• LAA-Gold, ADCH-Silver, PDCH-Silver, PGCH/PJCH/PRCH/PSCH-Gold*, TM-Platinum, PTM-Platinum. (* 3 snookers short of her PDCH-Gold)
• Annual Performance 22" Top Ten in all four classes in 2010, and in 3 classes in 2011 including #1 in Jumpers and #2 in Gamblers
• Ooh--new fun numbers! Lifetime overall Performance 22" Top Ten:
  #8 in gamblers,
  #9 in jumpers,
  #10 in snooker,
  #11 in standard,
  #20 in Tournaments-- 

• oh, and Lifetime among 22" mixed breeds:
  #1 in  Gamblers,
  #1 in Snooker,
  #1 in Jumpers,
  #2 in Standard,
  #1 in Tournament!
  

In CPE: C-ATE, EX-ST/JP/WC/FH/SN

In NADAC: EAC, EGC, NJC

CPE Nationals 2006: High in Trial - Standard - Level C 24-inch dogs

USDAA Nationals:

• DAM Team finalist 2006 with Carlene Chandler's Brenn and Mary Van Wormers's Skeeter
• Qualified for Nationals in Grand Prix 2003-2012, Steeplechase 2004-2012 (except 2007), DAM Team 2005-2012

Is dog a rescue? If so, brief explanation of how your dog was adopted?

Tika is a rescue. She was turned in to the shelter at 3 months for being too wild, adopted, and again returned at about 6 months for being too wild. The shelter then turned her over to rescue, where she was fostered by Gina Campodonico, who knew that I was looking for another agility dog.

Dog's favorite activity, any special characteristics/likes/dislikes that will give spectators a sense of what makes him/her special:

Tika loves to snuggle, loves to play tug, loves to go for long off-leash hikes, loves clicker training, and really really really loves to eat.

One thing you'd like to tell your dog, if s/he could understand English:

"Please don't bark so much! But I love you anyway!"

Anything else you'd like us to know?

Tika's ground speed still seems as fast as ever, but arthritis slows her down in agility, and our biggest handicap now is that she can hardly hear anything anymore.

The Postal Person Brings Some Cool Stuff From CPE!

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

Salmagundi

SUMMARY: View and invasives, shoes, chairs, ribbons, peeps, oh my.

I forgot to mention yesterday (really?! with all that text I didn't mention something?!) that, although USDAA is now too cheap to supply team or grand prix Qualifying and placement ribbons, medals, or pins any more, Haute Dawgs did provide some. May I present our extra-long, extra-large ribbons for: Performance Team 2nd Place, Performance Grand Prix 4th Place, and Perf. Tournament Master Platinum:

[break]

I hate shopping for shoes; it's hard to find something that looks like I want to wear them, and when I do, they usually don't fit. I was happy, as I reported two weeks ago, when I was able to quickly find a new pair of agility shoes very quickly in the third store I went into.

However, my normal everyday shoes were also a disaster--actually the uppers were fine, but the manufacturer I've been wearing for several years has greatly cheapened the shoes and both, although fairly new, had holes in the soles already. I dropped in to REI with my agility/movies friend (Sparkle's Human Mom) after seeing Hunger Games last week, and while I browsed for everyday shoes, she scoured the discount rack and found a pair of agility shoes that looked pretty good. She tried them on, thought they were OK, but thought they'd fit me better (she wears a  slightly larger size). So, while waiting for the Shoe Person to bring me my shoes, I tried them on. Wow! They were instantly comfortable, and so LIGHT! I felt barefoot yet more stable and secure! How could I resist half price on a perfect pair of shoes? And so they came home with me.

I switched between the pairs this weekend, and all went well with both. Happy agility camper--er, runner.

[break]
I also hate shopping for office chairs. My first real office chair I happened on by accident after shopping and shopping--it was on clearance at some random store, but 7 or 8 years ago its hydraulic lift stopped lifting, so I was left sitting about 10 inches above the floor and raising my hands over my head to get to the keyboard. I looked and looked for one I liked, finally found a decent one at one of those resellers of used office furniture. But its arms started wiggling fairly quickly and required constant tightening, then one of the bolts broke, then another one stripped out about a year ago, then the last one's hole stripped out, and I was left with an armless chair as reported earlier. In agility, as Jim Basic says, "armless is harmless," but in office chairs, especially with my back and knees, I need those arms.

