We had an all tounament USDAA trial this weekend. Even though it was a 4-star event, it wasn’t a very big trial. About 60 championship dogs and 60 performance dogs. It was hot too! Saturday was in the high 80’s which is not that bad but Sunday was mid 90’s. Way hotter than it’s supposed to be in April here. At last weekend’s trial, I was wearing 3-4 layers in the morning!

Tooney needed her Performance Versatility Pairs Q and Enzo needed one more Grand Prix Q to be done with Nationals stuff. Enzo had his DAM team Q but one of our teammates needed a Q so we wanted to help her get it.

Tooney ran clean in both Perf Speed Jumping and Perf Natl Std on Saturday and won the second round of PSJ on Sunday! She won $28! lol. Tooney had pretty solid runs in the Team events but nothing spectacular as she had faults in most runs. Her teammate Wicket the Corgi also had really solid runs so we ended up in 4th place in PVP! Tooney needs to brush up on her weave entrances again.

In Steeplechase, Enzo knocked 2 or 3 bars so I decided to really make him stop on the second aframe. I said go spot, wait! and he stopped! amazing. Wait is not his contact command but he knows it means to stop moving.

Enzo’s Grand Prix run was a little exciting for my tastes but we somehow managed to get the Q. First his teeter was a little borderline, one of those teeters where he was leaving as it hit the ground but he didn’t get called. One of my friends told me later that the judge was looking at the teeter and thinking about it for a little while. Then after the aframe there was a jump that we had to wrap. You could wrap in either direction to make it work. I decided to wrap to the right since that didn’t require me to leave the teeter to get a front cross in before the aframe even though it was going to be harder to get the turn in that direction. Enzo ended up going straight over the jump and almost took an off course jump kind of off to the left. I had to call him off of that jump, then step over to the left side of the jump he was supposed to wrap and somehow I got him back and around that jump. I’m not even sure how I did it. So more excitement than I needed but we got lucky and got through clean.

Enzo’s team was Ready S.E.T. Go! again but with a different S dog, same T dog. This time we had Savvy the Sheltie instead of Sparks the BC. Our team had some issues. Enzo E’d jumpers, and my two teammate both had really low snookers rounds but nobody E’d standard, which was the course from hell (enzo had 3 bars and a missed aframe and I was pretty happy with that) or relay. Relay got a little exciting too as enzo ran past a jump I tried to serp and almost took an off course tunnel. He was really good and called off of it. We ended just making the cutoff as our team was 13th and 14 teams made it! I was really happy that we helped our teammate get a Q!

3 days and 26 runs! Big thank you to Jeff for helping me take the dogs back and forth. He really makes thing a lot easier and less stressful for me when I have ring conflicts to keep track of. By the end of the weekend, I couldn’t even keep track of what I’d Q’d or placed in and had to look it up. Here’s a link to results and course maps if interested:

http://www.hautedawgs.org/events.html

On Friday, Tooney had an awesome P3 Snookers run for 58 points and 3rd place. She also got 4th in standard, 3rd in jumpers and 6th in PNS. In Relay, she went off course. Enzo Q’d and got 1st (even with a little slip) in Starters Jumpers (6.2 YPS) which finished his AD and allows him to move up to Advanced in everything now. He also got his 1st Grand Prix Q for the season! That was a big relief! Just need one more and he’ll be done for nationals. He was pretty fast and ran it in 5.2 YPS but still about 3 seconds short of the fastest BC’s. His time was right in the mix of a bunch of fast BC’s though. In Advanced Standard he knocked a bar and called on the teeter and in starters snookers the judge got in my way and that got me a little messed up and he missed a weave entry ( actually he entered then came out) and then backjumped one of the reds. Didn’t really matter since he had finished his AD earlier. Oh and he also Q’d and placed 4th in Starters Relay which was his 3rd so that was his SR title.

Here’s Friday’s videos.

Tooney:

Enzo:

On Saturday, Tooney Q’d in P3 jumpers and P3 snookers but no placements. The gamble wasn’t something I expected her to get and in standard, she jumped off the table early and we got a little messed up at the end. Enzo got 1st in Advanced Gamblers (who knew that he understands “right!”), 4th in Advanced standard (good boy calling off the tunnel!) and 2nd in starters snookers. In starters jumpers, he went off course but totally my fault for not cueing a tight turn. Neither dog Q’d in Steeplchase/PSJ. Enzo knocked a bar and missed his aframe contact when I tried to front cross the base. He also ran behind me off the side of the aframe which was a little freaky. In Tooney’s PSJ run she missed the weave entry and then started sniffing! Don’t know if it was stress or if she smelled something good. Very unusual for her though. usually redoing the weave entrance isn’t a big deal to her.

Toooney Saturday:

Enzo Saturday:

For Sunday, I only had 3 runs per dog instead of 5. light day! ha! So I started out the day with a conflict. I ended up running Tooney in P3 relay while Jeff held Enzo. That was probably a mistake since that made him completely wild for his advanced standard run. He leapt off the aframe (not sure if he hit it or not since I was behind him) and went around the next jump and then backjumped it when I tried to bring him around. Jeff missed part of this video since he hit pause accidentally but in the part he missed Enzo pulled off a jump that I didn’t support enough. His teeter was a little iffy too. So Sunday’s tally ended up with Tooney getting 2nd in P3 Gamblers, 3rd in P3 Relay. The P3 gamblers Q finished her PD3! In standard she ran past the teeter at the end. Enzo Q’d and got 3rd in Advanced Gamblers which finished his AG so he can move up to Masters Gamblers! I never thought that Gamblers would be the event that I would ever move up in first since I don’t train for it! He also got a Q in Advanced Relay. Both he and his partner knocked a bar and I almost lost Enzo to a tunnel. My first instinct was to run on the other side of the aframe instead of front crossing before it but it made the baton exchange harder.

Here’s Sunday’s videos

Tooney:

Enzo:

Overall a really good weekend with both dogs getting 8 out of 13 Q’s. Tooney did the best the first day and then maybe got a little tired because it didn’t seem like she was paying attention quite as well the next two days. Enzo seemed to pick up some speed and intensity about midway through the first day which made things pretty exciting. I was glad to have gotten the jumpers and Grand Prix Q before that happened since those were the 2 Q’s that I really wanted this weekend. His dogwalk contacts were really good all weekend, his aframe kind of so-so but at least he was getting most of them and they didn’t completely fall apart. I tried to work the aframe in both gamblers runs. He didn’t knock any first bars and all of the bars that did come down were probably caused by me.

This is a long post, but it was crazy and intense weekend out in the desert, so please read on. First, I need to thank Jenn for all of her help. I was having all kinds of physical problems and she managed to do most of the heavy lifting and leg work the whole weekend.

FDDO is a really great competition because it really tests the disc dog handler to the full extent. We were out on a MLB spring training field, which was absolutely the most amazing field I’ve ever seen in my life. The first event was an obstacle course where you throw discs through hoops, tunnels, around vertical poles, skipping, etc. The 2nd event on Saturday was distance pyramid. It’s a field 60 yards long that gets more and more narrow towards the 60 yards. Sunday started with speed disc where you have to get catches into a box at 15 yards, 20 yards and 30 yards and you’re timed (up to 60 seconds). The last event on Sunday was a 2 minute freestyle routine with music. They combine all 4 events for the overall FDDO champion. The competition was solid, with several past FDDO/Cynosports champions attending.

Jenn competed in the Advanced Division, which is mostly people who don’t do freestyle. She did really good in the obstacle course and got a 3rd place with Tooney. She was only 1 point behind with Enzo. On distance pyramid, she (and Enzo) had problems with the wind and didn’t get many points with either dog. On the speed disc, everybody struggled because the wind was just nasty, especially for the 15 yard box (head wind kept taking the disc out of the box). Despite that, Jenn managed to get a 2nd place with Enzo and a 3rd place with Tooney!

I entered the pro division with both Tooney and Enzo. For the obstacle course, I always get good scores. It’s because I am pretty good at throwing and I’m accurate. I managed to get high scores for both Tooney and Enzo, and Enzo was only 1 point out of 1st place with his score.

Next was distance pyramid. I have been throwing left handed for anything requiring distance this year because my right arm is not 100% (though it’s doing better). I was throwing into a head wind, which made things really tough. I went out with Tooney and because the wind was also blowing left-to-right and in practice my discs were being blown out of bounds, I put myself on the far left side of the pyramid and threw the disc with absolutely no hyzer (completely flat). I let it rip and the instant it left my hand, I knew the throw was going to be something special. It went so straight I was getting concerned it would roll over to the left a bit and go out of bounds. It kept going straight… past 40 yards. Then I was concerned it was going to go out of bounds due to being thrown too far! Luckily, Tooney snagged it about 1 foot from being out of bounds. It was clocked at 47 yards. It was good enough for 2nd place (short by about a foot). Enzo ended up with a solid catch after missing my first 2 attempts and having to go a bit conservative on the last chance throw.

