Out for a Stroll

The online direction-finding maps (mapquest, yahoo maps, etc.) don't show the Guadalupe River--heck, who needs that info when trying to find your way around by car? But it does show the series of percolation ponds and lakes along the river. I traced our path in gray, which all goes through parkland although it's right alongside "civiliation" most of the way.

Decided to go for a longer walk this morning. I asked the beasts whether they wanted to go to The Long Trail and they got very excited and headed for the garage, so what could I do? I loaded them up and drove out. I stopped in a SportMart to pick up a new pedometer, finally. I hate to keep on buying new ones, but they don't seem to last me more than a year. Maybe I just wear them out. Replacing the battery doesn't help; they just stop keeping accurate count of the number of steps (and hence the mileage). But I do like knowing how far I'm going, so I bit the bullet and got yet another one, as it's been several months since the last one died and I'm soooo lonely for a pedometer! I so enjoy knowing how much ground I've covered.

I set a goal of 3 miles for this morning, and we headed off to the nearby Guadalupe River trail segment again, simply because it's so close to home. I debated taking my camera this time, but it's always a challenge with 3 dogs on leashes, so I left it in the car.

It's another truly lovely spring-like morning; probably only about 70, with a light breeze, but sunny. Warm enough to work up a sweat in the direct sun with mild exercise, and most of that route is in the sun along a paved (asphalt) path, and we kept a pretty good pace.

I was surprised how much wildlife we saw along the way, considering that we didn't get started until after 10:00. Shortly after we started, we encountered a large turtley tortoisey critter--maybe red-eared turtle?--plodding perpendicular to the walkway, heading away from the fence separating us from condos on the left and out towards the scrub growth surrounding the river. I have no idea where he came from or where he thought he had been, but he had clearly decided that this open stretch of dry land with the occasional bicycle and dog was not his bailiwick. He gave me and my dogs the eye as we stopped to watch, showing us the large red blotch along the side of his head, and then picked up his pace a bit. The dogs watched with erect ears and bright eyes as he moved away, and then, just as he got to the thicker grass where he started to rustle the vegetation, Boost started alert barking like she does when she hears rustles at home. And she could still see the dang thing! But alert barking almost always sets off the other dogs and then they all started barking (although it's not clear that Jake & Tika knew what they were barking about) and it all went to heck until I dragged them away.

(I saw an amazing demo of how dogs react to other dogs' barks by John Rogerson, a noted trainer from England who can perfectly mimic different kinds of barks. He said, "Have you ever heard this? The bored dog alone in the yard saying 'pay attention to me! I'm bored!' Notice that none of your dogs will pay any attention to it." And then he barked, and we all recognized it immediately--amazing what you know that you don't know you know--and sure enough, those of us with dogs lying by our sides noticed that our dogs ignored the whole thing. Then he demonstrated the "Alert! Danger!" bark, and almost every dog in the place raised its head and joined in the barking. Intriguing.)

Anyway, I digress from wildlife. Lots of birds along the waterway. A couple of Canada Geese splashed down into a dammed pond partway along the route as we walked by. The dam, right near San Jose Water headquarters, has a salmon ladder for the rare salmon from this area, but I've never been able to see fish on it. Two California quail watched us approach and then darted into the tall grasses, where they froze and kept their little quail crests and black eyes pointed at us as we passed. A small blue heron of some sort poked his startled head out from behind some rocks as I approached Lake Almaden to let the dogs wade, and flew off low over the water so I didn't get an excellent look. I can't find an exact match in my bird book, although the Black-Crowned Night Heron is the closest that I see. It looked bluish gray to me, with a longish, thick black bill and a thick neck and head, but when it flew it stretched out more heron-like.

There was a guy with binoculars and what looked like a small telescope on a tripod as we headed out towards Lake Almaden, but he was gone when we came back or I'd have asked him what the bird was, as I was pretty sure he was bird-gazing.

Lots of nondescript but fast speckled brown lizards, which intrigued the dogs. And, over by the main picnic area, tons of Canada geese, ducks of several varieties including mallards, some all-white ones (probably released domestic ducks), and those little black birds with white on the face that you see swimming and diving everywhere but I don't remember what they are--a coot? a grebe? a tern? Dang, I think I'm so observant but then none of the pictures match what I *think* I see. (Mom & Steph later confirm probably coots.) Lots of bright white herons and/or egrets all along the river; couldn't see most of them clearly enough to tell, but a smaller one with black legs and bill perching on a railing next to the dam fluffed his feathers as we strolled by and demonstrated a profusion of fine, luxurious, fly-away feathers, all of which makes me think it was a snowy egret. I'm sure that if I'd had my mom or my friend Steph along, they'd have been able to identify them all without a book and all of the little tiny guys flitting among the shrubberies, too. Oh, well, I bet I can identify a whole lot more dog breeds on sight than they can. ;-) (Like that's a useful skill.)

It was a good walk.

And Boost is SO much better about not being spooked by things. The first couple of times I tried to walk with her a little way along this trail, the noises and echoes under the freeway underpass panicked her, and bicycles whizzing by made her jump. Simply being out on a walk in a strange area increased her fear with every step. This time she was just like a normal dog, walked very nicely on leash (Tika of course doesn't) for the first two and a half miles and then said, "Enough of this! Give me that leash and let's play some tug of war!" so we did that for about a quarter of a mile and then she felt better and we continued more normally.

Boost and Her Siblings

SUMMARY: Boost's training continues casually; but when night falls, the spooks take over. And...what about AKC? (From an email to a friend)

Q: How's the Border Collie? My little fella's great but going to be a candidate for neutering if he doesn't get his act together....

A: My puppy girlie is great! She's a lot of fun and is going to be a very fast agility girl; I'm not being very ambitious about training her, but most of her siblings are in similar places in training (except for her southern California sibling, trained by a pro (sigh) for her owner who looked like she could win the Grand Prix at six months, from what I've heard). Anyway, none are competing yet--they're barely old enough, anyway, so that's fine.

Except at night she turns into The World's Alert System. It's funny--the sun goes down, and all of a sudden every noise is a potential danger and worth barking at. And it's not casual barking--hackles up, wary pose, eyes turn into flashing red lights, the whole works. Even the other dogs trotting casually over to check out whatever she's alerting on doesn't convince her it's safe. If I go over to the flower bed or shrub and poke at it with a broom, she'll streeetchhh her nose wayyyy out to sniff at it, since Mom is apparently bold enough to go near, but even that doesn't always fix it. As soon as I leave, she's at it again the next time there's a sound or a rustle. Last night it was a toad. The night before it was a cat. I suspect often it's roof rats, which the other dogs either chase and bark at challengingly or simply ignore, but she sees them as a Great Threat that she's not going to get within a distance where they can attack and rip her throat out, thank you very much.

I have no interest in the whole genetics and breeding thing, so Boost was spayed at 6 months. ... I registered her with AKC because I could, but in retrospect maybe I shouldn't have, just on principle, and registered her with the working border collie association, because I don't plan on ever competing in AKC, but then ya never know.

I've been training Boost to go into a Down the instant she hits the table, which is what's required in USDAA. It occurred to me in class last week, when we were practicing tables, that in fact AKC allows the judge to specify whether the dog does a Sit or a Down on the table, so I should be training her to wait for a command when she gets on the table, just in case I or someone ever wants to run her in AKC. Pfagh! (It keeps running through my head that, if she does really well in USDAA, maybe her breeder(s) might want to run her in AKC. She sure does love Tammy and Greg. But I dunno.)

Getting Those 5000 CPE Points

SUMMARY: Will it take forever? (From an email to a friend.)

Q: Friend writes: I am not sure what cruel Nazi came up with the need to accumulate 3,000 points. I picture a dog in a walker struggling to get the last ten points before it succumbs to old age.

A: It feels so true! And remember--that's 3000 points in the required combination of classes plus an additional 2000 in any choice of classes, for a total of 5000. Yow.

On the other hand--in 2006, there have been or will be 17 CPE competitions within 2 hours of my home. Each weekend typically provides 8 or 10 runs per dog. So--if I went to all the CPE trials and if Tika earned Qs in all runs, that would be about 3000 points in one year.

Even at Tika's 2006 overall average Q rate for CPE trials (huh--just calculated it--70%! I didn't think it was that good! and that's requiring clean runs, too), that would be 2000 points in a year.