I lucked out--in March, Office Depot was having a mongo chair sale, all of them at great discounts. I went on over and looked at about 3 dozen chairs. Exactly one was even close to what I wanted, and it actually felt pretty good. Would've liked it upholstered rather than just mesh, but comfortable, supportive,  fully adjustable, and available without spending weeks at dozens of stores were high on my list of key features, so I ordered one and it arrived last week. Some assembly was required, and although I bruised my hand, torqued my thumb, and got a blood blister on my palm trying to "press the casters into the holes at the end of each leg," for the most part it went smoothly.

Anyone need a perfectly good office chair with no arms? Or think they can figure out how to attach the arms? It's yours. (See link to previous post for photo.)
[break]
About a week ago: A stunning crystal-clear day after wind and a little rain, looking west at Mount Hamilton (if you click this photo to see a larger version, you can just make out the observatory); the field is still mostly green:

This morning, looking south across the same field--guess the mustard and oxalis have decided that it's finally really spring. They make even the neighbor's beautiful purple lilacs fizzle. The yellow fields are something else to see, but they are highly invasive nonnatives that crowd out native plants. Oh, and it's been warmish with no rain for several days, so although these hills are much closer than Mount Ham, you can tell the difference in the air quality.

[break]
Wait--how long have these peeps been on this shelf anyway?

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.

A Good Time Was Had By One Too Many People

SUMMARY: CPE weekend out of town.

I really don't like getting up at 4 a.m. and driving two hours before I can compete in agility. I debated driving up to Santa Rosa Friday evening and staying in the same motel I was planning on staying in on Saturday night, but that meant leaving around 8:30 to avoid traffic and getting there pretty late in the evening, plus my budget is always a little tight and I didn't want to spend the extra $60-ish. Instead, I came up with the great idea of imposing on my gracious cousin and her spouse, who live only a few minutes off of my route and about halfway to Santa Rosa.

Got into the car Friday evening around 8:30, and the key wouldn't turn in the ignition. A few minutes of experimentation and growing panic before it occurred to me to find my spare key and try that. It worked. But I should probably take the car & the key in for a check-up and at least a replacement. That won't be cheap, probably.

I drove uneventfully up to Richmond, hauled my suitcase and computer and camera bag and purse and dogs all into the cousin's house, visited a bit, went to bed, and didn't get up until 5:15, which seems almost reasonable. Hauled everything back out to MUTT MVR, where I was puzzled to notice that the cover on my cooler was ajar. When I walked around to the driver's side, my heart sank as I saw that my door was partly open. Sure enough, someone had been in my car and had gone through the glove compartment and the "junk box" between the seats. That's where I keep my first aid kit, work gloves, cough drops, things like that--oh, yeah, and my old Olympus point and shoot that didn't work the last time I tried it, and my nearly new $500 Canon S95 subcompact, neither of which were there any longer. &%#@*%*!

Also apparently they had used the flashlight from my glove compartment, because it was lying on the floor, turned on, with the batteries almost completely discharged. Why on earth would the sight of a cooler make someone want to break into the car? I don't know what they were hoping for, but I take pleasure in knowing that all I had were cans of diet soda and bottles of water, and apparently those didn't interest them (although they sure dug around in the ice to be sure). And they didn't think to open the ashtray, where I had several dollars worth of change. So, hah!

I *think* that's all they got. I don't really remember what all was in my junk box or glove compartment. And apparently they didn't bother trying to dig around in the fully loaded pile of dog gear in the back.

But now I'm back to no point-and-shoot again. :-(

Still, I was surprisingly calm and undevastated by the whole thing. Maybe because it seems so minor compared to the major theft and insurance disaster of 2 and a half years ago. They didn't even break a window. Really, they slim-jimmed a car to get into the cooler for a beer?! Jerks.

Drove uneventfully up to Santa Rosa (hah, they also didn't steal my FastTrak toll gizmo, I noted as I went across the bridge), unloaded everyone and set up the Cabana Crates and all. About an hour into the trial, someone came to tell me that Boost had ripped open the side of her crate and was lunging out at dogs as they came by.