I entered speed disc on Sunday knowing that I was probably in 2nd place overall with Tooney and possibly as high as 3rd place overall with Enzo for the championship. I kept it cool. Enzo went out in speed disc and unfortunately, struggled with the 15 yard box because he likes to jump out of it. He landed outside the box on about 3-4 throws. I ran out of time and had a low score. I knew that could have removed him from the running. Tooney finished with a high score, and got 2nd place! At the end of the round only 4 people finished within 60 seconds I think. That means Enzo was still in the running! I knew Tooney had to still be 2nd overall, with Enzo still possibly 3rd. After a bit, we would be doing our freestyle. I ended up finding out Enzo was tied for 3rd place overall and Tooney was in sole posession of 2nd overall. I was pretty excited.

After doing some math in my head, I figured out that Tooney had to be 4.5 points in front of Enzo. A 4.5 point lead going into freestyle is HUGE. As long as Tooney had a solid freestyle round, she’d get a placement. I told Jenn “I’m going to score a 39 in my freestyle with Enzo and finish ahead of Tooney for 2nd place”. She thought I was nuts… We dressed Tooney up as a bumble bee and ended up having a really solid round with only 4 drops (about 85% catch ratio). It was really fun. Here’s her round. Because she covers so much area, Joel (thanks!) ended up having to zoom out a lot to get the video (click HQ to watch in high quality):

I came off the field with Tooney and knew she had a really good score – better than I could have dreamed. I felt I had to absolutely rock the house with Enzo to catch her, and more importantly to keep him in position for 3rd place at least (keep in mind, he was tied for 3rd overall at this point). We dressed up as skeletons and put on some cool creepy music. Enzo and I clicked on virtually every single throw and it was a thing of beauty. The crowd and Judges loved his routine and more importantly, Enzo, myself and Jenn loved it. I left the field knowing he only had 3 drops in a difficult, innovative routine. I felt I did as good as I could have hoped. Here’s his video (click HQ to watch in high quality):

They did the placements for freestyle and said there was a tie for 1st place. Enzo tied Bella, and after all the tie breakers, they were still tied! Bill said it was the toughest decision he’s ever made as a judge and after almost an hour of discussion, 1st was given to Bella. We both scored a 38.5 (out of 40). I guess Jenn was right – my prediction of 39.0 was too high 🙂 We haven’t seen the final resutls yet, but I think we both scored a perfect 10 in all the judged categories and then had an 8.5 in the catch ratio (objective category). If that turns out to be the case, I consider it a huge compliment from the judges and the crowd who helped cheer us on. Bella’s routine is big with air and lots of linear movement. Enzo’s routine is complex with close work with unique / difficult throws and moves. It’s nice to see judges appreciate both styles.

Then they did the most important results of the day… overall FDDO champions. For 3rd place, they called out Enzo and I was really happy with that. They said 2nd place was separated by just a half point. They called Tooney’s name. I cried like a baby – I couldn’t help it. This little girl has come so far, I can’t even put into words how much work and effort we have devoted to her disc dog play. From a cute little fluffy dog that for several years wouldn’t even look at the disc unless we gave her treats to 2nd place in the FDDO championships – it was special. I also have to thank Jenn because 6 months ago, she decided that I should take over Tooney’s disc training and take her to the next level. It has been an absolute blast playing with Tooney since that time.

Tooney has proven to Jenn and I that she is truly the best k9 athlete in our house – sorry Enzo. She can’t jump as high or run as fast as him, but at this point, she has proven herself to be good at everything she does. Agility, frisbee, herding, course-a-lure – you name it, she will do it and do it at a high level.

Final picture – this is another good reason to love Tooney so much. It doesn’t get cuter than this:

New one for me this weekend. Saturday I went to an AKC trial in the morning and then after it was done I went to an USDAA trial to do Steeplechase with Enzo! Only big drawback was that the USDAA trial was pretty slow running so I got there at noon and had to wait until 6pm to run Steeplechase. If I had known it was going to be that slow then I would have entered at least one Masters something run with Tooney. Sunday, I just went to USDAA and only entered a few runs in the morning so I could try for a Grand Prix Q with Enzo. It was a Masters only trial and Enzo would have real issues if Tooney got to run a bunch and he only got to do one run each day.

