That Addiction Thing

SUMMARY: Summary of my agility years

Facebook: Partially posted there Sept 27 '19. Edited here.

I might have covered this in previous posts. Who knows?!

Another handler posted a "warning" to a new competitor in a Facebook agility group that she started in agility just for something fun to do with her dog—and 10 years later she's an addict.

Hahahahaha!!! (I laugh with her, I'm sure...)

I know so many who are (or have been) in the same camp! In 1995 my life was full—work, house remodel, writing fiction, activities with spouse--and I was training hard with my dog (Remington) in Obedience, aiming for a championship, a goal since my childhood. But it wasn't enough for him (brain or physically)—I had abandoned tracking after 16 weeks (Note to self: to look up--have I written about that before?**), and I'd taught him more tricks than any classes were offering, so I signed up for a 6-week agility class for what-the-heck after urging from one of my obedience instructors. And...

I loved it. The connection with my dog; learning so much more about training and behavior!; The physical & mental challenges for both of us; increased fitness; so many new friends around the country; so many places visited, and...

Dogs #2 and #1 (Jake and Remington, 2002)
Easy to be happy when you've had a good weekend, earned a championship, and have a Human Mom with treats.

After the first year, I started a database of every run.

After 19 years, 4 dogs, nearly 300 weekends^* of competitions (and a gazillion classes, seminars, and practices), a full set of agility equipment, buying a house and vehicle to accommodate the activities, around 4700 runs^*, multiple nationals competitions^*, 160ish titles^* (counting everything^* at all levels including CH's, Top Ten, Lifetime awards), thousands of ribbons^* (yes, I brought them all home: doh!)—and, you know, we never talk about $$$ — only my body stopped me. And I'm far from being one of the most successful or addicted handlers.

What's your story?

Dog #3 (Tika 2008): What it big deal is? I is fun just having.
Plus fun Steeplechase check is gots.

Dog #4 (Boost 2011) -- Is good girl was do. Why Human Mom using is annoying face-machine?

ALL the ribbon things

^* And, yes, the database can give me almost exact numbers and tiny details. If I want. To be. Obsessive. Which I never. Am. Never.

** Yes, I have mentioned tracking before.  Here  and a BRAND NEW POST for 1995!

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. <<

Saturday at Agility On The Green

SUMMARY: Some Qs but not the ones I wanted. But a blue ribbon!

We started the day with Snooker:

• Boost skipped a weave pole in the opening, giving us 0 instead of 7 points, so we wouldn't have gotten the super-Q anyway, but to make absolutely sure, she ran past #2 jump in the closing.
• Tika, after the 2nd obstacle, I needed to pull her past an offcourse obstacle and she didn't pull.

 Soooo 0 for 4 in a row with Snooker. Gads.

Tika looked happy and healthy today on course, at least. The rest of Tika's day had its moments--both bad and good--

• Steeplechase: Qualified (4th of 4 qualifiers, 10 (?) dogs in the class). But quite a bit slower than the fastest dogs.
• Standard: After another one of those really long stands on the table before going down, I rear crossed the weaves, badly, apparently, because she turned out of them to see what I was doing. Tried to spin her around and restart and she went in and out again, so we left the course.
• Pairs: She had a very nice run but unfortunately our teammate had an offcourse, so no Q there.
• Jumpers: A couple of wide, slow turns as she figured out what I wanted her to do--I think that's my timing as much as anything. She Qed--but all the Qing dogs in our class I think were between about 28 and 30 seconds and she was at the slow end of that. So not bad, but not in Top Ten Point range.

So I'm happy to come away with 2 Qs, but of course  one always wants more when one is contemplating a dog's possible coming retirement.