Sigh.
I don't know whether I can repair this. Might be a duct tape job. We'll have to experiment.

Boost made up a little bit of it by winning two bags of Zukes in the raffle--that'll save me $8 or 10, woohoo.

Saturday ran VERY long, mostly due to a new judge being supervised with long discussions and no nested courses, requiring significant course buils and more discussions each time. Still, I had a good time. I love agility people--and CPE trials. We had a costume contest in the evening with some really great costumes (I'll post photos later), then pizza dinner for about a dozen of us, just sitting and talking there at the show site.

The Motel 6 was comfy and I slept fairly well.

Sunday was a little more efficient. At the end of the day, we announced the winners of the Kevin Gast Memorial Award, which goes to the highest-scoring novice dog (defined as level 1, 2, or 3, who is not in a higher level in any other organization, either). Kevin was a fun guy who died suddenly and too young in 2008. Here's my photo of a blown-up photo they displayed of him and his shelties.

There's now a plaque for the winner and a perpetual plaque with each winner's name on it.

After we packed up, we ran the dogs ragged in the field by the agility ring, then a few of us went out to dinner (Denny's, and actually most of us had breakfast), then I headed home. Had to pull over about halfway home & sleep for an hour in a shopping-center parking lot. Home around midnight.

Anyway--RESULTS:

Tika picked up 8 of 10 Qs (knocked a bar in jumpers, drat, and another oddball gamble where I think she was heading for the correct obstacle and then pulled off--something she never used to do but seems to do more often now. Particularly odd since Boost, the sticky dog, did get it.) Boost picked up 7 out of 10, including that final pesky Colors Q to finish her CL4 title! Whew!

Boost missed BOTH Snookers, and one Standard where I misjudged a handling situation so she jumped a jump in the wrong direction, but she also finished her level 5 fun title, and Tika got her first EX title, EXSt (Standard--that's 30 Level C Qs--in the range of a USDAA Gold title).

Saturday

• Snooker: Well, Boost took herself out of the Perfect Weekend running first thing in the morning--a mess, really, and I think I bobble it so badly that I also confused the judge. Anyway, I just didn't really pick a good course for her, although Tika ran the same sequence successfully but messily as I was late or in the wrong place on my cues. Only a 2nd place for Tika.
• Standard: Boost and Tika both had nice runs, although Boost left the teeter early & I made her down, so wasted some time. Still, both 1st places & Qs.
• Standard #2: Just Boost. I underestimated how far she'd carry out in a certain sequence and so she backjumped a jump instead of coming inside it, but otherwise really nice. And she still came in 2nd of 4 dogs.
• Jumpers: Just Tika.  Nice fast run, fastest of all 50-ish level 4/5/C dogs.
• Gamblers (Jackpot): Tika had highest opening points of all dogs at the trial, but then pulled away from the gamble that I thought was right in front of her, for an NQ. Odd, because Boost--although we had some issues in the opening keeping us from quite as many points--actually got the gamble. So a win for Boost, and still a 2nd out of 4 for Tika despite the NQ.
• Wildcard: Both dogs ran nicely, and fast, too--only 3 dogs of all 70-ish 3/4/5/C dogs broke 20 seconds, and they were the fastest two of those three: 19.32 for Tika and 19.07 for Boost--ALMOST breaking 19!
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Sunday:

