Stats From The Weekend

SUMMARY: An assortment of numbers and points.

This might not be very useful because I hardly ever do it, but it is worthwhile to me because it shows how very few issues Boost had this weekend.

Boost

	Qty Done	Issues/ Numbers	Notes
Weaves	10	1	oddball pop in the very middle
Dogwalk	6	0	Still 2o/2o over side instead of end, though
Aframe	9	0
Teeter	5	3	Came off middle 2x, left w/out going to bottom 1
Start-line stay	11	0
Bars	lots	3	Pairs, gamble opening, Std--double on bad front X
Runout/ refusal	-	9	2 in Sat jumpers, 2 in Sun jumpers not "legal" ref's so didn't count, 1 relay so still Qed, 1 snooker closing, 1 gmbl closing, 2 GP
Other faults		1	Offcourse in Sat's jumpers after already 2 runouts, handler issue
Tables	2	1	elbowwwwwws
Q-able Runs	10 (out of 11)	4 Qs	Pairs, Std, Jump, Stplchase
Steeplechase Rd 2	6th seed	$18	2nd place!
Top Ten placements	9 possible	2	Stplch 2nd, jumpers 3rd
Titles	1 possible	0

Tika

	Qty Done	Issues/ Numbers	Notes
Weaves	8	0
Dogwalk	6	0
Aframe	8	0
Teeter	5	1	Inexplicable abandon in gmbl
Start-line stay	11	0
Bars	lots	1	Snooker 1st red
Runout/ refusal	-	0
Tables	2	0
Other faults		1	backjumped snooker red#2
Q-able Runs	10	8 Qs	missed snooker, one gamblers
Steeplechase Rd 2	3rd seed	$9	2nd place
Top Ten placements	9 possible	7	Stplch 2nd, GP 1st, Std 2nd & 3rd, jumpers 2nd & 2nd, gamblers 2nd, (also pairs 3rd)
Titles	2 possible	1	PF Jumpers Ch Silver

Prednisone

• Stops itching: Check
• Drinks more: Check
• Pees more: Check
• More restless: Check
• Stops dropping bars and starts going ahead to jumps instead of turning back: ...huh?! (She'll still be on pred for this coming weekend's 3-day Regional. Will be interesting to see how that looks. And then will be interesting to see what happens when it's all done with.)

What About All Those Other Great Dogs and Handlers?

SUMMARY: Does 2nd Place Make Them A Loser? I think not.

I often think back to the Buffalo Bills football team in the early 1990s: They made it to the Super Bowl four years in a row. They also never won the Super Bowl during that time. But they were beaten by 3 different teams, which means that, during that time, no other team was good enough to make it to the super bowl more than once or twice. So who was the better team among those four teams?

Still, it is the winner's name who's recorded.

It's like watching the USDAA nationals final (or regionals, or whatever) year after year. Year after year you may see the same dogs and handlers in the finals, but maybe they don't always take 1st place, so when USDAA lists the results of prior years, only the 1st place teams show up, and never the other handlers and dogs. But who's the better handler/dog--one who shows up year after year in the finals (and who knows, maybe takes second place multiple times, which I know has happened), or one who wins by, jeez, it also happens, a hundredth of a second, or appears, wins, and is never seen again (hmm, not sure whether THAT really ever happens, because...)

...I don't believe there's a web site where you can see a list of names of all USDAA finalists and the years in which they were there in the finals. If anyone knows of such a place, let me know! Or if you have your own lists of finalists somewhere, maybe I can start assembling such a page. (Yeah, I think of it NOW, after not keeping lists of all the finalists for the last 16 years when I've been paying attention!)

Spreading the Wealth

SUMMARY: Interesting placement results from last weekend and pondering the value of blue.

Last weekend, Tika took 1st in 6 of 13 classes. I already pointed out that there weren't many dogs in our height class this weekend, so the results could be very different on any other weekend.

Let's see--I don't know everyone's story very well, but they're all great dogs:

• Killy the Border Collie (only in Team; has had many of the same issues as Boost (but has a better handler who has gotten better results), wasn't even going to enter this team event to take a break, but the handler's wife's partner dropped out at the last minute, so they filled in)
• Kash the BC
• Brenn the BC (a little younger than Tika but has had joint arthritis starting at a young age)
• Chip the BC (who has been around for quite a long time but was only in a couple of our classes)
• Carson the BC (also only in Team; who is only 6 but has had physical problems, too, so no more jumping 26")
• Darby the Lab
• Fritz the Giant Schnauzer (who seemed to really like running in the rain but was also only in a couple of classes)
• And Tika the Craussie

Out of the other 7 classes, Tika placed 2nd four times. And who took 1st? Brenn in P3 Gamblers, Kash in Team Gamblers, Killy in Team Snooker, and Carson in Team Jumpers. Then, to make their point, Carson, Brenn, and Killy ALL placed higher than Tika in Team Standard.

What I find about myself is that--yes, I love getting blue ribbons--but not so much if it's a gimmee. OK, for example, in CPE I love going in part because my dogs can do very well because they're faster than many (not all) of the CPE dogs and I have a lot more handling experience than many (not all) of the CPE handlers. But then I also feel odd if I've done a couple of CPE trials and swept most of the blue ribbons. Because, conversely, I also know what it's like to not ever get blue ribbons, and am not so fond of competing when we just aren't ever going to get them. I've had 4 agility dogs now, and until Tika moved to Performance 2 years ago, in USDAA we almost never got those pretty blues, so, yes, I know what that's like.

So, in fact, I prefer competing with dogs with whom we have an even chance, with whom the scores are close.

Follow-Ups

SUMMARY: Plastic wrap:Yum! and amazing ADCH and PF vs Ch.

Plastic wrap

One thing you need to know about Tika: When I toss the toy for the dogs, Tika likes to scoop it up and keep on going in a straight line until something possibly interesting or possibly inconvenient (e.g., a fence) appears before her. Then she drops the toy. Then Boost brings it back. If the object was interesting, Tika might not follow Boost back immediately, but does so usually before I can throw the toy again.

The other thing you need to know about Tika is that she is a chow hound beyond belief. Off leash, she seems happiest when sniffing around in the grass, or around other people's canopies, for lost molecules of food. She has veered off in the middle of agility runs to go out to the edge of the ring to scoop up a morsel that no human could have detected.

So, Sunday morning, there's this huge beautiful lawn where we can warm up our dogs. I toss the frisbee, Tika scoops it up and runs till she gets to a row of canopies (no one there yet, it's early), drops the frisbee, and starts sniffing.

I call her name once (I try not to say "Come" unless I know I can enforce it) and don't worry too much about it when she doesn't respond. Sniff sniff sniff, while Boost brings me the frisbee.

Then suddenly, Tika dives under the lowered canopy, grabs something large, and starts chomping. I yell various useless things, tell Boost to "down", and run as fast as I can in Tika's direction. It's a big field. As I get closer, I can see that she has one of the huge sandwiches that Quail Lodge provided us for lunch--huge!--and still mostly wrapped in plastic wrap! Crap!

I yell other things, like NO! and DROP IT! (neither of which Tika understands, I can guarantee that) and COME! (which she knows what it's supposed to mean but doesn't care enough), but she understands my rapid approach and tone of voice, so flees just far enough away from me so that she can stop and swallow the whoooole thing, and I see the dangling plastic wrap disappear inside my dog.

That's a lot of plastic wrap.

An agility competitor who's also a vet makes a casual comment about Tika not needing dinner today. I confirm with her that I can probably not worry about the plastic, since Tika's a large dog and her system can probably deal with it, but just to be aware if she's not producing poop, starts vomiting, or stops eating. So I don't worry about it. Tika shows no ill signs all day.

Monday, no sign of plastic wrap, and everything else seems to be working normally.

This morning, when I went out for our morning play session, there was the plastic wrap. Whew!

