Testing the Waters

SUMMARY: A little Calero Creek Trail hike.

This coming Sunday, our Bay Area Ridge Trail group will be hiking Santa Teresa Park. The only part of the planned hike that I haven't been on is actually outside the park, flat along Calero Creek. (Yes,  there are places where you have to come down off one ridge to get to the next one. This is one such place.)

And the trail map notes that there is a "seasonal creek crossing." And a couple of photos that I found on the web seemed to show substantial water. I wanted to check it out before we all go there Sunday.

So on Friday morning the Merle Girls and I drove all the way to the park, hiked 1.2 miles along the trail, and then 1.2 back. Not a strenuous hike. Beautiful day, quiet trail, saw only two joggers, one biker, and one horse the whole 50 minutes.

Much of the trail led between an orchard and the creek. The first part of the trail, closest to the road, had a pretty fence separating it from the orchard. (Too much underbrush separated us from the creek to ever get a good view of it.)

That shortly became barbed-wire fence, but it is well-tended, taut wire fencing as the trail strolls amiably among tall, shady trees. 

But--huh--wonder what goes under here so often as to have pushed the wire up and worn a path? Going from the orchard to the creek? Or vice-versa?

The hills of Santa Teresa Park rise behind the orchard.

Looking back whence we came.  It's a gorgeous January day, temps in the mid-60s (mid-15s C).

I liked the lichen growing on the trees; you'd never notice it during the times of the year when the trees are fully leafed out.

 Oh, and look at these cute dogs I found lying next to the path!

And, well, here we are at that seasonal crossing. The trail here is briefly concrete, which dips into the creekbed but not all the way down. With not much rain and a very small creek, the water just stops here next to the roadbed. There would have to be a lot of water for it to be high enough to go over the road--I don't think we'd want to wade through that! So this week, at least, we will stay high and dry if we get this far on the hike (coming from the other direction). But we can admire the twisty turny shade of that tall tree.

Mission accomplished (after a bit more hiking), we returned to MUTT MVR and headed home for some cool drinks and a rest. 

Foggy Night at the Agility Field

SUMMARY: Just some photos and notes.

I was going to post about Boost's training work, but instead, well, I became enchanted with the fog.

According to the newspaper's weather report, last Saturday South San Jose got .70 inches of rain and .25 more on Monday. My rain gauge says different.

In any event, everything around here is now saturated, and top that off with unseasonably warm weather this week. 

As a result, on the drive up to class last night, for the last mile I encountered clouds of fog drifting across and alongside the road, surrounding me in an odd, shifting tunnel of gray. When I alit from MUTT MVR, I admired the softly glowing agility field:

Kinetic the Papillon ponders her first agility lesson and carefully checks out all the dogs. Kinetic hikes with us regularly, many long miles without having to be carried even once.

The Merle Girls would like there to be some kind of action, here.

Our instructor shows us how it's done. At least, we think that's Ace and his handler out in the fog.

Boost's full sister (but not littermate) TCam also shows us how it's done, as the fog tries to take the field.

They can both really hustle!

And here, for your enjoyment, is the current #1 Mixed Breed AKC (I never dreamed I'd ever be saying that phrase!) agility dog, Roo. Is she good-looking or WHAT?

"Can haz photo?" ---or--- "Use the Force, Luka!"

But one of the best parts of the evening was The Owl's Song: From a Great Horned Owl, high in a dark tree, and I ran my video--you can admire the drifting fog, but then just listen--the perfect sound for a night like this:

On the way home, the fog had thickened enough that I drove that first mile--which I've driven hundreds of times at 40 MPH--at around 20, and at times on that curvy foggy road, 20 was a bit much as the road vanished and it wasn't entirely obvious whether it was vanishing into the fog or over the side of the mountain. Glad the fog cleared away as I descended the hill.

Why Discouraged?

SUMMARY: Thinking about Tika's weekends and gnawing on statistics.

I keep thinking, well, Tika did Q 40% (4 of 10 Qable runs) this last weekend, and really, that's nothing terrible. But why does it feel so terrible? I mean, other than all the stupid things that kept us from Qing?

It's because it's feeling like a trend, and I don't like the way the trend is going.

For the 13 months from Sept 2010 to Sept 2011, covering 14 USDAA trials and 170 Qable runs, Tika's average Q rate was 71%. That includes two Regionals, a year apart. And she always brought home multiple placement ribbons. Not always first, but, f'rinstance, at this most recent Labor Day Regional, out of 16 runs against 14 to 18 other dogs, we came home with four 2nds, four 3rds, and four 4ths.

Since then, things seem to be going downhill.

The late-september trial, 55% Qs.
The October trial, 40% Qs.
The November trial, 27% Qs.
December, 44%.
January, 40%. And no placements. Not one. Against half a dozen dogs.

Her Top-Ten point average per day for that 13-month period was 7.3. (Or--oh, wait--it might be higher than that because I didn't count Team top 10s. Huh.) Our average in the 5 trials since that period has dropped to 4.7 per day. Then, this last weekend--nothing. Zilch.

I've known that I've been lucky with Tika. I've known that she's getting older. But has she really gone past her peak and is plummeting that rapidly? Or am I just slacking off?

I think it's good that we've got a bunch of CPE trials coming up--they'll give me another benchmark for how she's doing compared to her average rate in that venue.

Tomorrow, on to more cheery stuff--training with Boost.

Agility Trial Colors: Purple

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday