Agility Titles

SUMMARY: Regrouping for Boost.

(Repost with corrected numbers.)

Do I compete in agility to have fun with my dogs? Yes. Do I compete because it's a good physical and mental workout for me and for them? Yes. Do I compete because I like being outdoors and hanging out with many good friends? Yes. Because I love seeing dogs and handlers working together like clockwork and demonstrating the best that they can offer? Yes.

But I also do it for ribbons and titles. Just sayin'.

Somewhere up there in the fog is the Power Paws agility field.
Plus some mountains and similar large objects.

Now that Tika is out of the picture and will never get her Platinum Lifetime, drat it all, my current next best bet for ribbons or titles is Boost, but we have not done that well as a team most of the time.

Now that I have my energy and enthusiasm back for training a bit, we'll see what happens. Because, for me, competing and repeatedly failing to Q is not fun. Handle it better with a young dog with whom I see progress. But not an 8 1/2 year old dog when we should both know better.

So, again this morning I rented the agility field--getting up there by 8 a.m., groan! --to practice having Boost run on ahead of me. We'll see how that goes in our one day of competition tomorrow.

Looking back down through the fog towards where I took the first photo.
Last Saturday at 8 a.m., it was scorching. I'm not complainin' about the fog!

Anyway, just a quick regroup on titles that Boost and I *could* earn in the Championship program if our Q rate vastly improves:

Title Category	Current level	Next Level	Have Qs	More Qs needed
Masters Standard	SAM-Bronze	Silver	21	4
Masters Relay	RM-Gold	Platinum	39	11
Masters Gamblers	GM-Bronze	Silver	16	9
Masters Jumpers	JM	Champion	7	3
Masters Snooker	-	Champion, Bronze, and Silver	26, incl. 2 SuperQs	1 SuperQ
ADCH (championship)	-	ADCH	Everything but...	1 SuperQ
ADCH	-	Bronze (triple ADCH)	Everything but...	1 SuperQ and 8 Jumpers Qs
Tournament	Silver	Gold	31	4 (any mix of Steeplechase, Grand Prix, and DAM Team)

There are hills beyond those trees? Really?

So, the point is, if I want to satisfy my own cravings, I must concentrate and keep up the energy and enthusiasm and hope that my aging body lets me keep going. Boost is quite willing to keep at it.

See y'all on the other side of tomorrow.

The sun hides in the fog, but wait--
I see a tiny round speck that is the sun, perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel?

Agility Olio

SUMMARY: Friends and families and foods and fun.

Yessss, agility trials are about the agility--

Like switching out of one's mild-mannered, everyday persona shoes into your secret identity as Super Duper Fleet-Footed Agility Handler Extraordinare shoes.

Like basking in the glory from previous agility incarnations, such as our 2000 USDAA Nationals Grand Prix semifinalist shirt from Jake and I ran in Del Mar.

Like seeing both dogs looking eagerly out at you--can we run NOW, huh can we?

Like seeing both dogs actually really there in the final round of Steeplechase.

And seeing that Tika is guaranteed some Steeplechase actual cash moolah if we don't go off course. Thanks to everyone else who Ed in the first round or scratched from the second round! Bonus! Boost was seeded 10th going into this round, but ended up placing 6th mostly because we didn't go off course.

And like taking home some cash when both dogs did well enough in that Steeplechase round.

But it's also about toys! Tika really loves to tug on these. So do lots of other dogs. There is a lot of tugging in agility. And so there are billions of these lying around everywhere you go with agility people now, and people always seem to pick them up thinking that they're theirs, so about once a year I need to buy another five Udder Tuggers.

And it's about food!

And of course it's all about friends AND all about clothing!

This is Arlene who, when she's not Super Duper Agility Corgi and Sparkle Handler wearing agility Corgi tie dye, goes to movies with me most nonagility weekends.

This is Kathy and little Millie. Millie wasn't too sure whether she liked agility for a long time, but she has apparently decided that she does, because she had some really nice fast runs this weekend. Millie is five. Most people in agility except me wear shorts when the weather is nice.