• Snooker,  again a mess with Boost, interrupted by the judge blowing the whistle when she shouldn't have, confusing me no end; she let us rerun but we were worse the 2nd time. Tika got through it nicely, doing 3 7s in the opening for a total of 51 and taking 1st in her class of 6.  Lots and lots of dogs got the 51 points, which made it even more embarrassing for not being able to get through it with Boost.
• Gamblers: This was nontraditional, and Tika did everything I asked her to except that in doing the 2nd (easier!) gamble, I lost my balance and stepped over the line before she exited the tunnel (another one of those dark tunnels where she seemed to be in there forever, the thing that made me wonder about her vision), so instead of having 70 points which would've been 5 more than anyone else in the whole trial, we ended with 55, and there were 8 dogs with more points than us. Boost also did both gambles, but we had some bobbles here and there, so ended up with only 56 as well. Still--first place in each of their classes, and Qs.
• Colors: Woohoo, Boost finally finished her last Level 4 Q! With a really nice run, 15.07 seconds. Not quite the fastest of all dogs in 3/4/5/C--that was an aussie at 14.78, wow. Tika's run seemed smooth to me, but she came in a lot slower at 16.87--but still, these were the only 3 dogs out of everyone in 3/4/5/C to break 17 seconds.
• Standard: Both dogs I thought had very nice runs. Tika felt only marginally slower by this time, and in fact she came in only 2nd in her group of 6. Boost I did a stupid handling maneuver and had to actually stop in the middle and line her up again. Even so--she was only 1.5 seconds slower than Tika and got a 1st.
• Jumpers: Both dogs had a bar down in the same general area of the course, but not sure if it was exactly the same bar. Nothing wrong with either dog's speed; Tika was 2 seconds slower than Boost although I think Tika had tighter turns. Boost had the 2nd fastest time of all 60 3/4/5/C dogs (.1 slower than on other dog in her exact same class, figures)--one of only 3 dogs to get below 23 seconds, at 5.85 yards per second--and Tika's 2 seconds extra made her only the 10th fastest. Yeh, think she's slowing down a bit.

SKILLS SURVEY:
Tika: Knocked one bar in one Jumpers course. Only one dogwalk and did that fine, one iffy Aframe departure, one turn-away in the gamble. Nothing really identifiable to work on.

Boost: Quite a few weaves this weekend, mostly 6-pole, but did them all great, even the 12-pole that headed into the fence while I moved away in the opposite direction.  Contacts: Leaving most of them early w/out a release; must must must fix this again. Bars: Knocked one in Saturday's snooker, one in our 2nd attempt at Sunday's snooker, knocked one in Sunday jumpers. 3 bars for the weekend isn't bad for her.  Runouts and refusals--just one run-by of a jump in gamblers, one turn-back on a series of obstacles where I got behind--I think mostly it was pretty smooth and she mostly kept moving and taking obstacles. I was pretty happy with her this weekend.

Start-line stays: Both dogs just lovely.

TITLE CHASING:

So, for Boost to get her C-ATCH (Agility Trial Championship)

• 6 standard
• 5 colors
• 2 wildcard
• 3 snooker (can't believe we didn't Q on EITHER one this weekend. Doh! Our Snooker "curse" continues even into CPE!)
• (She already has all she needs of Full House, Jackpot, and Jumpers, go figure--but really that's because you can Q at level 5 in Jumpers with a bar down, which she did this weekend)

For Tika to get her C-ATE (Agility Team Extraordinaire):
She has 4035 points, so needs 965  more. I estimate an average of 21 pts per run based on the distribution of points per class, so realistically, 46 Qs. At an average Q rate of about 80%, that's about 60 runs that we have to sign up for. Am signed up for 15 at WAG thanksgiving. Bay Team March I think will have 9 runs, not sure yet about Bay Team July, either 8 or 10 I'd guess. So that still leaves another 27 runs to sign up for--so another 3 or 4 trials beyond those three.

Sigh. That's still a lot of extra agility weekends.

Gratuitous photo, too cute for words:

Meanwhile, I noticed an odd pattern--so to speak--in people's clothing on sunday.

Congratulations, Tika; Congratulations, USDAA!

SUMMARY: Tika's Gold Lifetime Achievement Award

Hoody hoo, Tika's LAA Gold plaque, which she earned in May, showed up in my mailbox this week!

In the past, they awarded these at the Nationals each year. Which mean that, for example, if you earned an LAA in January of one year, you'd have to wait until September of the following year to get it. It was kind of worth it, being acknowledged in a public ceremony, although there have been enough dogs earning them that they'd just do an "everyone stand up who earned one" thing; not quite as much fun, and, well, it would've been nice to have the plaque earlier. So, congrats USDAA on getting these things out so quickly! (I guess they're doing them quarterly now.)

The other thing I got this week was an official email from USDAA asking for a photo of Tika (or me and Tika) to be used " in a visual presentation at the Cynosport 2011 World Games." Now, that's a cool idea! Now to decide what photo to use--so many to choose from!

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I'm sure it's just my weird sense of humor, but I suspect most dog photos will be them doing agility. I'm so tempted by the box one or the standing-on-the-tunnel one.

What do you guys think?