Boost spent the day taunting me with ALLLLLLmosts--another one of those sets of classes where everyone says, "But she looks really good and ran really nicely" and yet we still had only one Q to show for it:

• Steeplechase: Pretty fast and smooth. Even though I held her contacts on both passes over the Aframe, she was within 4 seconds of the fastest dog. Unfortunately, knocked 2 bars.
• Standard: Pretty fast and smooth, did a nice down on the table. BUT knocked a bar and then popped out of the weaves one pole early when I started fading towards the next obstacle.
• Gamblers: Really nice opening--she turned the wrong way out of one tunnel which cost us the time to get the highest opening of anyone at the trial, but she ended up with 25 opening pts and the highest achieved by a few dogs was 26. Unfortunately, did not get the gamble--Tunnel Suck took her after the 3rd obstacle.
• Jumpers: The dog right before us ran past jump #4 on the outside--a hard pull was needed. I commented to Boost, "That's exactly the sort of thing that you would do right there, so we are going to make sure that you don't."  Of course--she did anyway. It really hurt because the rest of the run was gorgeous, no bars down, no refusals, nice turns. 
• Pairs: Fast and pretty accurate, nice tight turns. Knocked a bar, which I thought would keep us from placing. Teamed with her littermate Gina from southern California who's up for the weekend, and Gina is an amazing dog with an amazing running dogwalk and a talented handler, and between us and a really fast baton hand-off, we had the fastest time of all teams. In addition, everyone else had at least one error on the course, and -- so -- even with the bar down,  out of 31 pairs, we won!  She has only ever won two other Masters-level classes, so this was nice, and doing it with a littermate was fun.

Gina has gotten so much darker since she's had her two litters of puppies. I think she was always a little darker than Boost, but now she's really quite a dark merle. Interesting.

So, tomorrow, a bit more of the same. We have to be there early for Tika's Round 2 Steeplechase and hope that we can win a few dollars out of that. Then 4 other classes in 2 rings, so I'm hoping we'll be done by midafternoon.

Left the trial site around 6--I was actually done a little earlier but schmoozed just a little before leaving--had to get gasoline, groceries, and money from the bank. Home, had a light dinner of crackers and hummus, typed this up, and, wow, it's 9:00 already and time for bed.

(PS I have to note that one fast team ran clean and might have knocked us out of our 1st place, but there was a timer malfunction of some sort and they elected to just take standard course time.)

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:

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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.

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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.)
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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.

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

Treasures!

SUMMARY: Photos from the weekend.

Many people bring cakes when their dogs finish a major title. I thought that this was a great idea for Gypsy's CPE championship (C-ATCH), earned at WAG with a Jackpot run.

Might have to steal that idea if there's time for me to get them this week-- oh, wow, $130 for a 5-lb bag, plus $25 shipping and $20 expedited delivery to get them by next weekend. Maybe not. But if I loved my friends enough to pay $35/pound for M&Ms, here's what they'd have looked like:

Guess my friends will have to satisfy themselves with looking at photos of our ribbons. Here are ours, minus our final Q and placements from the last run of the weekend. And the only photos of the Merle Girls from the weekend--Backsides of Dogs.

WAG had kind of a fun game. They handed out bingo cards to everyone, and you could use your run times (the numbers before and after the decimal point) to fill out the card. Plus they periodically pulled 2 more free numbers. Here's Tika's sheet--she got a lock on 32 and 33 right away, but we couldn't get 5 in a row.

We had to wait until the last dog had died, so to speak, Sunday evening, when everyone crowded around the bingo machine as they pulled more numbers until all the prizes had been awarded. I can't show you Boost's card; I had to turn it in because we won! A cool, custom-embroidered (purple and black) blanket.

Also Boost did well in the worker raffle again, picking up a Cold Stone Creamery gift card, a bag of dried fruit, and a $15 cert to come back to WAG sometime. She might not be good on course, but she's sure good at raffles and paper games.

I stopped on the way out of WAG's driveway to capture their signs. Fritz was Susan's first agility dog, a big sheltie, who could do no wrong and earned thousands of championships in several venues. They were competing back when Remington and Jake and I were still running. He died of cancer last year, but what a great life he led. The sign with his name is the 3rd one they've put up. The first two were stolen--jerks!--and they've put it up more securely each time. This last time, a lot of us at one trial did a secret gathering of funds and presented it to Susan and Dave to replace the sign once again. Hopefully it won't go away again.

Out on the freeway, a most glorious sunset held sway. I drove frantically looking for a place to get off the freeway and then to stop with a clear view of the sky and hopefuly something interesting in the foreground. Well, nothing interesting in the foreground and by the time I got here, the sunset was way past its peak. But still pretty impressive down near the horizon.

Thus the weekend faded to black.

Lots of Qs, Thank Goodness

SUMMARY: Three-day CPE weekend summary.

Some fun numbers from this weekend:

• Total runs: 30 (15 each dog)
• Boost Qs: 11
• Tika Qs: 13
• Boost 1st places (out of 6 to 19 dogs depending on class): 4
• Tika 1st places (out of 15 to 21 dogs): 3
• Boost 2nd places: 4 -- came in 2nd to: Tika,  Lexi, Tika, Lexi
• Tika 2nd places: 6 -- came in 2nd to: Rocket, Boost, Missile, Tyler, Tyler, Rocket
• Boost 3rd places: 2
• Tika 3rd places: 1
• Boost Qs earned towards the 16 she still needed for her C-ATCH:  7 (out of a possible 9)
• Tika Q points earned towards the 965 she still needed for her C-ATE: 280 (out of a possible 325)
• Titles earned: Tika ExFH and ExJP.
• Raffle prizes won: 2. (Bag of Ghirardelli peppermint bark (I love peppermint bark!), big box of dog biscuits.)  That's with 4 raffle tickets earned Saturday and 6 earned Sunday. Deal!
  
  

I've updated The Campaign table showing our progress towards our one-year goals.

Bragging rights numbers--among the fastest or highest-scoring of all dogs who ran a course:

• Full House Friday: Out of about 140 dogs, 10th highest points: Tika (44). 11th highest points: Boost (43). (7 of the 10 dogs with more points were small dogs with 5 more seconds.)
• Wildcard Friday: Fastest of about 100 3/4/5/C dogs: Boost (16.78 seconds). (Only 4 other dogs were between 17 and 18 seconds.) Too bad she knocked a bar.
• Standard Friday: Out of about 85 4/5/C dogs: Boost 4th fastest (37.79), Tika 5th fastest (38.59).
• Jumpers Saturday: Out of 21 dogs in her class, Tika 2nd fastest. And that's with 3 or 4 extra yards after she took a wrong jump.
• Jackpot (Gamblers) Saturday--nontraditional: Out of 167 dogs, Highest points: Boost (88). 2nd highest: Tika (85--because I didn't think about doing those extra 3 points until after I ran her).  (The next 3 highest dogs had 76, 74, and 73 pts; no one else 70 or higher.)
• Full House Saturday: Out of 140 dogs, 3rd highest points: Tika (52). (Higher points: one BC with 54 and one small dog with 5 more seconds 53. Only 6 dogs scored 50 or more.)
• Standard Saturday: Out of 107 4/5/C dogs, 5th fastest: Boost (38.65). 6th fastest: Tika (38.98). 
• Jackpot (Gamblers) Sunday: A friend and I strategized on the sidelines to come up with a high-scoring plan. Results--out of about 80 4/5/6 dogs, his dog was highest (67), Tika 2nd (66), Boost 3rd (65, tied with one other dog--dang, if she hadn't turned the wrong way after that one jump, we'd have had 3 more points).
• Wildcard Sunday: Out of 115 3/4/5/C dogs, 2nd fastest: Boost (18.16 secs). (Only 4 dogs broke 19 seconds.) 10th fastest: Tika (20.00).

I took a ton of photos and hope to get through them all tomorrow--oh, yeah, and the October CPE photos, too. Plus detailed weekend notes with fun insights into a typical agility weekend (mine, anyway).   [Hmmm, I'm sitting here looking at the Q ribbons and it suddenly occurs to me--did I take the wrong Q ribbons (orange/teal ones) for Boost's level 5 Qs? Uh-oh...]

CPE Day 2 of 2

SUMMARY: Wrap-up, Qs, no Qs, the usual.

OK, what's wrong with this picture?

From a trail chair perspective, I think the day went very well. Other than that little thing that we discovered that we had sent one judge the wrong schedule for Sunday. We were able to accommodate it easily (just one level out of order in one class), but, really, Doh!