So I probably should have signed up for Susan Garrett's brand new online course, "The Five Minute Formula for a Perfect Recall". I've listened to her video about the course, and it sounds great, but that wasn't in my budget and I have various susan garrett (and other) games related to recalls already that I only pay attention to once in a while (and when I do, the recall improves). So maybe later. And hope that meanwhile Tika doesn't kill herself in some way where a reliable recall would really have helped. Plus I'm sure registration is closed by now. But it's the budget that's the biggest issue at the moment.

Amazing ADCH

Friend Cheri and her Border Collie Jeepers earned their ADCH this weekend. I can still remember so clearly when they had their first trial coming up, and Cheri was so worried that she'd embarrass herself with her new dog and all her training mistakes.

...No wonder I can remember it clearly, because that was JUST 10 MONTHS AGO! They've been in Masters for exactly 3 months.

Even Tika's performance ADCH, which she got very quickly as an experienced and speedy dog, took 6 months after her last class moved from Championship to Performance. There were probably fewer days of trials in those 6 months than there have been in the last 3, but still--C&J are a Qing machine!

Congratulations to an awesome team!

Championship vs Performance for Tika's scores

Sometimes I feel odd about Tika being in Performance when she was still doing reasonably well in Championship. But then I remind myself that I did it because of her recurring soreness and arthritis, and anyway, now she *is* 9 and a half. Dog participation in our USDAA trials drops off noticeably at 7 years and again pretty sharply at about 10 years. So she's getting up there.

It is so much fun for me to be winning classes and top ten points; we'd have never been in the Top Ten in the Championship program and we almost never won classes there.

And then I get put in my place by a dog like the super-accelerated Daz who whupped our butts in several classes this last weekend. I don't know how old Daz is or why he's in performance, but we've got our work cut out for us if we see much of him/her.

Anyway, I thought I'd compare Tika's wins from this weekend with the Championship 26" dogs to see how she'd have placed (assuming she'd have had the same speed at 26" rather than 22" AND kept her bars up, either of which I dunno).

• Saturday jumpers: Won P3 22". In champion 26", would've been 3rd of 20 or so.
• Saturday Snooker: Won P3 22" and SuperQ. In Ch 26", would've been 4th of 20ish, but there were only 3 SuperQs (we did that a lot, one out of SuperQ position).
• Saturday Gamblers: Won P3 22". In Ch 26", would've been 2nd place.
• Sunday Standard: Won P3 22". In Ch 26", would've been merely 5th.
• Sunday Jumpers: Won P3 22" (with a faceplant and really wide turns). In Ch 26", would've been a lowly 10th of 20 dogs.
• Saturday Steeplechase Round 1: Placed 3rd (behind Daz and Chaps). In Ch 26"--here's one of the weird disconnects--she'd have placed 2nd!  Round 2: Placed 3rd (same dogs). In Ch 26"--she'd have placed 2nd also!

So, anyway, we're still doing well in comparison. Mojo score!

Long But Exciting Four Days

SUMMARY: Just a note about our 4-day USDAA weekend before diving into bed.

Boost finally got the Jumpers Q that she needed for her MAD! HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY! That's after 39 or 40 or so non-Qing Jumpers attempts. W00t! I bought a cake for everyone to share at the trial!

She also did OK in a couple of gamblers classes--in Team Gamblers, 3rd of 42! And in Sunday's Master Gamblers, 6th of 48. She had 2nd highest opening points of 51 dogs in Saturday's gamble but melted down on the gamble itself, so no Q or placement.

Tika had a phenomenal weekend. She's running like a younger dog, very fast and happy and eager with no sign of soreness all weekend. She got 100% Qs out of 11 classes Saturday and Sunday, although only 5 for 12 Thurs/Fri.

Competing against 5 to 9 dogs all weekend, she placed 1st 10 times (including both rounds of Steeplechase), 2nd four times, and 3rd four times (out of 23 runs).

Both dogs got hamburgers tonight for dinner; I almost never treat them that grandly.

And I'm very tired, off to bed.

Shiny Happy Tika

SUMMARY: Day 1: Team Tournament--we won, we won!

Today was all team, all day. The Dog Agility Masters (DAM) tournament consists of four individual events and the 3-dog relay--or, for Performance dogs, 2-dog relay. Boost was in regular, one among 27 teams, and Tika ran in Performance, one among 15 teams.

Our first run of the day, Standard, set the pattern. Tika and Brenn both ran nice, smooth, clean runs. No bars down, no missed contacts, reasonably fast. We didn't win the Standard event, but we were I think 2nd or 3rd combined. ALL THREE DOGS in Boost's team popped out of the weaves early and then took off courses for Elimination. Sheesh! In Team, the penalty for off-course is very high. We landed at the bottom of the 27 teams (with at least a couple of others who E'ed with all 3 dogs), and determinedly held that position all through the day.

Second run, Gamblers, had some interesting nonstandard rules. Tika did well except that I mishandled her going into the weaves in the opening and I went back and redid them, meaning that we didn't quite finish our last 5-point obstacle before the whistle, so ended in 5th[?] instead of 2nd individually; Brenn did better than that, and combining our scores after the first 2 classes landed us at the top of the 15 teams, and we determinedly held that position all through the day.

I've always liked how Tika and Brenn complement each other. Brenn did better than Tika in Standard and Gamblers; Tika did better than Brenn in Snooker and Jumpers, in fact taking 2nd place (of 10 in her height group) in the Jumpers class with a very nice, fast, smooth run.

Boost also had an amazingly smooth and fast Jumpers run, although she had 2 bars down. No refusals, no runouts, not even significant hesitations. It was a joy to run her there.

I messed up Boost's very short Snooker run; she did her part in keeping the bars up (yay!) but I didn't handle her well; I also am mostly to blame for messing up the gamble run because I changed my course at the last minute which turned out to be a mistake.

When we got to the relay, Tika and Brenn had only about a 25-point lead over the 2nd place team. Relay *really* counts heavily against your team if you off-course--150 points. So if either one of us were to go off course, we'd plummet through the rankings like a boulder dropped from a cliff. We could *conceivably* earn enough 5-point faults between us--knocked bars, popped contacts, like that--to drop below the 2nd place team, but it seemed unlikely. And, indeed, Brenn ran clean and Tika's only fault was ticking the broad jump with a toenail as she went by; it's metal and boy could you hear it!

We celebrated enthusiastically--neither of us have ever been on a team that even placed in a team event, and this time we won gold medals. Yeeha! (Dang, medal is turned sideways in my snapshot:)

[A friend took photos of all of us; will get them eventually.]

It's funny to see how DAM team works: You don't have to win everything (or even anything), but if you do WELL and do so CONSISTENTLY, you beat out everyone who had issues of any kind with any of their team. So--neither of us won any individual class; our combined scores didn't win any of the classes (although I think we were 2nd & 3rd in a couple), and we came in pretty low in the relay based on our speeds plus Tika's 5 faults--but we had enough of a lead that, since we held it together, no one could really expect to catch us at that point.

Meanwhile, Boost's 1st teammate ran very nice Snooker, Gamblers, and Jumpers rounds; the 2nd teammate was having a lot of problems and ended up scratching from the rest of the day over concern that the dog might be ill or injured.

So we went into the finals--in last place--with one "E" automatically against us because we were missing one dog. We both ran fairly nicely, though--we might have pulled out of last place, but I didn't get a good look at the scores.

Sooo the day went well, I am a happy TMH Human Mom, weather was just about perfect, dogs are healthy, friends are fun to hang around with--OK, I'm up for another 2 days of this!

USDAA Weekend Brief Results

SUMMARY: Not what I had hoped for, but there are signs of hope.

What I hoped for on friday and what I actually got:

• Tika:
• Hoped for: Steeplechase Q. Got: No Steeplechase Q. (Knocked 2 bars.)
• Hoped for: Grand Prix win. Got: 5-fault Q. (This extends our lifetime GP Qs to two clean Qs and 17 5-point Qs. Arrrrghhh!)
• Hoped for: Wins or at least placements in everything else. Got: Q/5th place in Saturday Standard (for 1 whole top-10 point); 2nd place and Super-Q in Snooker Sunday (for 7 top-ten points); I'm quite pleased with the latter. (And 4 non-Qs and 2 other nonplacing Qs.)
• Boost:
• Hoped for: Grand Prix Q or Steeplechase Q or preferably both. Got: Neither.
• Hoped for: Pairs Q and Standard Q. Got: Neither.
• Hoped for: Good weave poles. Got: Mixed bag. She missed almost all--but not all--of her weave entrances, but, once in, popped out only 3 times, and I made it a point to do weaves in gambles & snookers for lots of opportunities. So--not as bad as some prior trials. But *weaves alone* kept us from a Steeplechase Q, and *weaves alone* kept us from a Standard Q on Saturday. Sigh.
• Hoped for: Move up to Masters before Bay Team next weekend. Got: Enough Gamblers and Snookers Qs that we can--and will--move up to Masters in those.

Now I am exhausted and heading to bed.

Sunday More USDAA and a Good Day It Was

SUMMARY: Boost does weaves! Tika places in three of four classes!

I started the day with Standard with Boost. She left the teeter before her release, and I made her Down. Then she left that before the release, so I made her Down again, and this time she waited for permission. Held her other two contacts nicely--and I made sure she held them for a bit! She's developed this thing on the table in competition where she slowly rises from a down, so the judge's count keeps stopping while I remind her to go all the way down. The next to the last obstacle was a full set of weaves--which she did beautifully! And so we had a clean run and our first Advanced Standard Q, but only 4th place with all the time spent on contacts and tables.

Maybe five minutes later, Tika did a lovely Relay run and her partner did, too. With Tika's new running contacts (mind you--this was not MY plan for her contacts), our times were really excellent and we Qed and placed 4th of 26 teams. We're placing more and more often--very exciting! And those 2 runs were a good way to start the day.

Boost had Jumpers and Relay before Tika got another run, and they were real messes, going around obstacles and all, more like we were running a couple of weeks ago.

Tika's Standard run--with running contacts, although I did get her to hold still on the ground at the base of the Aframe briefly, and hesitate enough on the dogwalk to get in front of her to prevent an offcourse--again felt wonderful and fast, although we had a couple of wide turns. But--we won! This is Tika's second-ever first in Masters. Of sixteen 26" dogs, an amazing 10 eliminated with offcourses, which certainly helped our placement.

I was feeling pretty good when we went in for our Steeplechase run, but then she went through the side of a broad jump (had I thought a little harder, I wouldn't have cut and run quite as soon as I did, which I'm sure is why she pulled through it). I was supposed to go back and take it again to correct it (note USDAA rule--I didn't actually know this while I was on course), but I decided that even if we were to do that, we'd never be in the money placements, so screw it, and went on, which was an instant E. Then I was out of place for the next turn, bobbled it, had to try again, and then started forgetting where to put my crosses, sent her all over the place, and when she crashed two jumps in a row, I headed for the exit without further ado. All handling idiocy--she was trying to do what I asked!

And then we went in and had a gorgeous, smooth, aggressive Jumpers run that I even got a compliment on from Nancy. My timing is still rough on some of these more aggressive crosses, though; they drive Tika even faster, but also resulted in two wide turns again. Still--we ended up in 4th place of 18 dogs, within .8 of a second of the first 3 dogs, including the very fast Tala (Boost's mom), Hobbes, and Kidd, all perennial national finalists and Top Ten candidates and all that, so I was very pleased.

So THREE placements in a single day! Including a win! But in the Steeplechase looked like rank amateurs! How funny is that?

All in all, I had fun, Tika had fun, Boost had fun for the most part but I hate confusing my poor dogs; I don't think they like it much. They'd rather know exactly what I want so they can just run!

The Other Big Thing

SUMMARY: Tika brings home some USDAA placement ribbons, a rarity.

Way, way back in the ages dark, our instructor at the time (Rachel) suggested that we should all have goals for our agility that we reevaluate at the beginning of every year, along the lines of "qualify for the nationals in all three events" or "lick that dogwalk up contact problem for good". My stated goal was for Tika to "Take 1st regularly at USDAA trials among the usual gang of suspects."

That was a long time ago.

We hardly ever place in the top 4 in USDAA events. In fact--for those of you who just love the fact that I have a database where I can pull this info out in half a minute--in Tika's 179 Masters runs through last weekend, Tika has places in the top four for placement ribbons exactly 11 times:

• Two 2nds (her previous two Super-Qs)
• Five 3rds (2 gamblers, 2 standards, 1 jumper; 4 at trials with fewer than 20 dogs)
• Four 4ths (3 at trials with fewer than 20 dogs; 2 jumpers, 1 snooker, 1 standard)

We've never placed first in Masters. Never.

On Saturday, as the day drew to a close, it sank in that, not only had Tika earned her ADCH, but she had placed in three separate classes: 4th in pairs (and that's with an unknown 5-point fault; both I and my partner thought we were clean), and 3rd in both Standard and Snooker, all Qs. In one day, we had increased our lifetime number of Masters placements by over 25%.

It gave me an added cheery glow to the edges of the ADCH, but at the same time I couldn't help but note that there were still only between 20 and 24 dogs in our height class (our average Masters competition size over all this time is over 27 dogs, so this was a smallish trial this weekend), and even with the smaller number, we haven't managed to break the First Place Barrier.

This is in strong contrast to CPE trials, where it's unusual for Tika to NOT place first. As you might know if you've read some of my CPE posts, it is furthermore commonplace for Tika to have the fastest time or the highest number of points over *all* dogs competing on the same course, not just her own height class. I'm always a little disappointed when we can't pull off three or four of those in one CPE weekend. (It's just like, at at the CPE nationals, Tika takes 1st in most of her classes, 2nd in another, takes high in trial in Standard, and so on--but at the USDAA nationals I'm climbing all over myself with ecstasy when we place 10th or 11th in our height in even one event, let alone make it to the final round and place 22nd there over all heights in another event.) And there you have, in a nutshell, the difference in the competition between CPE and USDAA.

Sunday morning we started with Gamblers. Saturday's gamble was disappointing: Somehow in our opening sequence, Tika turned around on top of the Aframe and went back down the same side, negating a whole ton of points (and it wasn't a rear cross, either), and furthermore followed that by negating the gamble by taking a 2nd gamble obstacle in a row while I was trying to put on the skids and get back to her, so although she did the gamble flawlessly, we had very low opening points and no Q to show for it. So back to Sunday. Despite Saturday, Tika has lately proven to be a very good gamblin' dog, so there's been no stress, just fun for us.


The course presented lots of options in the opening, which meant that a clever course could possibly beat faster dogs whose handlers didn't think of that particular option. I like that, because sometimes I can come up with clever courses. And the gamble itself looked challenging and yet like one that I thought Tika and I had a good chance at while everyone else would crap out. I like that, too. (Being basically competitive.)

However, when we were told to clear the course, I hadn't come up with a course that I liked. My thought was jump, weaves, jump, tire, back through the tire, teeter, Aframe, jump, weaves, jump, teeter, aframe. But I wasn't thrilled with the back-to-back tire because Tika would be blasting at it after a wide-open run and it would be hard to make a tight turn; we had left the chute entirely undone, wasting a perfectly fine set of points; and I thought we'd have extra time left that we'd have to waste doing figure 8s on the two jumps this on this side of the Aframe while waiting for the gamble whistle.