This is Mike and Trane. Trane, like many agility dogs, loves to tug, and the leash makes a convenient toy. Mike has many pieces of clothing and baseball caps that say "Trane" or "Nothing Stops A Trane." Mike and his wife raise sheep. His wife spins and dyes yarn (and sells it), weaves and knits and all kinds of clever things like that (and sells the results). Mike is a good spouse and demonstrates the very entertaining hat that his wife made, even though it is quite sweaty under there on a warm day. He thinks maybe November would be a better time to demonstrate it. Maybe his wife should knit one that says "Trane". 

And then, of course, agility is all about family!

This is Boost's littermate Bette and "Auntie Mary," who calls Boost "Boostie." Bette is very fast and very accurate. Mary also teaches agility classes and is fast and accurate, too. Bette is her third agility dog--her first was a Golden Retriever who was not too fast but did good anyway. Her second was the super-reliable Skeeter, an Australian Cattle Dog, who was one of Tika's teammates the year that we made it to the USDAA Nationals Team Finals. We were all very excited.

This is Boost's littermate Beck. She is not blue merle like so many of their relatives are. But she loves to do agility and to get up close to see that silly human who is making silly noises at her.

This is Donna with Boost's younger half sister Quas. Quas is the sweetest, gentlest, most loving dog you could imagine. And unlike most border collies, she actually brings any toy that you throw ALL the way back to you instead of dropping it ten feet out and assuming that since you've got two legs, you're capable of walking to it. Donna is a score table wonk like me and also show secretary extraordinaire. There's a lot of extraordinaireness in agility. There is also a lot of tugging on leashes.

This is Boost's half brother and Quas' littermate, Rowdy. Rowdy jumps 26", while Boost and most of Boost's relatives jump 22". Rowdy had an amazing weekend this weekend--he won 9 out of the 11 classes and, alas, placed only 2nd in another one. His person, Cheri, was understandably pretty happy.

There is also leash tugging among dogs who place first in 9 out of 11 classes.

This is Roulette, who is sister/littermate to Quas and Rowdy. She's also a fabulous little agility girl, and blue merle, and has that half blue, half brown eye similar to Boost's. She certainly has Boost's ears, AND she wears exactly the same style of blue-leopard-print slip lead that Boost does when going to the start line to run agility. Because it's just perfect for a spotty blue merle dog.

I somehow never got a photo of Quas' and Rowdy's and Roulette's littermate Quik, who is Boost's half brother and who was also there and who is also pretty darned fast and talented. His handler is the one who was Mary's and my third teammate, with Brenn, when we were in the Team Finals.

This is Kiwi, who is Boost's older half sister. Kiwi is one of those blazingly fast dogs whose run you'll miss if you glance away for even a second. Kiwi's handler is the wife of Beck's handler.  Lots of family there. Kiwi is also black and white and has those special pointy ears. And she has a red tug toy that if stupid human would pay more attention would understand that toy want tugging NOW! Because agility is all about tugging! (And Carol in the background has amusement.)

This is Ruthie, who is the daughter of Smarty Joanz who is, OK, older half-sister to Boost and littermate to Kiwi. So I guess she's a half-niece? Ruthie is very young, just starting agility, but like so many of Boost's relatives, is a blue merle with heterochromic eyes. She wishes that stupid camera would get out of her way so she can see where her Human Dad is out there on the agility course. She runs with the same man who runs Beck and who is married to the woman who runs Kiwi. Yes, LOTS of family here this weekend.

There were also some other people there with dogs who were not related to Boost in some way. At least, I think so.

Some People Just Don't Ever Get The Memo

SUMMARY: I blew it in the clothing arena again!

I've had trouble in class for the last two weeks getting even slightly challenging front crosses. The challenging ones--what a mess. I feel like I'm back in remedial front cross land. I probably actually am.

And you can see why from this photo:

Certain persons whom I shall not name just clearly don't know how to dress properly for agility class! Who knew it was all about the clothing? ...Oh, wait, *I* knew that.

