We went to the 2014 USDAA Nationals where both Enzo and Slayte competed.  Slayte didn’t have any clean runs, but Enzo had his best finals performances ever and finished 4th in PSJ.

Then we were on to the 2014 Crusty Classic, the California State Disc Championships that runs over two days.  Muse won the championship last year and was looking to defend her title.

Saturday was rainy and windy.  I entered Slayte in the intermediate division and won with a big score.  Muse won the open division with a very strong performance.

Sunday was even windier, despite the forecast telling us it was supposed to be 9mph winds.  That was a joke!  It was cold and very windy.  Only one other competition this year was windier, and that’s saying something as this was the windiest disc dog season I’ve had over the years competing.  Muse got hit with the worst wind she’s had all year in her freestyle round and had a rough time of it.  Somehow, she managed 71% catch ratio.  That took her out of the running for the state championship, but we did the best we could.  Slayte again won the intermediate division and won the award for the single highest round of toss/fetch for the entire weekend.

Key turned 6 months old at the competition and I debuted her in freestyle.  Being such a young pup, freestyle simply means multiple discs (safe and simple).  Jenn and I are amazed at her focus, drive and total professionalism on the field.  It is amazing!  When I walked out onto the field with her for the first time, it was like she had done it hundreds of times already.  She is the most promising pup we have had and we are so lucky to have her.  I can’t wait to see what she does in agility and disc in the coming years.

The highlight of the weekend for me was being able to retire Tooney from competition!  Jenn competed with her Saturday and I competed Sunday so we could share the celebration 🙂  In the final throw of her career, she caught the disc right in the middle of the bullseye.  It is fitting since as a team we were known to have consistently accurate throws and catches.

Key and Finn had a reunion Saturday night and they rumbled like Steve calls it, WWE style.  It was a great time as they went non-stop over an hour!  They won’t see each other again for several months, so I’m glad we had this time together.

I was lucky enough to compete in both the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge National Finals and Skyhoundz World FInals.

First up was the Skyhoundz Discdogathon World Finals, which was the biggest on record with over 100 teams attending.  Ez-ups were 3 deep in certain places around the field.  At the last chance qualifier we entered Slayte and Muse in several of the events.  Slayte qualified in bullseye with both Jenn and I!  Chuck Middleton and I qualified with BamBam in the pairs D/A.  Muse was already qualified in several events for the finals.

At the Discdogathon finals, Muse was on fire.  She fished top 10 in time trial and spot landing, 15th place in pairs d/a and 3rd in bullseye!  I finished 9th with Slayte in bullseye.  Chuck and I finished 5th in pairs d/a with BamBam.  Here are all 3 world finals bullseye rounds (we didn’t film any of the other rounds):

At the Purina IDC National Finals, Muse and I had our best freestyle round of the year so far.  We did our best and only had 1 miss, finished in 4th place.

It was a great week of disc doggin’ and will be one to remember for a long time.  Despite scoring big points in several events, having placements, competing on a huge stage and all of that – it wasn’t the highlight of the trip.  The highlight was Key suddenly being able to track and catch discs out of nowhere.  A week earlier she struggled to follow the disc and would jump erratically at high discs and would tumble while chasing low discs.  At 5 months, compared to Muse at that age, Key is faster, better catching ability, better tracking, stronger jumper and more stamina.  It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.  We compared her to videos of Muse at the same age.  Muse had better tug drive at that age, so that is still an area we are working on with Key.  This is just amazing and far and away was the best part of the whole trip:

A week later, we had our dogtoberfest event where Muse placed 2nd overall Saturday and won overall Sunday.  Jenn won toss/fetch event with her on Sunday!  She was in the awards photo for every event on Sunday, so that’s pretty impressive.  Enzo finished 5th overall both days.  Slayte had a solid outing and is loving disc every time he gets to compete now.  Key also made her debut in competition and was very impressive.  People are starting to refer to her as Keybot because of her similar performance to Muse (AKA Mubot) being a frisbee catching robot.  Most dogs at that age are just learning to catch, while Key is pursuing the discs and learning how to approach them.  You can see in some of the videos how she watches the disc, usually putting her head down as she follows it.