It's just that (1) I prefer USDAA trials over CPE trials given the choice, and (2) I just can't afford the time or entry fees for every trial all year. (Now, given that Tika's Q rate in USDAA is a dismal 26%, and I can hardly place for the life of me, why on earth do I prefer it? Maybe it's *because* it gives me more of a challenge--at least now that Tika's keeping bars up in CPE most of the time, I need to work on the difference that those 2" in USDAA makes. Maybe I should start practicing at 28"?? But I digress.) I've actually done 9 CPEs in the last year, but Tika wasn't competing at the top level yet in everything until November.

In fact, her first C-Level legs (4 of them) were in May 2005, so she has earned all 1800 points in just over a year, and she wasn't competing in all classes at the C level. Only--gulp--3200 hundred to go--but at this rate that'll be only 2 more years.

So we actually have a chance before we both start doddering. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that we both remain healthy and happy.

Tika's Title Countdown Update

SUMMARY: A lonnng way to go to our CATE.

With this last weekend's 8 Qs, I updated my database and finally finished the report I had started so that it counts my Qs for me--and discovered that I had missed 3 on my manual count. Always a pleasant surprise to find more legs. Tika's CPE Title Count needed towards her CATE now stands thusly:

	Class extraordinaire	C-ATE
Standard	17	7+
Colors	23	13+
Wildcard	21	11+
Snooker	20	10+
Jackpot	22	12+
Full House	21	11+
Jumpers	27	17+ (do you detect a problem with knocked bars here?)
Total points still needed		3700 (about 185 legs)

The CATE requires 3000 points (where each leg is worth from 15-25 points), provided by the minimum per class as listed above plus an additional 2000 points (an average of another 100 legs) in any combination of classes.

I might get in 4 more CPE trials this year. Two at least, coming soon in June and July, but not sure about the August and Thanksgiving trials. In other words: It's going to be a lonnnng time filling in those legs.

Not A Perfect Weekend But Dang Close

SUMMARY: We had a very good time and did very well at the CPE National Championships this weekend. More later.

(Tuesday 2:15 pm) OK, I filled in some stuff for Thursday. More later.

(Tuesday 10pm) OK, I went on & on about Friday. More later.

(Wed. pm sometime) Saturday's done.

(Thursday 3:20 pm) Sunday's posted, too

I still have editing & cleanup to do, but Blogger's been down most of yesterday and today and I haven't been able to do much at all, so I might wait another day or two to clean up.

Sunday at the Nationals

SUMMARY: Another lovely agility day. Hot. Fun. More ribbons and awards.

Backfill: June 8

Elliott! The French Bulldog. He's about the size of Tika's head but he and Boost are only a week apart in age and they love wrestling together. Better than World Wrestling Federation! Would see it again and again!

The day started early, before 5:00, once again. The last time! We mostly packed stuff in the cars last night, saving only a change of clothes for this morning to make our escape more efficient. Boost is dying of boredom after most of 3 days in a crate with only occasional excursions and is begging someone, anyone, to play with her. Elliott would like to but with Jake and Babar in the room (old grouches), it's a little hard to let them loose, especially when we're trying to pack up and get going.

But we make it out the door in plenty of time. All three dogs are kind enough to poop quickly before we leave the hotel area, so I won't have to worry about that when I get to WAG. We load 'em up, head 'em out--Rawhide!--Oh, wait, I'm having flashbacks to a TV show I never even watched.

My doggers hanging out in their crates.

Today I'm up in the first rotation in Snooker, the fourth rotation in Standard, and the fifth rotation in Colors. As usual, we pick up our "armband numbers" (Ah, how ancient terminology survives! Dial a phone. Steam shovels. Armband numbers for sticky labels that most folks wear on the fronts of their shirts.) and our course maps and wander off, muttering obsessive things to each other about courses that we haven't even walked yet.

About course maps

Now--I sometimes like to take a glance at course maps ahead of time to get a rough idea of what I'm in for. However, I don't usually plan my courses or handling strategies until I've actually been on the course with the equipment set up. This has nothing to do with either delayed gratification or with attempting to forestall excessive obsession (some obsession is OK--I think). It has to do with the fact that a single obstacle moved to the left or right by a foot or two or angled differently by 10 degrees can completely change the flavor of a course. And, since there are usually about 15 obstacles out on the course, that's 15 things that could be tweaked a hair this way or that way that could make the layout run very differently.

We've discovered that over and over, whenever trials attempt to set up the same course in different rings to save time. For example, last year at the USDAA Nationals, the "same" courses were always set up in 2 rings, and I often ran Jake in one ring and Tika in the other, and I had to walk them both very carefully and in almost all cases develop different handling strategies for each, again, not because my dogs run that much differently (actually they're very similar, Jake just slower), but because it's nearly impossible to get the exact same layout no matter how hard you try.

Furthermore, judges always have the prerogative to tweak the course so that it is in fact different from what's on the course map. Maybe there's a huge pit in the middle of the field and they have to readjust the obstacles so that people aren't breaking their legs running through it. Or they don't like the way the flow looks in real life (sometimes seeing it on paper just isn't the same). I have even seen, on rare occasions, the judge insert or remove an obstacle. And the available equipment might not match what the judge called for, so there's a substitution. And so on.

None-the-less, we obsess.

Snooker

Recap of rules: You must take a red and any numbered obstacle, a different red and any numbered obstacle, and a third red and any numbered obstacle, followed by 2 thru 7. Almost any deviation from this sequence results in you being whistled off the course. And you must do it within the Standard Course Time. (The only main exception is that, if you knock one of the red bars, you must do a different red, one that you haven't already done, before attempting a numbered obstacle. This course can really make you think on the fly, as I've often discovered with my bar-knocking dog.)

This is a challenging Snooker course, in part because the numbered obstacles are all so close to each other that it could make it easy for a dog to erroneously take two numbered obstacles in the opening, and in part because there's no really smooth flow that one can pick for the opening sequence of 6 obstacles. Almost everyone has a slightly different opening strategy, which IMHO is the mark of a good Snooker course design. (When the flow is really obvious, everyone takes the same path and then it's just a matter of which dog can execut it faster. This way, it truly shows its flavor as a game of strategy and handling.)

What I decide to do with both dogs is to set them up on the far left side of the field, lead out, and call them over the first red into the right side of the #3 tunnel.

Then, as the exit the left side of the tunnel, I'll pull them around me over the red jump that's slightly behind the tunnel and then head out to the weave poles. There's actually a table obstacle out beyond the end of the poles that I left off the diagram, but it's not live, so all it is for the dogs is a distraction and time waster if they head there instead of the weaves. Now, that weave pole entry is a hard one because the dog will be coming at the top end, which means they're approaching at more than a 90-degree angle, so they have to hit the entry and wrap to their right about 100 degrees and make it into the next pole. So I'll have to try to push them out a little, keep them away from the table, and then maybe wrap them in around my left side a little to make that entry.

Looking out past the edge of the agility property. Very rural. But the suburbs creep closer--and closer--

Then I'll pick them up as they come out, zoom around the outside of the #5 tunnel to the far red, threadle the dog between the red and jump 4B to get to the right side of #6, then it's pretty much a straight line (if I stay ahead of the dog, running full out and calling) to the #2 tire and into the closing sequence. It's not a given that we won't have an offcourse, but it minimizes their options for obstacles they'll be looking at.

Once again, Jake is up first. I don't lead out too far for fear that he'll take off before I'm ready, release him and run towards the #3 right end. He comes right with me and we're off and running. On the approach to the weaves, he looks at that table, looks at it, but maybe that's OK because when I finally convince him to look at me, he's far enough above the weave entry that when he turns he has almost a straight line into the weaves (which is good because he doesn't have super weave entries all the time). We go out around #5 and over the red, and as I try to threadle him through, he looks at #4B and LOOKS at it as he's running, and finally veers in to me and to the #6 and then to the tire and the closing sequence is actually a cinch, although I'm cheering him along as we go, and in fact the whistle blows just as we exit the #7 weaves, so we were very close on our time. Wahoo! Not bad for an old guy, again!

Then I watch a lot of dogs completely mess up. Lots and lots of offcourses. Meanwhile, I'm second-guessing what I want to do with Tika. I could get 3 more points if, instead of going to the #3 on the opening, I just went a few feet further into the #6 and then pulled her around BEHIND 6 and 3 back to that other jump on the left side--BUT. Then I'd be doing a 180-wrap on that jump, which is riskier for knocking a bar, AND I'd have to get her out of the 6 the right way and not detour into the #7 AND... Well, OK, I talk myself into sticking with my plan. Since so many people are wiping out, it seems unlikely that anyone's going to get three 7s in the opening, and we'll have a good chance of placing just by getting all the way through.