So at the AKC trial Tooney did well and got a double Q. She wasn’t really running that fast for her but she ended up with two 2nd places. She at least seems to be listening and paying attention lately. Enzo had a nice run in JWW but knocked the triple and then Standard was not so great. He leapt over the aframe contact and didn’t want to sit on the table. Also had a refusal later on in the run when I pulled away from a jump too soon. The leaping on the aframe didn’t bode well for Steeplechase either so I practiced a lot of nose touches with him on all kinds of stuff.

So I got to the trial and they had only run two classes out of 6 so I knew I had a while to go. I looked at the course map and the Steeplechase only had one aframe and it was a very nice course so I decided it was worth waiting around for. Enzo did really well on the course and didn’t knock any bars but did leap the aframe again. He ended up just making the cutoff by 1 second with the 5 faults added to his time. Whew! Glad to at least have him qualified in two of the three events for USDAA nationals.

Sunday, was just USDAA and Jeff came along since he was getting a private lesson with Benny Wong afterwards to see if Benny had some ideas of things to do with Tooney since Jeff is out of them. Tooney ran first in P3 standard and ended up with first place.

Then Enzo ran in round 2 of steeplechase. There wasn’t much room at the start line so I set him up as far back as I could but then he ended up creeping up on the first jump so he knocked that one and the next one. He’s way too ballistic off the start to make it over the jump when he’s too close. That’s a skill that I’d like to work on with him. I also caused him to run past a jump by not supporting it enough. The first aframe he hit the yellow but definitely leapt off so I marked it by stopping him but he still leapt off the second one. Definitely not a good sign for GP.

Tooney ran clean in PNS and got 2nd. Enzo ran nice but knocked a bar on a wrap. I can tell from the video that he didn’t realize that it was a wrap until he was over the bar so he tried to turn in the air. He also leapt the darn aframe contact again. The next two weeks we’re doing major aframe refresher training going back to lowered aframe and backchaining and lots of rewards. Hopefully this gets him thinking about what he’s doing on the aframe. We have FDDO in Phoenix this weekend so that gives him a weekend off from agility competition. Next weekend is our trip to Dixon for a 3 day USDAA trial!

The lesson with Benny went well and Jeff got a few ideas to try with her. He kind of agreed that we’re kind of limited with what she can do though.

Went to our first frisbee competition of the season here on Saturday. I threw for Tooney and Enzo in Intermediate and Jeff competed with both of them in Open.

Jeff and Tooney had an really awesome round with only three 3 drops. She got scored a lot lower than we thought she would, only 28. That routine was about as good as she can do! Here’s the video:

Enzo and Jeff weren’t quite clicking in their rountine and ended up with 7 drops but the new routine seems to flow pretty nicely compared to before. Enzo was tipping a lot of them off his teeth.

Jeff threw left handed for them in Toss and Fetch since he’s still having numbness problems in his right arm. He did well with Tooney with 9.5 but got zero with Enzo. There was one bad throw into the tents but the other 3 Enzo should have been able to catch but maybe he’s just not quite used to the lefty throws.

Oh and I ended up with 2nd place with Enzo in Intermediate T&F! I had 10 points the first round and 11.5 the second round. I had 7 points in each round with Tooney.

Sunday I went to an AKC trial and got ripped off! lol. I thought I had a double Q with Enzo but when I went to look at the results, it turns out that he had a fault in Standard. I asked a bunch of people who watch my runs and the first couple said they though I was clean too but then I found someone who saw that the judge called Enzo’s teeter. Grr. Not something that we normally have problems with. I front crossed the end of it and Enzo left before I released him but I thought he was still on when it hit the ground. Anyways, he placed 4th in jumpers with a nice run. He was about 2 seconds behind the first place dog who was the 2007 22″ Grand Prix champ so not too bad.

Jeff got his cracked tooth repaired today. We figured out that he probably got his tooth cracked when he was practicing overs with Tooney quite a few months back. She jumped and collided with his face and the side the cracked tooth is on is the side that she hit. Now we think that was probably when she cracked her tooth that was pulled in December. So basically after that incident Jeff had decided not to do overs with her anymore.

