Video will come later after we get home from our cross country trip. We left our house last Monday to drive cross country to Lexington. Monday we stopped by the Hawley’s place in AZ to make our final decision on our puppy. After our first trip out we really liked two of the puppies. I thought it would be a difficult decision which one but in the end, we just knew which one was the “right” one for us. We came to the realization in about 15 minutes this time. So the puppy formally known as Frost, now Slayte, will be coming home with us at the end of our trip. We had a great time chatting with the Hawley’s for the rest of that evening and got to hug and play with our puppy a little.

So then we spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday driving, and driving and driving with our trailer. Enzo was pretty good Monday and Tuesday but then Wednesday he just had enough. Started whining and screaming at us. We let him play a little frisbee at some of our stops and that helped a little. He was starting to get a pretty crazed looked on his face.

We arrived in Lexington aroung 7pm on Thursday and we were all very happy to be done with driving for a few days!

Friday was the State Team Tournament which is mostly just for practice. I didn’t really have great runs with either dogs but they were both just really happy to be running and quite excited! Enzo’s running contacts looked good so that was reassuring but his running teeter flyoff was not! I marked it with a hey! and made him pause for a second, was just really hoping to make some kind of impresssion on him! I couldn’t tell at the time if he cared or not. Tooney looked great in both her runs but for some reason Friday is a blur and I don’t really remember much of anything else about it right now!

I think that’s enough typing for now so more later!

This disc dog event is dedicated to Greg Mauldin who(m?) we lost several years ago in a motorcycle accident. We knew him, but not very well. He was an avid disc dogger and was in our first disc dog class.

The competition consists of 3 events. Toss/fetch, obstacle course and bullseye. It was a huge turnout, 60 entries! After the toss/fetch and obstacle course, I thought Enzo was probably in 1st place as he had a great toss/fetch and a solid obstacle course. Unfortunately, I got hosed on the bullseye with a huge change in wind. It got way stronger and completely changed direction. I didn’t adjust in time and he got a low score. I figured that took him out of it. Tooney, on the other hand, had a decent toss/fetch and a solid obstacle course going into the final round of bullseye. In bullseye, she had a great round. We left early figuring both dogs did pretty good, but not enough to win and we had to get the trailer for our big trip.

I got an email of the results. They gave out awards to the winners of each of the 3 individual events and the overall combined winner. Tooney won! She also was only 0.5 points away from winning the bullseye. Enzo, on the other hand, won the toss/fetch event! It was a difficult toss/fetch as the field was configured to only allow to throw in 1 direction and it was into a head wind. With no bonus zone and a narrowing field (only 10 yards wide at 40 yards), it was risky for me to throw 40 yeards, but I did and it was worth it. He had 17 points, which is awesome for no bonus zone and the narrow field with out-of-bounds!

One interesting point is that there were a total of 8 catches in the entire toss/fetch event at 40 yards and I accounted for 4 of those (Enzo 3, Tooney 1). There were probably over 300 total throws, so it was a nice accomplisment. I rarely feel proud of myself, but this time I am. It wasn’t easy and it shows I’m a pretty good thrower! Instead of always giving the dogs the credit for any success we have, I’ll take some credit this time. I’m awesome. HAHA!

We are at AKC nationals with Enzo having an outside shot at making the finals. Jenn will post an update on that with videos some time after we get back.

The disc dog season is continuing with Enzo on a roll! He won the 2011 Las Vegas UFO competition and should also be at the top of the UFO standings for a while now, with a perfect score of 40 so far. We drove there early in the morning, competed, then drove back late after the competition. Long day, but it was worth it. Tooney got to play again and had fun. Jenn got to play with Enzo again and it was pretty funny in their first round. The disc was going all over the place because Jenn didn’t warm up, but Enzo gladly caught them all and paused to peer into the audience to look at all of the people dressed in yellow (that looked like me)! He was completely confused. Yellow is my color of course, but it also the Las Vegas group’s color (Atomic Dogs). See their club photo:

Enzo had a great toss/fetch round and was PERFECT. He is making toss/fetch look EASY. I think he had the highest toss/fetch score of the day around 15.5 probably. He also had the highest freestyle score of the day.

Jenn and I have made a general decision with all of the dogs that it will always be in the best interest of the dog’s development to do things that will give them a chance to learn and be their best, whether it’s disc, agility or anything else they do. For disc, this means to throw in such a way that would give them the best opportunity for the most possible points. I prefer to throw nice floaters at 40 yards that any dog should be able to catch. With some wind conditions, this type of throw is impossible. Based on wind conditions, don’t throw the conservative method where your best chances are 10 points if you are perfect, throw so that your best chances are 20 if you are perfect. It may be a higher risk situation because we are likely throwing in such a way that is more challenging for the dog to catch. Whether or not they are successful in terms of catching, they are successful in terms of experience and the dogs always enjoy a challenge.

With that said, wind during the toss/fetch round was not very good for Enzo, being a left-to-right wind. Strong left-to-right or strong tail winds are were his nemesis, which happens to be the preferred way to throw for a right-handed thrower such as myself. It pushes the disc down making it fly like a line-drive instead of a nice floating throw. I could have potentially thrown from the opposite side, but then there are a whole host of problems from the thrower’s standpoint – mainly with the disc being pulled way off course to the left if putting too much hyzer on the disc or by doing a nose dive into the ground if putting too much anhyzer on the disc. Basically, I would need to throw much better if I throw from the right-to-left cross wind side. I CAN throw good in those conditions, but if I throw from the left-to-right cross wind side, I WILL throw good and Enzo will have a chance for a big score.

When the disc is at 4-6′ in the air at 40 yards, Enzo has a tendancy to blow past the disc by running right under it without any reaction or he will mis-time his jump. We’ve seen this over and over again. I have had so many 0’s in toss/fetch because of this I can’t even tell you. However, I keep going out and giving him the chance to learn. It has turned out to be a great decision because I rarely ever see him make these mistakes. He is adjusting his stride and has great timing with almost every throw, even in practice.

Here’s videos of our runs from last weekend. Enzo got a Double Q on Friday. He almost ran past a jump at the end in JWW but I saved it at the last moment. The tunnel was calling his name. lol.

He had a nice run in standard. I was worried about the turn to the tunnel under the dogwalk but we got it! The rest of the course was pretty straighforward.

Then Sunday’s JWW, I decided to try for a front cross that I knew was borderline for whether or not I could get there. It was close but I was late which caused him to knock the triple.

Another nice standard Sunday afternoon. He was a little short on his DW contact but didn’t get called. It wasn’t a very nice approach up the dogwalk but I didn’t want to hang back to manage it because that would put me too far behind.

Here’s Enzo’s video. Near perfect routine. At 55 seconds into the video, I attempt to throw a disc under my leg and the disc hits my KNEE on the way under and knocks it out of my hand. It wasn’t even where I attempted to throw it… Is it a perfect routine? Maybe not. Is it a 0-drop routine? I would argue yes! Oh, and the reason it happened is because that small sequence is completely freestyle. I don’t have anything set that I do there, and that is the only part of my routine that is like that, except for the very end if I have extra time. This “drop” is probably going to haunt me for a long time. There is one thing I have really wanted to achieve with each dog and that’s a perfect routine. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Here’s Tooney’s routine and we got her toss/fetch on film also! She is one of the most amazing toss/fetch dogs EVER and her freestyle is good, too. She has a “big” frisbee routine where she covers lots of ground and lots of medium to long throws.

2011 disc dog season started off for us with a UFO local championship.

First off, the most important announcement. Tooney was back competing at full strength! She did great. As usual, in toss/fetch she didn’t drop a disc (14.5 points) and for the first time in about 9 months, she had her first freestyle round! About 3 weeks ago we did a 1 minute freestyle round in practice, but that was literally the only time we did any freestyle at all since last year! She did great and finished in 5th place!

Next, and a close 2nd, Enzo had his first sort of perfect round! He had 0 drops, I had 1. I actually fumbled a disc and it snagged my shorts when I tried to throw it and it fell about 2′ in front of me. It appears to have been counted as a throw as they had Enzo with 96% catch ratio. Jenn will post a video. Enzo was perfect in toss/fetch although I couldn’t hit the bonus zone and got 13.5 points. I threw everything either to the sides of the bonus zone or past it.

Oh yeah, Enzo won the competition 🙂

Well we finally got a JWW Q and a Double Q on Saturday! It has been about a month since the last time Enzo and I Q’d in JWW! You would think it would be standard that we would have issues Qing in since switching to running contacts but no, not after the first month. So I spent most of our practice this week focusing back on my handling skills. In standard the course had the dogwalk going into nothing with a right turn pull to a jump. Probably the toughest dogwalk exit for us. I could have actuallyh done a big leadout and pushed off the dogwalk but I decided to try the pull and it worked! we got the double Q with two 1st places! I think with pulls off the dogwalk I just have to time it so that I can be running hard towards the end but be just a step behind him as he hits the contacts.

Today’s runs didn’t go quite as well but we did have good contacts again! well at least the dogwalk and aframe. He did come off the teeter a bit early. It wasn’t called but it did cause him to miss the next jump which was a tight 180 turn.