Tika also waits at the start line. When I release her, she blasts off. Sometimes she's not as fast as others, but this morning she's revved. When I call her over the 2nd red and head for the weaves, she is so far ahead of me that there's no hope in heck to push her out and wrap her around me for the entry, so all I can do is yell "Weave! weave!" and trust in her excellent weave entries, which we've worked hard to develop. My heart's in my throat, though, because moving as fast as she is to make a turn that sharp into the second pole will be very difficult--and then she nails it! It is totally awesome (I resort to cliches because I don't know what else to say). I am SO proud of her!

And then, when I try to run her out around #6 and she doesn't see what obstacle to do next, she tries to eat my feet. I manage to stay standing. She completely ignores my attempts to give her the "Behind" command, so I spin around 360 degrees, and she follows me, and as soon as she's off my feet I take off running again towards that 3rd red, and she comes right with me, makes the jump, threadles beautifully, into the #6, over to the 2, and as before the closing just flows very nicely AND she doesn't knock any of her bars. Wahoooo one more time.

I am SO jazzed about that weave entry! What a girl! So what if she tried to eat my feet? Worry about that another day.

At least they both Qed again, and, at the end of the day, it is revealed that Tika again took 1st and even Jake took 3rd in his class. Another example of how a smooth and only slightly aggressive course can beat out really aggressive handlers who all wipe out trying to do what they want to do.

Still more loot

I am not scheduled to work at all today! Huzzah! So in theory, now that I'm done with Snooker, I'll have two full rotations in which I'm Free! Free! Free! to, say, go browse the vendor booths. At the very least I want to check for photos of my dogs. They're so expensive these days that I hardly ever buy any any more, which is too bad, because there are often some nice ones. I could afford it back when Bill Newcomb was casually plopping 4x6s in a file box for you to leaf through on Sunday and pay $2 each. But now the photogs all have booths, and they display photos on huge boards, and they even print them customized with logos and things, and usually they all print only 8x10s, for which they charge even more. Almost all make the photos available online after the weekend, but 4x6s still usually cost $8 to $10 each! Yikes! That's a whole run's entry fee for one photo.

Indeed, one photographer has photos of both my dogs, 8x10, with their names and "CPE Nationals" on them and they're not bad photos and I give in to temptation and buy them. (Argh. Not without a stomach twinge at $25 each.)

Nothing else I really need, although I keep thinking about a new fleece with my dogs embroidered on it. One handler had a beautiful one from them with one of her dogs embroidered on each side, and I'd love to do that. Except that none of the Aussie templates really looks anything like Tika, and although the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever looks something like Jake, it's not a really excellent likeness, and so I take their card and walk off into the sunset muttering.

Sunday's raffle winnings.

When I go to watch the Standard course and see how well it runs, I arrive at the beginning of a rotation and they're desperate for help and so I volunteer to set poles. So I get to sit in a chair in the shade for the whole rotation and watch to see what people are doing, PLUS I get raffle tickets. Since I won nothing yesterday, I'd love to try again today.

When the round is over, I put my name on all the tickets and drop them into containers for free entries and for pop-up crates. I end up doing a little bit more work later for a few more tickets, but not nearly as many as the previous two days. Still, when it's all over and they've pulled the names, I'm the proud owner of another brand-new bright red Large pop-up crate. Wahoo! This does seem to be my weekend.

Standard

One more Standard course, and the last of the weekend. Tika has qualified on two so far; if she qualifies in all 3, she could be in line for the 24" Level C high-in-trial Standard award, because I don't think most people are doing very well in Standard.

Don't think about it. Don't EVEN think about it!

It's a much easier course than the previous two days, with almost no easy opportunities for offcourses. (That doesn't mean that people aren't getting them--but I believe that they're not issues for me.) The only exception is that, after the dogwalk, the dog has to turn left to go into a tunnel, but there is in fact a big juicy jump straight ahead of the dogwalk. This shouldn't be a problem for Tika, who doesn't fly off dogwalks, but for Jake, who's liable to keep running even if he is so lucky as to get a paw in the yellow, it would just be too tempting for him.

So I plan a gratuitous front cross to kill 2 birds with one maneuver--attempt to stun him into hitting the yellow zone AND to get his attention off the jump, onto me, and thereby to the tunnel.

For Tika, it'll just be a matter of keeping the bars up, since we're making turns over virtually every bar in this whole course. I just need to relax, think about calmly signaling each one early, and just enjoy being there.

The only other thing to ponder is the weave poles. Quite a few dogs I watched popped out of the weaves early because their handlers were veering away or making a break for the last 2 jumps, which are at an angle from the weaves. If you're right next to the dog at the end of the weaves, now you're stuck behind the first jump, so even if the dog goes over that jump, he could pull in to you nd end up running past the next jump, wasting time. So once again I just need to remain calm, STAY OUT AWAY FROM THE WEAVES THE WHOLE WAY so that I don't have to veer to get to the jumps, and just watch my dogs actually exit the last weave pole before moving, not assume that they're going to get it.

And--OK, I'll make this short--everything works exactly as planned. Not a hoohah anywhere with either dog. Unless one of the dogs did something that I didn't notice (once in a while I don't see a bar drop, or I think they got the contact but didn't), that's two more Qs. I watch lots of dogs Tika's height have troubles, however (yes, there are offcourse opportunities, and contacts to fly off of, and bars to knock). But one of our usual pals, Leslie and her Catahoula Ana, have an absolutely gorgeous fast run that I'm pretty sure will beat Tika's time because they're not stopping on the contacts, although Ana hits them solidly.

Leslie comes off the course and, when I congratulate her, comments that "I know you keep saying that I have lovely running contacts, but they're still not SUPPOSED to be running contacts." Still, it worked nicely for them.

Indeed, my scribe sheets come up shortly with Qs. So Tika has 3 Standard Qs! We could maybe possibly oh so ever potentially earn a high in trial award. And, at the end of the day, Tika has placed second in today's Standard behind only Ana, and Jake once again smokes those 16 other younger dogs, taking 3rd.

It's been a good day and a good weekend no matter what happens in Colors. But Colors courses are reeeeeally short and it would be reeeeally nice to get just 2 more Qs...

Don't EVEN think about it!

Colors

Yes, I have once again reverted to wearing shorts partway through the day. However, I did so frantically while racing from one place to another (don't remember why--must've been walkthroughs in one ring right after a run in the other ring) and I neglect to slather the sun lotion.

The dogs don't care.

Colors has two course options. The first one involves going all the way around the outside of the course over a series of 5 jumps and then making a 90-degree turn into the weaves. That's a lot more jump bars than I care to risk with Tika, and although she made the turn nicely to the weaves earlier, do I really want to push my luck? With the other choice, I have to try to beat Tika out of a straight 15 foot tunnel and push her to the weaves. I think I can do it, if I send her out over the jump before the tunnel and then run like hell.

OK, it's a nice theory. Jake does the flow very prettily. Not superfast, but he doesn't have to be. It'll just be another Q.

Tika is wired, still despite the heat and the 3rd run of the day. Often we have the absolutely fastest Colors course time of any dogs at a trial, because they're usually so short and sweet. Buuuuuuut there's that little trick of beating her to the end of the tunnel.

Ha.

That's one fast dog.

SOOOO she blows past the weave entry looking back at me, and I have to pull her back and reenter, which loses us at least 2 or 3 seconds. In USDAA, that would've been a penalized runout--only our 2nd "if it was USDAA" issue of the weekend (sometimes we have more... like, for example, at USDAA trials), which is pretty darned good for her, and we recover very quickly, so it's not a lot of wasted time.

Tika's Qualifying ribbons for the weekend.

And then we're done, and Tika has her 8th Q of the weekend, and has knocked only one bar the entire weekend. Jeez. Wow.
At the end of the day, when the results go up, Tika is in 2nd place behind the 1st-place dog by a mere .22 seconds, so that missed weave entry cost us another blue ribbon. But I'll take the 2nd! And Jake finished 6th in his group--no ribbon but still well up there among the sixteen 16"-inch dogs.

I am really just about bursting with delight. We did much better than I had hoped, especially after our dismal showing two years ago, and indeed much better than at many regular weekend trials. What a delight.

Awards

Then we have to wait an hour or two while they tabulate everything and calculate the weekend's winners. We get a lot of stuff packed up but not everything. It's too hot to put the dogs in the car yet, so I leave up the canopy and sun screen and leave them in their crates.

Could Tika possibly have a chance at overall high in trial with only 8 runs? Or at least high rescue? As we chitchat with people, it becomes even more clear that that's unlikely. At least 3 other Bay Teamers that I talk to have 8 Qs for the weekend, and one has 9, although with faults on one of those runs, so by extrapolation there must be plenty of others out there.