Went to an USDAA trial this weekend. This one is relatively close (30 minutes away) compared to most of them (90 minutes away + traffic in the afternoon). It was nice to be able to get up at a more reasonable hour. Still haven’t managed to get Enzo any more Q’s for nationals, unfortunately. His contacts were decent he stoped on about half of his aframes for the weekend and only leapt one. Still stopping short on all but one dogwalk. I think he does that because he thinks if he stops sooner then that means he can leave sooner. I try to make him come all the way down most of the time but sometimes I’m bad and sometimes he’s bad and self releases.

Saturday, Tooney ran first in P3 Standard. She had a good run but she was pretty amped up and left the table when the judge said go. Then Enzo ran in Starters Standard. His contacts were kind of eh, fast and almost maintained criteria but not quite. His dogwalk he hestitated in the spot where’s he’s been stopping early and then took off and for his aframe he had nice striding down into the yellow but didn’t actually stop. On the table he laid down right way but he got up halfway through the count and wanted to jump off the table. It took several seconds and some body blocking but I eventually got him back down. So we managed to Q that run and that finished his Starters Standard title so now he can move up to Advanced in Standard.

Next was PNS/GP. In Tooney’s PNS run, she leapt over the dogwalk contact and then I pushed her off of a jump when I wanted to rear cross. It was a tricky spot where they were coming down with a lot of speed and there was a tunnel ahead but they had to turn 180 to the teeter. You had to pull a little to the jump and then rear cross. I think I got in her path a little. I probably should have tried a front cross there but there wasn’t much of a curve so I wasn’t sure about getting there in time and then I was afraid of flinging them over the next jump even if I did get there. Unfortunatly I made the same mistake in Enzo’s run, even though I did better at staying out of his space I was still putting too much pressure on. At least he had already knocked a bar before that or I would have really been mad at myself for making the same mistake twice. It still kind of annoys me though.

Then we ran in relay. Tooney missed her dogwalk contact but did well otherwise. Tooney’s partner decided he didn’t want to go up the teeter so no Q there. Enzo’s relay partner was Sam a big Golden with an awesome attitude and Enzo’s puppy class classmate. Enzo knocked a bar but we still ended up with first place.

Next was Enzo’s Starters Snookers run where he knocked the first bar and then took the next obstacle since I led out kind of far so we got whistled off right away. I need to have a contingency plan for that situation or my brain doesn’t react fast enough.

Then Tooney ran in P3 snookers and got 53 points for 3rd place and a super Q. That was her 3rd Super Q in Performance and I think that finished her PK3.

Then we ran PSJ/Steeplechase. The opening of the course was one where you’d really like to have a 3 jump lead out but I knew that neither of my dogs would stay. It was 3 jumps very slightly offset to a 90 degree turn to the weaves and there was a straight tunnel parallel to the weaves about 10-15 ft back. With Tooney, I tried running on the right side of the jumps and rear crossed the third jump but she just went right into the tunnel. With Enzo I led out on the other side hoping to at least get far enough out to do a moving front cross before the weaves. I couldn’t get there for that so I RFP’d before the last jump but I did that a little late and he knocked the bar but did get the weaves instead of the tunnel. Unfortunately, he knocked another bar so we didn’t Q. This time he would have made the cutoff with only one bar. He really doesn’t knock a lot of bars in practice but we seem to be getting a lot in competitions.

Sunday, Tooney actually Q’d in 3 out of 4 runs. She didn’t get gamblers but she placed 2nd in Snookers, 2nd in standard and 3rd in jumpers.

Enzo got his first Advanced Gamblers Q. the gamble was Aframe turn away into the tunnel under the aframe and then 2 jumps out. Enzo did it perfectly, he stopped at the bottom of the aframe and I said left tunnel and pointed towards the tunnel and he turned his head and went right in. I don’t really use directionals normally but he does know left and right turns on the ground. Don’t know if the drectional helped or if he just followed my body language.

We ran Starters Standard for fun since he already got his title the day before. It was good that we didn’t need this one because he leapt over the aframe contact. he did one stride over the top and leapt. I marked it and stopped him this time. His dogwalk ended up being really awesome this time, he ran all the way to the bottom.

Enzo needed the Starters Jumpers Q to get his AD and move up in everything but unfortunately he knocked two bars. Really fast time and decent turns though, second fastest time and only 0.1 seconds behind the fastest time and 6.2 yds/s.