Weather cooperated brilliantly for us for July. Thank you, weather deities! Sorry, all you sweltering people in the wrong parts of the continent!

Tika had 8 Qs under her belt (er, well, you know what I mean) when, in the 9th run (Wildcard), she knocked a bar in an odd place--even the judge said that was a very odd place for a dog to knock a bar, and that put an end to our Perfect Weekend ribbon.

So, in the last class of the day, Snooker, instead of playing it safe, I decided to go for a really aggressive three-7 opening (the closing was really simple and fast, but the opening was a true challenge no matter what you did). I couldn't come up with something I liked originally, and when I asked Brenn's/Quik's Human Mom if I could steal her course plan, she let me do so. We tried it with a total of 3 dogs (Tika, Boost, and Quik), and all three blew it approaching the #2 in the closing, all for different reasons. Ha! It was glory or disaster, else why play Snooker?

Earlier, Gamblers was a nontraditional gamble. Tika was a very good girl and racked up 82 points, 3 more than any other dog who ran the course, and had almost 10 seconds left during which we could've done more obstacles if I hadn't been playing it safe trying to get that perfect weekend. So Tika still reigns in the point-accrual class (other than the snooker today).

Boost knocked the bar in the bonus 20-point gamble and ended up with only 68, or she'd have been at 88! She is one fast girly, and that was a nice course to run her on. (And we still Qed because there were 2 gambles.) But she still took 1st of 7 in her height/level.

Remember yesterday how all I needed for Boost's Level 4 title was one dang Colors and I ran it perfectly with tika and then ran the wrong course with boost? You'll never guess what I did today--yep, amazingly dumb handler redux. How is it even possible to run a 9-obstacle course correctly and then, 4 dogs later, run it wrong? TWICE IN ONE WEEKEND? Sheesh.

Tika also Qed in Jumpers with a 2nd place (Archie again), and Q and 2nd in Colors (Brenn this time).

Boost also Qed in Wildcard (and won).

I am, as usual, exhausted. The arena is dusty--EVERYTHING is dust-infused. I took a lot of photos and my camera was always either being used or in its bag, and IT'S dusty. The bag is really really dusty. Maybe tomorrow everything comes out of the car and gets vacuumed or washed, or both.

Meanwhile--NO tucked-in shirts to be seen anywhere...no, wait! Is that tie-dyed one tucked in?!

Sigh

SUMMARY: Why I'm sometimes discouraged.

Tika's awards from the last two weekends:

Boost's awards from the last two weekends:

Mixed Weekend Ahead

SUMMARY: Agility and hiking.

Aaaaaannnnnd we're off again. Very very early rising to drive 2 hours for a one-day USDAA trial in Santa Rosa. I'm likin' this one-day thing; do it every january. Not so much the early rising or 2 hour drive, but that's pretty typical for trials.

I've continued to have no ambition at all to practice, so we're going with exactly two class sessions (about 5-6 runs each) since our last trial mid-November and other than that no practice on anything at all. Could be interesting.

Because some of our trials have been losing money (fewer people/dogs participating? Odd last couple of years), the club has been trying to find ways to trim costs. For this trial? No masters placement ribbons! I am not a happy ribbon camper. I like my placement ribbons. Yes, I take photos of them, I keep them, I take them home, I hang them on my wall for a year. Grumble. But maybe with no practice we won't place in anything, anyway.

Then we're spending the night with my cousin in Richmond (about halfway between there and here) and getting up in the morning Sunday to do some off-leash hiking in Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, despite the threat of overwhelming quantities of ticks--they seem to be crazy bad in all the parks at the moment. I'm hoping we can do about 6 miles before packing up and heading home.

Where I've left my renter in charge of NOT eating all the birthday cake that my company had at today's meeting to celebrate January birthdays. (Mine among them; I took one large chunk home with me, after eating 2 very small chunks of this rich chocolate fudge cake with buttercream frosting at the meeting. Good thing I'm getting exercise this weekend!)

Temps are hitting record highs for this time of year (low 70s F, 20s C). Should be two beautiful sunny days after the early morning chill (low 40s F, 4.5ish C) and fog clear away.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.