Tika's placement ribbons for the weekend.

I'm feeling very confident about the Standard high in trial for 24" level C, though; if Tika wasn't the only dog who Qed in all 3 rounds, I don't think there were 2 others, and with two firsts and a second, even if another dog Qed all 3 their total times won't be as good as ours (because I know that Ana didn't Q all 3, and she's the only dog who placed higher than us in Standard all weekend). It would be so cool to get that award! But you never know what I might have missed... somehow...

But I also have half an ear for maybe placing in the top 5 in the Games. How many people will there be in the 24" height who Qed in all the games? I know that the odds are against us: (1) We NQed in the game worth the most Q points, so e.g. if someone Qed in 5 but NQed in Colors, which is worth fewer Q points, they'd beat us, and (2) even if we had the same number of Q points, since award placements are determined by time and we used all our time in the point games to earn lots of points to try to get blue ribbons, it'll work against us even though our Jumpers, Wildcard, and Colors times are pretty good. Still, one can hope.

Even still more loot

Our brand spanking new C-ATCH plaques.

Tika earned her C-ATCH (CPE Championship) last November, and that's such a distant memory that I'm not even thinking about it any more, so it's a complete lovely surprise when the very first award they announce is Tika's C-ATCH, and present us with our two beautiful plaques in front of the whole crowd. There are several other C-ATCH plaques that they've brought with them, and then on to the trial awards.

Several Bay Teamers earn plaques for Standard or Games.

High Standard plaque.

Tika does, indeed, earn the High Standard 24" C-Level plaque, and I'm a very, very happy mom. This is a dog whose average Q rate in CPE C-Level Standard is only 40%--and we got 3 in a row this weekend. What an accomplishment! I'm proud of both of us.

Now, gentle reader, if this were fiction, with all of the foreshadowing and all of the doubting about whether Tika could possibly earn High Rescue or even place in the High Games awards--or maybe if I had a PhD--you know that we would, indeed, have taken home that lovely trophy and a High Games plaque and the world would be a happy place. However, this is not fiction-- so--

Tika does not, indeed, place in the games--I don't think that ANY of the 24" dogs Qed in all 6 games, but all the placers managed to Q in Jackpot and NQ in lesser events, so they beat us out. So close! If only Tika had gone into that tunnel instead of skidding to a halt--we'd have placed first or at least 2nd in the Games! But then, probably lots of people are in that position. The guy who took 2nd in the 24" games ran Colors as his absolutely last run of the weekend, and was so excited about running clean all the way through it that he started saying "yayyyy!" before his dog had cleared the last bar, which changed the dog's focus, which caused him to knock the bar, which caused an NQ--the last bloody bar of the last run of the weekend after 5 previous games Qs! Now, THAT's frustrating.

But that means that at least five 24" dogs had 8 Qs with fewer points on their NQs than us, or we'd still have placed. Oh, well.

There's still High Rescue, maybe-- but noooooooo--

Turns out that only 4 dogs of 375 had Perfect Weekends (9 Qs with no faults--if only Tika hadn't skidded to a halt in front of that tunnel-- repeat ad infinitum--), and two of them earned the High In trial and High Veteran In Trial (Jake wasn't even close with 6 Qs--in fact *3* of the 4 dogs with Perfect Weekends were veteran dogs!).

The High Rescue dog had 180 points, so she must've NQed in Jumpers or Wildcard, which cost only 20 points compared to our 25 for Jackpot. If ONLY Tika hadn't SKIDDED to a HALT in front of... Cripes.

Jake's ribbons for the weekend.

But I'll take my three plaques, 14 Q ribbons, 11 placement ribbons, free entry, new pop-up crate, photos, and all the check-in goodies, finish packing up, drive home, arrive about 8:30, shower (calves--owwww in the hot water! So much for not using sunscreen on those lily white gams) without taking anything out of the car except our awards to show the housemate, and crawl into bed for an immediate lights out.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh---what a great weekend!

And, Arlene, I hardly whined at all! Now to start reading my Nonwhining award from Arlene: The Dog Lover's Guide to Dating.

Saturday at the Nationals

SUMMARY: Not Jake's Day. Hot. Fun.

Backfill: June 7 5pm
Once again, what with dinner and showering our sweaty bods and all that, we didn't get to bed until after 10:00, but this time I set two alarms, both for before 5:00, so we're up and at 'em in plenty of time to get a prime parking spot at WAG. Halleluia!

This photo of my nationals t-shirt and shorts is after the fact. But now ya know.

The nice thing about midyear events is that it's light at 5:30 a.m. so you can see where the dogs are pottying rather than having to guess or search with a flashlight. The bad thing is that--well--it's summer in the Central Valley. I confidently start out wearing my jeans and a fleece sweater. I abandon the fleece even before the general briefing at 6:45, but the jeans stick with me--not quite literally yet, but they will, they will.

More loot

Yesterday morning I also received my preordered Nationals t-shirt. A lovely bright tealish jadey turquoise (OK, I don't know what the official color is; this is why I'm in software and not interior design) with an embroidered logo. Not that I need another t-shirt to add to my collection of 140; it just had to be done. It felt weird having to pay for a t-shirt to prove I'd been there, since the USDAA nationals provides you automatically with a free shirt. On the other hand, USDAA's entry fees are twice what CPE charged for their nationals, and what USDAA provided for free besides the t-shirt was one bright red umbrella with the USDAA World Cynosports logo blazoned across it. How often do I use an umbrella? How often do I use anything red? And here I got for free those two nice shade cloths with no advertising of any kind. So it's a fair trade.

What I've been ruing is not having ordered a 2006 Nationals pin. Not that I'd wear it--but USDAA gives out pins for Nationals, and I seem to be collecting agility pins for other awards (CATCH, Jake's USDAA Top 10), so I'd have liked to have had it for my display. Interestingly, this morning, the lady who made the pins announced at the briefing that she had two extras if anyone wanted one, so I tackled her on the spot and begged. Walked away from the briefing with a pin and my promised to return later with my Visa card. That is the nice thing about most vendors at agility competitions--and about most competitors: you can trust them.

If you're ever desperate for food and drink, Hospatility can hilp.

I'm scheduled to work only one round, but I'm pretty sure there'll be other opportunities to collect raffle tickets. I'm hoping for more free entries, although so is everyone else west of the Mississippi, but I've also been putting tickets in for another one of those nifty pop-up lightweight crates that I've used so much with Boost and have wished I had another. ($25 plus tax for a Large at Target.) Yesterday I put tickets in for the Large and X-Large, but won neither. For some odd reason, whenever these appear in raffles, they always have the red ones, not the tan ones. Go figure. Who wants red, really? But for free--that's cool.

Obsessing About Jackpot--and Everything Else

We all review the course maps for the day and there is much gnashing of teeth about the Standard course AND the Jumpers course AND the Jackpot (gamble). I think they're all doable although moderately challenging. I'm trying not to get my hopes up about Qing.

Today, I'm up in Standard in the second rotation and Jumpers in the third rotation.

Standard is designed to be a Jake-killer: It has TWO, count them, two! dogwalks instead of a dogwalk plus Aframe. What are the odds, really, of Jake getting two dogwalks in one round? What are the odds of him getting two in one weekend? Pfah! Write that Q goodbye.

The Jackpot is the worst case; the run from obstacle #2 to #3 is the type of thing that Tika and I don't seem to quite get yet for some reason, but I'm pretty confident about the rest of it. However--my Group F will the last of the 6 groups to run that, and so it'll be our last run of the day. A long time to obsess about it, watch other people run it, replay it over and over in my head, you know, general obsessive sorts of things.

An expensive weekend

Deb's shirt says it all. Who cares about a few extra expenses? Canopy: $200. Video repair: $150. A few clean runs: Priceless

OK, so I broke my sewing machine on Thursday. Yesterday morning, I finally remembered to ask someone to tape my runs! I've been hauling that damfool pricey digital video camera around with me to every trial, and the last time I actually remembered to ask someone to tape me must've been last November at the USDAA Nationals. So--I asked, and had volunteers, BUT when I tried to show them how to use the camera--I kept getting an error code! I tried replacing the tape, and the battery, but noooooo---. I sat down after our Standard round (the lovely one that both dogs ran beautifully) with the instruction book, which said that it might be a moisture problem, so leave it open for at least an hour and try again. No luckie. Other people asked to take a look at it, and they got nuthin', neither. Crap crap crap.

So now I apparently have camera repair to add to my list, and I will end up with absolutely no video record of an absolutely lovely CPE Nationals weekend. Cripeys.