It was a good, challenging class tonight. It was a beautiful night, too--not quite warm enough for t-shirt weather, but downright balmy. Orion looked down on our little party, thumbs in his belt, tug-toy hanging from his side--one can't see anything except his belt because he's wearing black pants and a black top. And the moon, gorgeous as always, rose from behind the hills to cheer us on (see her in the photo among the clouds above our heads).

Roo, who finished her MACH last weekend, brought flourless vegan chocolate cake for us to share (pretty clever for a dog). Which is like having a giant, cake-shaped chocolate truffle that you cut slices out of. Wow! Mmmmm! All to spur us on to greater heights of achievement, of course.

In our very last, just-for-fun weave-pole challenge, I just couldn't get there the first time, but because I was inspired to greater heights of achievement, I tried again, and dagnabbit pulled something. I think it's the biceps femoris part of my hamstring, for those who know or care about those details (I had to come home and look up some pictures). So I'm looking at agility this weekend, a 10-mile, 2400-foot elevation gain hike next weekend, and 4 more weekends of agility after that, and I'm sitting here on an ice pack.

That can't be good.

I'm hoping it'll all be better in the morning. Next time, I'll know better than to show up for class in bluejeans and a red fleece. I'll be, all, like, black pants and black or gray top, and then I'm sure nothing bad will happen to me and all my front crosses will work perfectly.

Because it really is all about the clothing.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

SUMMARY: A step away from agility for today.

In Taj MuttHall, I usually try to focus on my dogs and dog agility. I often stray off into photos and photography, hiking, flowers and wildlife, and just random daily life, but not usually anything more serious.

Today, in honor of the excellent decision coming down today from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stating that California Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, I thought I'd take a moment to open the doors on where my money goes when bills and dog agility are done. Because I think that staying silent can be an error with dire repercussions.

Not in any particular order:

• Gay rights. Because I want all my friends to be able to go through life without being abused by individuals and by the system, to be able to marry the people they love and want to spend their lives with, to not have to fight to visit and make decisions for their life partners in the hospital when they're ill, to not have to go through extraordinary hoops to get the rights and benefits that heterosexual couples get simply by marrying. It is the civil rights issue of our time that I think that I can most do something about. 
• Environmental causes--in many forms. Because when the last plant dies, when the last of an animal species goes extinct, when a mountain is razed, a sensitive habitat is destroyed, a natural resource is used up, a stunning view is compromised, it's gone. Forever. There are no second chances. 
• Canine cancer research. Because our dogs live short enough lives already, and no one should have to go through what I went through with Remington.
• Breast cancer research. Because people I know, my sister among them, have experienced breast cancer and it's one of the most prevalent causes of death among American women.
• Feeding the hungry. Because hungry people can't be productive and hungry children can't learn, and starved people are ill people, burdening the health care system even more, and in any case, if I were in their place: Food is life.
• Consumer Reports. Because they provide an invaluable service, advertiser-free, for consumers of almost everything. This country is much safer and healthier, and my pocketbook and the quality of things I buy, are much better because of CR.
• ACLU. Because every time a right or liberty is taken away from an individual or group, it becomes easier to take away rights or liberties from other groups. Even if you personally don't like the individual or group.  As Ben Franklin said, "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power." (Often paraphrased as "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.") 
• The Cal Band. Because I had a really good time the year I spent in this organization, learned a lot, was drilled into possible the best physical condition I've ever been in, and the University no longer has money to support organizations like this.
• Clarion West. Because I had a really good time the 6 weeks I spent in this workshop and learned so very much. And because writers--and aspiring writers--mostly don't have a lot of spare money for things like this.
• Wikipedia. Because it is the most amazing compendium of human knowledge--you can find the basics about anything here and follow links to the sources for more detailed and/or accurate information--and it's free AND free of advertising. Millions of people have donated possibly billions of hours to make this information available to all of us, but someone has to pay for the servers and upkeep. I don't know what I'd do without Wikipedia; it's more helpful to me now than my bound Britannica.

(And to wrap it up:

• Announcement and info about today's decision that Prop 8 is unconstitutional because it "serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples." And that's clearly unconstitutional. We've already been through this with other minorities.
• A bit of analysis on the ruling. )

It's Not Just About The Clothing--It's How You Wear It

SUMMARY: To tuck or not to tuck.

Except for some of the guys, please note: No tucked in shirts!

Not tucked in:

Not tucked in:

Not tucked in:

Not tucked in:

Not tucked in (except for one male-type person):

Not tucked in:
Not tucked in (again, the belt-shower is male):

Not tucked in (another guy shamelessly displaying a belt):

Not tucked in (not even the very young lady, so so much for everyone who says "it's to hide our middle-aged spread", I'm thinkin' she's got none of that):

Not tucked in, even the guys:

Not tucked in--hmm, except maybe the lady in the tie-dyed shirt. What's with that? What *is* she thinking? Or is she just a trail-blazer that we shall all soon follow?

Therefore, being the fashion maven that I am, I experimented with not tucking my shirt in last weekend. Three separate people commented on it. (Or maybe they were three together people--people who are In The Know about Taj MuttHall fashion!) See how influential a blog can be? This important issue wasn't even on anyone's agility fashion radar until I brought it up in Taj MuttHall! You read about it here first!

So, what do you think--tucked or not?

Fashion Police, Come Get Me

SUMMARY: Why I do poorly in agility, I'm sure of it.

It came to my attention last year in agility class that I was the only one--The. Only. One.--with my shirt tucked in. A fluke? I started watching the other classes come and go. NOT ONE of the other gals tucked in their shirts.

OK, well, maybe this is a casual thing for agility and I just didn't get the memo.

Except today, well, I was at this party consisting entirely of agility people. Not quite so casual as the agility field yet not too dressy at all. And, yes, you know what I'm going to say: I was THE ONLY ONE with my shirt tucked in among the female types. Many of the mens tucked in thems shirts (not all, but many). But no, I have somehow missed an entire fashion boat.

But wait, there's more: I carefully, as always, picked socks to match my shirt (which was, of course, tucked in). Guess what. Do other ladies's socks match their shirts? No! Because they weren't wearing socks! Not a single female in that whole group. It's not like I'm wearing socks with birkenstocks or anything nerdy like that; I had real shoes on.

Oh, crap, I'm the only one NOT WEARING SOME KIND OF SANDAL.

At least blue jeans were in ready supply, so I was not completely head to foot wrong.

Maybe if I started dressing right, I'd run my dogs as well as all these other people run theirs. Ya think? Because, remember, in agility, it's all about the clothing.

----
I didn't take my camera in, so I borrowed this photo from Barbara S--just some of the gorgeous, charming, and talented women with their shirts not tucked in--Mary, whose aussie always knows what mary wants her to do and usually gets the highest points of anyone in the gamblers opening, Wendy who runs an astonishingly fast border collie AND an astonishingly fast papillon and keeps up with them, one of the Lauras, who has taught half the people in the universe how to do agility and started her own agility organization, and another Laura, who does amazing agility things with a team of small black kick-yer-ass dogs plus has a kick-yer-ass blog. Also, they are not wearing socks.

It's Monday After A Trial Again

SUMMARY: Time for the usual wrap-up.

With agility, it always starts with the weather, neh?

The weather when I left the house at 4:45 was--uh--dark, with increasing light and color as I arrived in Turlock two hours later.

Both mornings started out below freezing. Yep, that's frost on the grass.

So cold that even the contact obstacles were shivering and so needed their own blankets.

People were bundled up pretty throughly while hanging around waiting for course maps.

VAST has this clever way of handing out course maps.

JD's jacket is just cool. Because, when agility isn't all about the weather, it's all about the clothing.

Here I am--surprise, at the score table--middle of the day when it's warm enough for a while to have stripped off the outer layers down to just my shirt. Gwen, sitting next to me, is in shorts. And is wearing her team shirt from when she and Tika were on the same DAM team. (Thanks, Barbara S.)