I tried figuring out how to fit in weaves-chute-weaves-chute because it looked like a nice fast simple loop, and also teeter-tire-teeter-tire made a nice loop, but I couldn't manage to work them all in and also get two Aframes and still end up near the approach to the 1-2 instead of stuck in the back corner behind the aframe, teeter, and chute.

I chatted with our classmate, Ashley, who's always a good one for aggressive courses because he's regularly blowing everyone's socks off with his runs with Luka, so he always has lots of obstacles and covers lots of ground, plus he's in 16" so in no way in direct competition with us. (Although most friends will share their courses--even for super-Qs--it always feels weird to me to ask someone for ideas when you're both hoping for placements.)

He started with the jump-Aframe and went out to the tire, which I hadn't even thought of, duh-- Hence jump-aframe-tire-teeter-tire-teeter-aframe-jump-weave-weave but he couldn't figure out how to get the chute in. Duh, I thought, and said, "weave-chute-weave-chute", and we both departed with pleased excitement about that course. Had a nice flow to it and, if I released Tika from all four contacts immediately, I felt that we had a chance at it.

To wrap up what's again becoming a long story, Tika executed perfectly, the whistle blew as we were entering the last chute so we didn't get those last 2 points; she's really fast and sent out nicely for a change ahead of me across #1 and #2, caught my meaning immediately as she blasted out of #2 and pushed herself back out to #3 instead of continuing to veer towards me, got the up contact, did a fast dogwalk, stuck her down contact, and made it over the #4 before time ran out without having knocked any bars. Another Q.

The almost-end of the story is that, not only did she Q, but she placed 1st in the 26" class. And, sure, there were only 22 dogs, but we're still competing against perennial national finalists like Rachel Sanders and the amazing Fable, Greg Leal and Coty and Tala, Susan Cochrane and Aiko, Tania Chadwick and Kidd... So I was very pleased and proud.

But the real end to the story is that our score ended up being the highest of all 82 masters dogs, all heights, even Luka, who ran a modified opening that exchanged some points for a chance to do the dogwalk in the hopes that it would help Luka realize it was there and make the gamble. They did get the gamble, but who knows whether it was because of that or just because they know what they're doing anyway.'

The top left quadrant of the accumulator sheet. (Click for larger image.)

What a thrill! And I'm not being facetious. This was a bigger feat to me than the ADCH, of all things, maybe because I knew that, eventually, we'd just get that Dang Super-Q and finish the ADCH, but I wasn't convinced any longer that we'd ever get a 1st, let alone high score, in Masters.

But we drove all out on this one; I sacrificed later contact stability for an instant release, and pushed pushed pushed, and yet felt no major stress because nothing at all of any significance hinged on our Qing or placing. This reminds me of a comment made by, I believe, Jo Sermon, on more than one occasion: That the worst thing that happened to agility in the U.S. is titles. She says that, in the UK (at least until recently), you advanced to higher levels only by placing and there was no such thing as a Qualifying score/minimum acceptable level. You had to go all out all the time to try to beat other dogs, but because there are SO many dogs competing over there and so few placements to be had, the stress level was low, resulting in an attitude of, ah, what the heck, I'm not going to win anyway, I might as well get the best I possibly can out of me and my dog and just have a great time. She said that coming over here to the states, she sees people overhandling, overrestraining, undercompeting, and so on, and so often not letting their dogs be as good as they could be because they're so worried about doing things letter-perfect to get that minimal Q.

And I'm somewhat guilty of that. I almost always hold Tika on her contacts because, otherwise, she starts blowing them off entirely and then we get faults and lose our chances to Q. But, when it's important to me to finish among the top--such as in Snookers and Steeplechases--I release her as fast as I can and drive her as hard as I can and we do reasonably well most of the time. So I wonder what my agility life would be like if I drove her like that all the time?

And maybe it's time to find out. We have no reason left to hold it in. Sure, there are bronzes and silvers and golds and, maybe, someday, platinums if we Q enough, but really that ADCH is the plateau beyond which one's entire agility career stretches out beyond. Huh. Something to ponder.