Standard

It's a moderately challenging course but one that I'm comfortable with. Lots of people are muttering about how hard it is. But then, this isn't USDAA. I've seen much harder courses there. I'm not saying that we won't be challenged. There's a long run of 40 feet with a jump and a straight 20-foot tunnel that I'll need somehow to get ahead of Tika on. But it won't kill us if we don't; just have a bobble, no real offcourse opportunities IMHO.

Today, Jake is up first in everything. Once again I manage to stun him into stopping on the first dogwalk with his feet in the yellow by hauling butt to the end and standing in front of him, but the second time around, he was ready for me and just popped off the side above the yellow zone. Crud. Oh, well, it's not like I didn't expect it. The rest of his run is really very nice. He's so good for an ancient dog! I don't think there are any other 14-year-olds competing out there--which is something else that makes me wonder whether his birthdate could have been misguessed, but I'll never know. (Based on his first agility Q, we know that he has to be at least 12, which is still older than almost all agility dogs out there.)

Now, here's the funny thing about CPE scoring. Popping a contact is 15 faults. An offcourse is only 5 faults! So although we have a really nice time (only 5 seconds slower than Tika, which is unusual--of course popping off the dogwalk helped), he ends up placing at the bottom of his class because although many people got 1 or 2 offcourses, they still placed higher than he did. Hmmm. Still, once again I am very pleased with his run. No bobbles other than that.

Tika has slowed down on her contacts today and sticks them all, which I know will slow our total time and might prevent us from placing, but stopping on her contacts is generally a good thing. That long tunnel run indeed is not quite perfect--she turns into me somewhat but again I manage to push her out without a full spin. Same thing elsewhere in the course. But then we're across the finish line and not a single bar has dropped and I realize that we've Qed 4 for 4 so far! Maybe I was hasty about that trophy--

But noooooo...don't start thinking about it! I start this mantra to myself and repeat all day every time it starts occurring to me: "Don't think about it! Don't EVEN think about it! You know what it did to you at the last nationals! Just relax, figure you won't win, enjoy what you do." It's very hard for me, but in fact I am enjoying myself immensely. (Of course, Qs always help. :-) )

At the end of the day, it turns out that our slowish time (for us) doesn't matter, as all the other dogs in our height and level crashed and burned or were quite a bit slower. So it'll be another 1st for the Tika babe! However, if comparing her time to ALL level 4/5/C dogs, there are at least a couple of dozen clean runs with faster times. But that's OK.

Jumpers

The main challenge for both dogs on this course is their on-again, off-again start-line stays. The course opens with three straight jumps aiming at a tunnel, but you don't actually DO the tunnel, you break into a serpentine off to the left.

I'll need to be able to lead out far enough that I can clearly signal the turn before the dogs get to the jump to keep them on course and to prevent Tika from knocking that third bar as she brakes and turns.

In fact, they both stick their startlines. What good animals! And we're off. Jake, although he's moving along at a nice clip, none-the-less mystifies me again by u-turning away from me and heading southeast when I'm clearly heading northwest--not once, but twice on this course. And, since he can't hear me well enough, and because we now have obstacles between us so I can't rush out and get in front of him to turn him, it takes a few seconds each time to get his attention and get him back on track. He stays on course, but I'm worried about the times.

A couple of experienced friends assure me that he was moving fast enough, the detours were short enough, and CPE course times are so generous that we'll make time easily.

They were wrong. The time on this course was exceptionally tight, and Jake is over by 4 full seconds. Another nonQ for the day. A little disappointing after yesterday's 3 Qs, but hey, he really was running nicely and he's so cute and seems to be enjoying himself. So what can I say?

Tika makes the turn from #3 like a charm and blasts through the serpentine like an old hand. We actually loop around and make almost the same approach to the tunnel again, and again it's a calloff, but I'm more worried about it the second time because the sharper angle makes a harder calloff--so I end up overcalling her, and she comes towards me past the jump instead of over it. Fortunately I spin her around quickly and cleanly and we finish the course in a nice time with no off courses--AND NO BARS DOWN! This is pretty astonishing. In USDAA, that runout would have been faulted, but runouts and refusals aren't faulted in CPE, so waaaahoooo, another Q for my merle girl.

Futhermore, enough other dogs wipe out on this course in one way or another AND she's still fast enough despite the bobble that she places 1st again. At a regular CPE trial, I'd kind of expect this (although we don't always manage it), but at the Nationals this is a real bonus.

Hot hot hot

Yeah, yeah, it's hot all right. Again my jeans get soppy and disgusting and I'm forced to resort to shorts. With our nifty canopy setup, I just squeeze into the middle, hidden by assorted shade cloths and crates and x-pens and change right there. And I didn't even need a PhD to figure out that I could do that.

According to Accuweather, it was 90 on Friday, 93 on Saturday, and 87 on Sunday. They don't say what the humidity was, but I can assure you, it was humiditized. At least we don't seem to have mosquitos worth mentioning. And there was usually at least a little breeze all day, picking up in the late afternoon, which helped.

I also slather sun lotion on my pathetic legs. I hate sun lotion on my legs, especially here where everything except the course lawns is so miserably dusty. But they're already a teeny weeny bit pink from yesterday's exposure, despite having scurried from shade to shade yesterday like a little pale vampire. I want to be able to wear long pants come Monday without shrieking in pain. So I grin and bear it.

I'm hosing down the dogs as often as possible, at least before and after each run, trying to cool their body temperature. Their fur is dense enough and/or long enough that it's not going to help much by evaporation, but just think how much it cools you down to take a dip in a cool pool or run the hose over your head. (Yes, I did that a couple of times, too.) They can't grin, but they bear it, especially with the plentiful treats I provide.

Jackpot--Preamble

So. I don't expect jake to get the jackpot. He just doesn't carry out like he used to, and I used to be able to give him voice directions from straight behind to tell him to keep going. Lots of dogs are veering from the #1 to the #3 jump, and I rather expect that's what he'll do. I'll try to avoid it, but I just don't see him getting this.

Tika can, as I said earlier, I think can do the #1 to #2 easily. I watched tons of fast, long-strided dogs make it easily. The thing is that, after they land from #1, they're already mostly past #3 and looking straight at the tunnel entrance, so it would be hard to miss. And this is a setup that I've had in my yard and use all the time. No, I fully expect her to get #1 to #2.

But in gambles this year, the #2 to #3 sort of thing has eluded us--where she blasts out of the tunnel, she'll be heading towards me, and I have to be able to push her back out enough to avoid running past the #3 jump (which I watched quite a few dogs do).

For the opening, there's a nice, high-point double loop that I think we can do easily and rack up more points than anyone if she sticks with me. They have announced that, for this Jackpot, you don't have to wait for the first whistle to attempt the gamble, so if you want, you can just get your minimum required opening points and then go for it. But I figure that I can easily do the double loop and then hit the gamble before the first whistle anyway, so I can relax and take time getting into position.

There is no obstacle that leads directly towards the 1/2, but what I'm going to do is run her through the weaves before the gamble, then pull her line out slightly to where there's a straight line from her position over 1 to 2 and then run straight at it. While waiting for our run at the end of the day, I see two or three other experienced people do this exact same thing and it works beautifully.

Jackpot--The Movie

I do a modified version of Tika's plan with Jake, and it works nicely, and as we head for the gamble, he runs smoothly and quickly and confidently over #1 and--straight to #3 and the ending table. Oh well--again, it's not unexpected, and it's so much fun to have a fast geriatric dog.

And so, Tika and I are finally up. She executes the first loop perfectly, no bars down. She executes the second loop perfectly. Now we're in the weaves, and she once again makes her weave entrances perfectly. The buzzer hasn't blown, so there's no pressure. I pull her out slightly and start running, and she goes over the jump #1 straight at the tunnel. At that moment, the buzzer sounds--

And she skids to a halt, with her nose what can't be more than 1 or 2 feet from the tunnel opening, and dances left, and dances right, and spins around towards me and away from me. I have no idea what I did or what caused her to stop her forward momentum--I mean, she was hauling through there--but I'm yelling "through! through!" and apparently her obstacle names are not nearly as solid as I'd like to believe, because she finally spies jump #3 and flies right over it, never giving the tunnel another glance.

Thus endeth the Perfect Weekend fantasies.

As I come out, the gate steward says, "That's weird, it's like the buzzer startled her and made her stop." I can't imagine that's it--we've been dancing to buzzers and whistles and horns at every trial for years--but I have no other explanation and no one else I knew appeared to have been watching. So, for the rest of my life, I will never know what I did or what it was that caused her to screech to a halt.

And that's a 25-pont Q loss, too, so that even if we get everything else as Qs, other people with 8 Qs could have 180 or 185 points to our 175. Still, that could still maybe leave us open for High Rescue--

Don't think about it! Don't EVEN think about it!

But her opening was just flawless and I'm very pleased with my gal. Even the 2 teeters we did were very fast, no wasted time at all, and I've been working hard on getting the speed up on those.

Friday's and Saturday's ribbons plus maybe a couple from Sunday morning.

So, as the day winds down, we discover that she had more opening points (40) than any of the other 375 dogs, except one (Erika and Chase), who had 41, and they're not in our height or level, so there. In fact, we manage to place 4th with that set of points, because not that many dogs got that gamble.

But we have 3 more runs tomorrow, with plenty of chances for non-Qs. What happens will happen. (I can say that now--)

Fun and Games and Feeling Good Mostly

That evening is the official trial BBQ. Great food, good friends, hanging around until after 8 just laughing and talking and eating. I'm really pretty much floating despite the lowered Q rate for the day--2 for 6 instead of 6 for 6--but my dogs are running so well and I just don't feel that I'm making stupid mistakes, just normal sort of tweaks or twitches that sometimes happen.

Once again Jackie and I drive back late to the hotel, and for the third day in a row we have a stunning sunset to light our way up 99 towards Sacramento. It's as if the sky decorating gods simply waited for us to appear each evening and painted the sky and clouds with the most amazing and vivid colors just for our benefit.

I'm feeling good, I'll tell ya. Except for more aches and pains than I want to remember.

My knee has been bothering me in past weekends since it got so swollen at Haute Tracs, and I'm planning on babying it this weekend. Oddly enough, it seems to get better and better as the weekend goes on. But my left shoulder, which has been only slightly painful all winter and spring while my right shoulder has cycled on and off from agony to mere gentle jabs and back again, has chosen this weekend to act up. Thursday night I iced it when I got to the hotel thanks to jackie who had an extra baggie for ice. But it still hurt so badly that I had trouble getting to sleep and then it woke me up periodically all night.

At least it was manageable Friday morning, but again through the day got worse and worse and was almost as bad Friday night. Tonight it's not quite even that bad, but when I shower it's still hard to raise my hand high enough to wash my hair.

Furthermore, I am haunted by the mysterious hand-joint shooting pains again. Thursday night I believe it was the base joint of my left index finger--painful, sharp pain every time I moved it or put any pressure on it, throbbing even when holding still. That had subsided by the morning but Friday night it was my right thumb base and I think Saturday night it was my left little finger.

I should be writing these down.

Mostly they're gone by morning. My sister Linda seems to be experiencing similar things. I think I've asked my mom and it sounds somewhat like her arthritis onset at (sigh) about my age. I should confirm again, though. What a nuisance, not to mention slightly debilitating.

But MENTALLY I'm feelin' good! And that's important.

Friday at the Nationals

SUMMARY: Six Qs for six runs--and some placements, too!

Backfill: June 6 3:30pm

In case you're lost first thing in the morning.

Our morning begins blearily around 5:07--which is too bad, because I tried to set the alarm for 5:00 sharp. Jackie and I will carpool to the agility site to save parking spaces (plus it's nice to have someone to talk to). We already moved her two dogs' crates into my car last night, so it's just a matter of getting up and dressed, gathering whatever we need for the day (I decide to take my shorts just in case it's hot enough for me to want to switch out of my jeans), a quick dog potty, then load up and head out.

What with one thing and several others, we don't actually get on the road until nearly 6, so not at the site until almost 6:30. It's a Friday morning in Sacramento and traffic is heavy but flowing close to the speed limit. We have to park out in the boonies but not the terrible boonies--we're near the center walkway that leads between the outer rings over to the arena where we're encamped.

Each morning we have to pick up new running-order number stickers and course maps at registration at 6:30, then there's supposed to be general briefing from 6:45 until 7:00. In fact it doesn't get going until at least 7, and continues for half an hour. To make it easier to schedule the four rings, avoid conflicts, and ensure the availability of workers (we're all volunteers on this bus), we're divided into 6 groups, A through F, who rotate among the three classes for the day.

We're in group F, which has us running in the 2nd round in Wildcard, the 4th round in Full House, and the 5th round in Standard. I work the first round in the Standard ring, so I get to see everything that people might have trouble with on that course. It all looks very doable to me for my dogs, however, so I'm pretty calm about it.

About the Awards

In every CPE trial, including this weekend, you can earn all the regular Qs and placements in each class, height, and level, so in that sense it's just like a regular CPE trial. Typically Tika earns a lot of Qs and several first places; typically Jake earns 3 or 4 Qs in his semiretired 4 runs a day but nowadays hardly ever places. There will be a lot more dogs here than at most trials, however, including many hotshots from around the country who feel that it's worth their effort to trek to CA to try to earn the high-in-trial awards provided at the Nationals.

The High Rescue trophy that my club, The Bay Team, is sponsoring, that both my dogs are eligible for, and that neither of them will probably earn. Sigh.

The high-in-trial awards are based on various things. We specifically could be eligible for:
*Perfect Weekend award (9 Qs of 9 runs)--but we've never ever had a perfect weekend so this seems unlikely, plus at the 2004 nationals, we choked so badly we couldn't even get a Q for nuthin', let alone a placement. So I've pretty much figured we're not going to get this.
*High Rescue dog: There are, I think, about 60 rescue dogs registered for this award, my two among them. Jake's entered just for fun, since he's semiretired, and I figure that I'll pull him if he shows any signs of arthritic pain or disinterest, so I can write him off.
*High Mixed-Breed: I'm listing Tika as a full Australian Shepherd, so she's not eligible; see previous comment for Jake.
*High Standard or runner-up Standard: Best score for the 3 Standard runs across the weekend. (Awarded for each jump height and level.)
*High Games 1st thru 5th: Best score for the 6 other classes across the weekend. (Awarded for each jump height.)
*High in trial regular, high in trial veteran: Tika eligible for the first, Jake for the 2nd, but most likely the winners will have perfect weekends, so forget these.

Now, I talked earlier about how scores are calculated at the nationals for these awards. Each Q that you earn is worth a certain number of points--25 for a clean Standard run, a gamble, or a snooker; 20 for a clean jumpers, full house, or clean wildcard; 15 for clean colors. The Standard, Jumpers, Wildcard, and Snooker Qs are worth less if you earn faults--but at Tika and Jake's level (C, the top level), you can earn a Q *only* if you're clean, so that won't affect us: we'll either get the full points or nothing.

So a perfect weekend would be 200 points. A perfect set of 3 standards would be 75 points. A perfect set of 6 games would be 125 points.

The tricky bit here is that, in the three point-accruing games (Snooker, Jackpot, and Full House), points count towards placements but they do not count towards high in trial! They're using only your run time as a percentage of the standard course time (SCT) to break ties, so faster runs will beat higher-scoring runs. This means that, for example, a really novice dog who can barely get through the minimum required obstacles and then exits the ring will beat an experienced dog who uses the entire SCT to earn a fabulous number of points in a well-strategized, well-executed course plan. Since Tika is one of the latter type--and Jake was in his heyday--this goes against my grain.

There is much discussion about whether the top dogs will be going for placements in individual runs or skip the placements in favor of lower scores and lower times in the hopes of beating out others who might have the same Q points at the end of the weekend.

In the final analysis, however, it seems that the top dogs mostly felt that playing the games competitively for placements was the much more interesting thing--plus, if the others are anything like me, we weren't figuring on getting a perfect weekend, so I'd rather go for 6 or 7 or 8 blue ribbons for the classes that we do manage to Q in and enjoy that, because we'd never get those 9 Qs.

Wildcard

Wildcard is a slightly shorter than usual numbered course with 3 places where you have to pick either obstacle A or obstacle B, with B usually the more challenging obstacle or path. At our level, we must do two Bs and one A. Sometimes my choices are obvious the moment that I walk onto the course for the walkthrough. This one, however, presents challenges for Tika and Jake no matter how I cut it, and I try walking it with every dang combination of As and Bs (that would be 3 different paths). I'm still trying to decide for sure when they clear the course and I have to go fetch Tika for her run.

So this is our first run of the Nationals, and if they're all going to present challenges for me, then it'll be an interesting weekend indeed.