Someone always makes these available at VAST. I usually stock up; Tika seems to like these as much or more than anything for tug games at trials. (I call hers her "milker toy".)

Here I am at the end of the day when half the participants have left for dinner, at--surprise--the score table. (Thanks, Richard Deppe.)

We were so lucky with the weather. The sun showed up most of the weekend for all of our agility and the trip home, and then rain rolled in somewhere after midnight last night and is expected to stay for the next week or so.

Results

Other than that--another weekend where I fantasized partway through the day Saturday about scratching the rest of my runs, going home, and giving up on agility forever.

It was better by Sunday evening.

In other words, ups and downs, and it's probably better that it ended with some UPs and perhaps an attitude readjustment.

Summary: 

• Tika Qed only 4 out of 11, won both gamblers, 3rd in Jumpers, was "wild card" into Steeplechase round 2 without a Q and came home with a small check. Knocking more bars than usual lately and popping contacts left and right.
• Boost Qed only 2 out of 11--yet another run-of-the-mill useless Snooker Q but also a really nice Gamble on Sunday.  Bars, runouts, refusals, weave pole issues, start line issues first runs on saturday again.

Boost's first four runs of Saturday really beat me down:

• Pairs Relay. We had 9 obstacles. Within that, she: Didn't stay at the start line, turned the wrong way on a rear cross,  didn't stick her contact, knocked a bar, and missed the weave entry (so much for working on weaves this week).
• Standard: Didn't stick the start line again and I took her off.
• Gamblers: This is a very fast dog who should be able to do at least the courses that *I* design, right? And should be getting at least high opening points (which she's often very close to), whether or not she gets the gamble. In this opening, she didn't stick her DW contact and jumped in front of me so I had to down her to get into next position, ran past the tire on a slight curve, had to stop in her tracks and move to the side to avoid taking the aframe that was right in front of her, and knocked a bar, and in the gamble itself, didn't follow me around a circle (hark back to class last week).
• Steeplechase: Ran past the weaves. Completely. Didn't even try. Brought her back, lined her up so that she could make the entry, and then she popped out after 6 poles.  I took her off the course again and went and sulked.

After a little chatting with a friend, I decided that my goal would be to just run her smoothly around the course and ignore any faults anywhere except hte most egregious ones (e.g., not staying at the start line). That meant that, if she missed obstacles or got stuck on obstacles, I wasn't going to do anything about it (which is contrary to what I am often instructed in) and I wasn't going to say anything, either.

This works for a while, but really if we're not Qing it's not going to be much fun for me.

Last two runs were bearable because of that decision, I guess:

• Snooker: Picked a course that didn't even think about being in Super-Q range, just tried to be smooth.  The tricky thing is that, on this course, that made it in Super-Q range. She knocked the 3rd of 3 reds, taking us right back out of super-Q competition anyway, but got through the rest of the course without any great trauma, and earned another simple Q.
• Jumpers: Knocked a bar, ran past a jump and while I tried on the spur of the moment to keep her running smoothly over any random obstacles, she knocked another bar, then ran past another jump later in the course, but I did succeed in keeping her moving fast and fairly smoothly all the way through, although it was an E. No refusals, just the runouts.

Tika's Saturday didn't go much better:

• Pairs Relay: Knocked the first bar, and partner had a fault, although we were fast enough to still Q, barely (no placement).
• Standard: I flubbed a front cross resulting in a refusal, and she knocked a bar.
• Gamblers: I tried to run her past a chute in the opening that she'd have had to do a full-run u-turn to get into, and she tried to do it anyway. That delay cost us a 3-point Aframe (she was over the apex but not in the yellow yet). So--we still placed 1st in our class and Qed, and I'm happy about that, but of course the competitive me wanted to be in the top 3 scores of all 100 dogs rather than in the top 11 dogs. (In other words, yeah, my 10-yr-old dog is still doing very very well.)
• Snooker: Embarrassing for a so-called top-ten handler and dog; looked more like one of Boost's runs! Knocked the 2nd red bar, managed to bobble our way to do the 3rd red, then knocked a bar on the obstacle after that, and then she dove in at my feet and started grabbing them as we approached the #2 closing obstacle and hence she crossed the plane for a runout and we were whistled off with a total of 6 points, out of 51 possible. With Tika, though, I can still laugh about this sort of nonsense while it's happening, because it's not normal for us.
• Steeplechase: Flew off the Aframe big-time. We were less than 5 seconds slower than the 1st place dog, but with the 5 faults AND combining with the 16" dogs, we didn't even Q while placing 3rd. However--they take a minimum of 4 non-Eing dogs into round 2, and we were it (the others all Eed).
• Jumpers: Tika needed just 1 jumpers and 1 standard for her Bronze Performance Championship. She ran very nicely on this, one tiny bobble that I'm sure cost us no more than a second, but we still placed only 3rd, with a Q. The run felt good, though.

Sunday Results 

• Tika Steeplechase Round 2: 2nd fastest time, but again flew off the aframe bigtime, placing 3rd. Won us almost $7 whole $!
• Tika Jumpers: Knocked the first bar then an offcourse that was my fault and another knocked bar.
• Boost, same Jumpers: Didn't come in to me on a serpentine (another known long-term issue), then later ran past a jump. But I kept her moving through all of that, pretending that we were still doing fine, and it was a nice, fairly fast run if you ignore the double E. And I think she kept her bars up.
• Tika Snooker: Gah! Two days in a row! Turned the wrong way on an attempted wrap and then backjumped. Exited with 1 point!
• Boost same Snooker: Four reds were required. The 7-point combo was confusing enough that I just picked something that *I* could get through easily (although the four sevens opening was pretty smooth if you could remember it and had a fast, biddable dog). So we did 7-7-6-5, and it was lovely other than another running past the Aframe instead of taking it (and she had to adjust her stride to do it). Then she knocked the #3 bar in the closing, so no Q. Perhaps not too surprisingly, we still did better than half of the other dogs in this class.
• Tika Standard: This is all we need for that bronze championship. And on a difficult course, she did it all perfectly and had to throw it away by not even trying to hit the end on the dogwalk.
• Boost same Standard:  Came to a stop on 2 jumps (the old "this jump" thing); I just held my position and said nothing and waited, and she eventually hopped over both of them (knocking one), so two refusals and a knocked bar. Of course on this one she didn't run past anything, held her start line, held all her contacts, and had a beautiful table down (which is usually a problem).
• Tika Grand Prix: A very fun, fast course, and I moved too soon on a tight front cross and pulled her off the jump for a runout. Of course this time she got all her contacts. Sigh.
• Boost Grand Prix: Two knocked bars but everything else looked good. A fun run indeed.
• Tika Gamblers: I thought I had a pretty good opening, and she executed it beautifully, but I still ran out of obstacles. Decided that I had to be close enough and sent her towards the gamble, keeping my fingers crossed, and sure enough, the buzzer went just before she hit the first obstacle, woohoo what timing! We won again and Qed, but obviously could've fit in a couple more points soemwhere to put us in the very highest point-earners among the 100 competitiors.
• Boost same Gamble: I slightly modified Tika's course to add points, and wow, she ran it all beautifully, and got the gamble! *IF* we had gotten all our points, we'd have won our class and tied among the 3 or 4 2nd-highest points out of 100. IF she had knocked only ONE bar, we'd have been in 3rd place and been among a half dozen of the 3rd highest point earner. BUt, no, she knocked 2 in the opening, putting us into a crowd of maybe a dozen or so next-highest. Still--I'll take the Q and 7th place out of 32 dogs. It felt good,she was happy, I was happy.  I think she had almost the fastest time of all the dogs who Qed.

Other Stuff

Won another free entry in the raffle on Sunday. I sure worked to earn this one; busy weekend at the score table.

And won a small basket of dog treats and a toy on Saturday. Plus some Ghirardelli chocolate.  Hmm, better go check it now to be sure it's still OK. [salivates]