So the choices are:
* 2a: To make the turn to #3, I either have to lead out far enough on the right of the tunnel to be able to push the dog forward before they turn in and miss #3, or far enough on the left to pull the dog slightly (but not too much) towards me and flip them to the jump--which might work OK but then I either have to pull the dog tightly into the 4a tunnel, which could knock the bar on #3, or get across to the weaves for 4b... And neither dog has had completely reliable startline stays lately. Good, but not perfect. Jake might wait forever or might not wait at all. Tika might wait forever or take off as soon as it looks like I'm turning towards her. On the other hand, if I take 2b, the jumps around the outside, I don't have to lead out as far, but it's a sharp angle over #1 which could be a bar-knocking opportunity for Tika, and for Tika, she'll be hauling when she goes over #3 and if I want to get her into 4a (not certain), I'll have to pull her up clearly enough that she doesn't knock the bar.

#10b is the easier jump from #9 but then you have to pull a bit to #11, so could risk knocking 10-- I dunno. I decide on 2b/4a/10b with Jake, and 2a/4b/10b with Tika. In fact--everything goes swimmingly with both dogs! Hardly a twitch to be improved, although I run up the left side of 2a and Tika pulls away from 3 just a little more than I would've liked, but still makes the flip nicely without spinning. So--piece of cake! Jake even made his weave pole entry very nicely--in fact, did so all weekend--despite a recent history this spring of missing the poles entirely or missing the entry and going in late.

I feel that we did pretty good and had good running times, although Tika's course probably would have been faster with only one set of weaves and the jumps around the outside, but I'm not sure it would have been clean.

Carlene finds her scribe sheet copy in one of the little results boxes at the awards table. If it's a Q, you get a lovely giant Q ribbon on the spot.

Finding Results

We can find out whether we Qed usually within 10 or 15 minutes by picking up the NCR copy of our scribe sheet at the awards table. All the scribe sheets here are 2-parters, so as soon as the score is entered at the score table, the 2nd part is dispatched to one of the boxes way out back (e.g., for Group F, there's a box for each of the 4 rings). You can pick up your Q ribbon immediately--an innovation this year from Haute Dawgs. In years past, you had to wait until the end of the day, and then they'd find you on a list and check you off, so with a Q rate of (usally at CPE trials) better than 50%, there'd have been over 500 ribbons to hand out at the end of the day.

Instead, you just have to wait til the end of the day for the placements, after the classes have finished in all the rings.

But--our Wildcard scribe sheets finally come up, and both dogs have Qed with very respectable times! Jake is 17 seconds under SCT; Tika is 21 under.

Working at the Nationals--and the Raffle

Some of the many raffle items offered; just drop your tickies into the little containers and keep your fingers crossed.

Years ago the Bay Team started a WAG raffle (Workers Appreciation Gift--long before WAG agility existed in Elk Grove) that was usually one large item for which all workers earned a ticket for each round that they worked. The regular raffle, with many larger and smaller items, you had to pay to enter. However, gradually we evolved to having only a worker's raffle, and everyone else followed suit--or someone else led the charge after we started it, or maybe we took the initial idea but I came up with the WAG name--it's a bit murky-- anyway, most clubs hereabouts nowadays offer pretty spectacular workers raffles. The daily raffles here had something like 80 or 90 items you could drop your tickets into, from baskets of toys and treats to agility equipment, crates, and free entries.

I was scheduled to work 2 rounds of the 6, and they were giving 6 or 8 tickets per round. I ended up volunteering for about 6 different rounds, the way the ring orders fell on Friday, so I put lots of tickets into a variety of things. I was lucky enough on Friday to win a day's free entry to a trial (that's 2 workers raffles in a row in which I did so--I must be using up all my luck on these!).

Full House

But back to the daily grind. We're next up in Full House, whose purpose as near as I can figure it is to see whether you can actually manage to take all of the obstacles twice within your 30-second point-accumulation period and thereby earn a zillion points more than everyone else. At least, that's how Tika and I play it. There are some basic requirements, though--at some point you have to take at least 3 single jumps, 2 tunnels or tires, and 1 high-point obstacle--in this case, there are 2 double jumps and a set of weaves, each worth 5 points.

This is the last time during the weekend in which I wrestle with the agony of going for minimum points and a fast time or using all the time and earning a ton of points in hoping for a blue ribbon. I finally convince myself thoroughly that there is still not a chance in heck of us earning 9 Qs for the weekend and that I really am, indeed, going to go for the blues. So I pick really nice flowing courses for both dogs that'll earn a ton of points.

Now, this course is set up so that you can easily loop around getting single jumps and tunnels, OR you can easily loop around getting tunnels and 5-pointers, but if you get too greedy and forget to venture to the low-point side of the course for those 3 single jumps, you don't earn a Q.

With Tika's run, I plan for four single jumps right in the beginning--actually 3 jumps with one taken going out and again coming back. And what does she do? Knocks that bar going out, so I can't take it coming back, either, so I have to veer aside, wasting some seconds, to make sure I get that third single jump. Then we race to the high-point side of the course, where I figure that Tika can make 3 loops and pick up a squillion points and stop the clock right at the SCT (it's OK to go over by up to 5 seconds, but after that, they start subtracting points). However, after the 2nd time around--I forget which loop I'm on, and suddenly realize that I'm stuck in the middle of a loop that I can't get out of, except by back-jumping a double that's worth no points or taking a tunnel that I've already taken twice and so wont' be worth any points. So while I'm standing there looking around and pulling Tika with me, she backjumps the double, putting me even further from the finish line. So we end up making the loop that we were going to make, but the whistle blows partway through and we don't get the last 8 (!) points and we barely make it to the clock-stopping table before we start to lose points.

Sigh. So I know I won't get a blue ribbon, and we also used maximum time so it won't help us even if we DO earn 9 Qs but so do other people.

With Jake, I lose him on a similar loop going out of a long tunnel and he doesn't see me and it takes forever to pull him back to me, then he's trotting instead of running, looking a little confused, and goes around the last two obstacles instead of taking them, ALSO leaving 8 points unearned. Dang dang dang.

But at least both have sufficient points to Q (and Tika has 11 points more than Jake, which isn't unusual). So, shortly thereafter, we pick up two more Q scribe sheets and ribbons.

Betsy engaged in a popular pastime

Hot hot hot

Meanwhile--it is getting dang hot. I realize that I cannot possibly wear my jeans a minute longer when they become so soaked with sweat that even the thick denim sticks to my legs with every step. It is also quite humid, making it worse. We're all trying to drink a lot, hose down the dogs with cold water often, and stay in the shade.

I switch to my shorts--not quite a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but probably not more than once every year or two. You can tell, because complete strangers come out of the woodwork to agree that my legs are so pale that they make white look dark, or that "you know that it's hot when Ellen wears shorts."

Standard Day 1

The course has some challenges, requiring plenty of front crosses and a couple of pulls. Jake works best with front crosses these days, and the course has no long runaways where I can't communicate clearly to Tika, so I think it'll be fine for us. The final major turn is over a double and then left into a set of weaves about 15 feet to its left. There is a tremendous amount of room to make that turn from the double into the weaves without either calling sharply over the double or missing the weave entrance. And yet, many of the dogs I watched indeed miss the weave entrance or knock the double. I don't foresee it as a problem for either of my dogs. For Tika, this course is just a matter of me remaining calm and signaling lead-changes over jumps in plenty of time so that she doesn't knock them, and for Jake it's a matter of getting the Aframe and particularly the dang dogwalk contacts.


This is our last run of the day, and it's not even 1:00 yet! I know that some of the other rings will be going on for quite a while longer, but our rotation lucked out. In fact, our group is up in Full House and Standard at the same time due to the way the rings ran, and hmmm it seems to me that I actually ran our two Standard runs before I ran the Full Houses--but in any event, we'll end up finished at 1:15, and then just have to wait forever for the placements to be posted.

So Tika runs the Standard course and I'm calm and collected now that I'm at peace with the idea that we can't possibly win high in trial. My timing is good on calling her, and she keeps all her bars up. She doesn't stick her contacts well at all, but I'm prepared for it and so we blast around the course at top speed. She nails that weave entry that so many dogs had trouble with--and we're over and done with it with a beautiful, smooth, clean run.

With Jake, I plan an aggressive front cross after the dogwalk, so all I have to do is beat him to the other end and make the cross by getting directly in front of him. It works again (like it did at the USDAA Nationals last November) and he stops dead in the yellow zone--and then we continue, and he flows smoothly through the course with no real bobbles or runouts of any kind. Sure looks like two more Qs to me! Now all we have to do is wait. And--sure enough, the scribe sheets come up with Qs.

Gail and her dog demonstrate eagerly checking the posted results for placements.

End of the Day

It's getting on towards dinnertime before they post the results. To my satisfaction, Tika earned first places in both Standard and Wildcard, although with our bobble in Full House, we're only in 5th place! Very low for her in this class--and this also demonstrates that my fellow 24-inch C-level competitors are NOT going for minimum points/minimum time any more than we are.

But even more to my delight, Jake--who has had trouble Qing among smaller groups of dogs at smaller local trials--smokes'em with a 4th out of 16 in Standard and 2nd of 15 in Wildcard! Dang good for a guy whom I keep trying to retire! What a guy!

What a day! After waiting half an hour after the results are posted to allow for corrections, we can get in line for our placement ribbons and take them back to our canopy to hang with the Qs. Six runs: six Qs, five placement ribbons! Wowie, Batman, I'm happy!

Friday's ribbons. I'm feelin' good! Try to remember this later in the weekend when I just know I'll start crashing and burning. But today was fine!

Furthermore, Tika's Wildcard run is the third-fastest run out of 205 levels 4/5/C dogs all heights, and her Standard run is the fastest level C of 53 dogs and 4th fastest of all 216 4/5/C dogs. Whatta gal. I'm so lucky with her.

Then, finally, Jackie and Arlene and Jennifer and Carlene and Donna and I head out to Logan's Roadhouse for a nice dinner in an air-conditioned building and suck down tons of ice water along with our dinners. We discuss advanced degrees among agility competitors, and in this crowd there are in fact two Masters degrees and a PhD, and having a PhD becomes the running gag of the weekend. ("Of course Jennifer figured out that handling maneuver--she has a PhD!" "Of course you calculated that score wrong--you don't have a PhD!")

Thursday Beginneth the CPE Nationals

SUMMARY: Sewing machine breaks trying to fix canopy. Off to CPE National Championships in Elk Grove. Forgot some things. Got a great crating space.

Backfill: June 6
It isn't every year that an agility National Championship is within 2 hours of your home. In fact, the CPE Nationals have been in Elk Grove once before, 2 years ago. AKC Nationals (which we don't do) have been in Los Angeles at least once. USDAA Nationals were in San Diego twice (2000, 2001)--about an 8-hour drive-- and Scottsdale, AZ twice and will be again this November--about a 10 or 11-hour drive. I don't know whether the NADAC Nationals have ever been west coast. So it's a treat to be able to relax about going.

However, for some reason, packing for a 3-day Nationals event is so much more traumatic than for any other 3-day event (such as the Haute Tracs event in April or the Bay Team Labor Day trial). You want your stay to be luxurious, in keeping with the idea that it's a special event. You want to take any clever clothing or decor to really get into the spirit of the weekend. This year I also had a phone meeting Thursday morning and some documentation work to do before I headed out the door. Also, I hadn't packed anything the day before, so I had to do at least an hour of packing, probably more. Plus my canopy top's seams had come apart a couple of trials ago and I had been meaning to try running them through my sewing machine to fix them.

Dang Machinery

The sewing machine kept jamming the bobbin thread for some reason. I just forced it to keep going (probably a bad idea, really, in retrospect, but sometimes you know inanimate objects just respond better to brute force. If I'd have had a hammer, I'd have used it). Just about the time I had almost finished the main seam, there was a loud thunk and the tip of the needle had been broken off. The bobbin side of the stitches had gobs and gobs of extra thread--not pretty but who cares. But I still wanted to finish that seam and do another one. So I replaced the needle--and the machine wouldn't sew. The needle thread just wouldn't pick up the bobbin thread at all. I must've taken everything apart that was takable apartable a dozen times & cleaned & such, but no go.

So now I'm going to have a probably expensive sewing machine cleaning & repair when I get back, and I can only hope that the fix I managed to do will suffice for 4 days at Elk Grove. Crud.

I was aiming for an 11:30 departure to allow me time to get money, ice, and lunch on the road and arrive at Elk Grove right at 2:00, because the preliminary paperwork said in huge type, larger than anything else on the page:

Absolutely no exhibitor setup or arrivals prior to 2PM Thursday.

In a frenzy of time optimization and prioritization, I managed to even squeeze in a 3-minute shower. I had decided to forgo it because time was moving along apace, but at the last minute decided to go for it. Good thing I did, because while I was toweling off, I noticed all of my shirts for the weekend neatly lined up on the dresser--and my suitcase was already packed in the car with the rest of my clothing. I managed to get out the door not much after 11:30. Traffic out to Elk Grove was lovely the whole way.

Arrival and Setup

There are 6 of us who want to set up our canopies together, to house a total of 7 people and 18 dogs. (That's Gwen's 3, Jennifer's 4, Jackie's 2, my 3, Arlene's 2, Deb's 3, I think, and Jean's 1?. That would be--if I'm counting right--2 Border Newfs and 3 other All Americans, 6 Border Collies, 2 French Bulldogs, and 5 Aussies.) We really want to be in the original outside grass ring area, right next to the arena, and we know we'll have to be there right at Minute One to be able to get it, with 300 competitors scheduled to appear.

They really dolled the place up for the nationals. Just in case you were confused about which state you're in--

I take the Hood/Franklin Road exit from Highway 5 to head in to WAG, and it's still 10 minutes before 2, with only 2 or 3 miles to go. The speed limit on the first part of the country road is 55; I do about 35. The second stretch is--well, who knows any more, it's not posted, but probably somewhere between 45 and 55. I cruise at about 25. There is no one behind me in either case, thank goodness. I arrive at WAG on the dot of 2:00. There are several cars driving up the long dusty drive ahead of me, and Lo! There are already a whole lot of canopies set up in the distance! Argh!

I make a comment about "so much for 2:00" to one of the parking attendants (WAG doesn't usually have or need parking attendants; most trials are much, much smaller there). I find out that all the committee and primary volunteers were allowed in earlier, and apparently right before 2:00 the driveway was filled with people waiting to get in. I drive around to the back behind the other new arrivals, grab two mats, the plastic contractors tape that I brought, and a tape measure to measure off space for 10'-wide canopies, and race around to the lawn--and there's a huge spot marked off as available for setup that's in a perfect location and has room for 8 canopies! What awesome luck. So I start flinging my mats around and criss-crossing the area with tape. Someone else arrives almost instantly and claims the other 2 spots. Arlene arrives right about then with her mats and we stake out the signs with people's names and start setting up our own canopies. Jackie arrives pretty promptly, too, and that's all we're expecting until at least dinnertime or later.

Home away from home. My canopy is on near left.

By the time we've got our stuff pretty much set up, every canopy space in sight has long since been claimed. I'm quite pleased about our location.

I did forget my new slip-on shoes that I scotchguarded specially for this weekend and left in the middle of the kitchen floor, and I forgot to Advantage the dogs (and this is tick country). I hope that's all I forgot.

Afternoon and Evening

There's lots of time to exercise the dogs and hang out and chat, although canopies are spread out so far around the site that it's hard to find anyone and you're not likely to just wander by and see your friends. This happens all weekend--if people you want to see aren't in your specific rotation group, you just don't see them.

It's quite warm and humid. Probably near 90 midafternoon. So much for showering.

Freebies part 1

More freebies

There's early check-in available after 4:00, so we pick up our registration packet and check-in goodies. And what a haul! Clickers, dog and people treats galore, plush doggie toys, plus the big prize, each dog gets a 6x6-foot shade cloth! These things aren't cheap. They won't cover an entire side of a canopy, but each will easily cover even a large crate, and since I have 2 dogs, two of them *will* cover the side of a canopy. With my existing 10x6, I'm set.

Jackie and Arlene and I decide to go out to dinner around 5:00. Right about then, Gwen arrives. So we wait for her to start getting set up so she can join us. About 5:30, Jennifer arrives, so we wait for her to get minimal set up so that she can join us. But then someone backs out, so four of us head out in one car to a not-too-distant fast-food Mexican place with tables to sit and relax. We leave the dogs in their crates and pens at the agility site because, even at 6:30, it's too hot for them to be in the cars for any extended period.

Arlene and Jennifer hanging out. My sweaty jeans sprawl across my chair. Jenn uses my cooler as a handy extra seat. How many unused chairs are there?

Jackie and I are staying at the Amerisuites about 30 minutes from the show site; we don't get there until after 10 pm, then we have to haul our stuff up from the car, set up an x-pen barrier between her dogs' half of the minisuite and my dogs' half, shower, etc. Not in bed until after 11, I think. So much for a leisurely day and being well rested! Because--

We need to be up by 5:00 to get packed up and back to the site by (our guess) 6:00 to get a decent parking spot close to our setup rather than out in the boonies.