Furrari Aussies – Agility and Disc Dogs

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.

So we ran at a mudfest of an agility trial last weekend. It rained Saturday but luckily I only entered Sunday and Monday! The mud definitely didn’t slow Enzo down much but it slowed me down a lot. In Sunday’s JWW, he was running great in the mud, stayed in the weaves when I left laterally but then I didn’t support a send enough and he came flying toward me. Oops on my part but I thought that jump would be more of a given.

Then the standard course was kind of interesting. The teeter was sticking in the mud when it hit and when that happened Enzo stuck the teeter too! Only a split second but still a definite pause. So that has me wondering if it’s the rebound on the teeter that makes him want to get off quickly or if he sees that as his release. The line after teeter didn’t go too well but I saved it. I must have put pressure on his line before he passed me by. He did lateral weaves again with no problem. I front crossed before the aframe just to make sure I could get ahead for the dogwalk but I almost didn’t make the front cross because I couldn’t run quickly in the mud. I think that might be why he was a little high on the aframe but he still got in. His dogwalk was awesome though and he did push out incredibly even though I didn’t quite get ahead of him for the push. Got the Q though and 1st place!

Monday, Jeff came along since we both had the holiday. JWW had some pretty tough lines and a lot of zig zag stuff. I did a double front cross in the beginning and that actually went pretty well. Then in the sequence after the weaves I did a front into a rear cross but he didn’t see my rear cross and we got a back jump. A lot of people ran ahead and serped or pushed off the jump before the one I got a backjump on but I didn’t really think I could get there with Enzo and it would be really ugly if I didn’t.

In standard, he had great contacts again but clipped a bar. After watching the video, I wasn’t real happy with how far to the right I ran before rear crossing the tunnel. I need to focus on setting his line early and then driving in a straight line. Then going through the box after the tunnel I didn’t set his line properly again and he ran for the back of the chute!

Video of both runs that Jeff took:

The overhead view of standard:

Had fun at the USDAA trial this weekend. First one that I’ve been to in quite a few months. I decided to run Enzo in Performance. Probably will from now on. I definitely have more fun running him at 16″ than 22″. Tooney also ran in one run each day. P3 Gamblers yesterday and P3 Jumpers today. She didn’t get the gamble which was near impossible but she ran clean in Jumpers! She’s a good girl and it’s fun to be running her again. No video so I’ll write a little play by play.

Enzo was really awesome all weekend. He missed his very first dogwalk of the weekend but it was a dogwalk going into nothing in gamblers which is a weak point. We turned around and did it again and he got it. He didn’t miss anymore contacts the rest of the weekend and we didn’t have any contact related handling faults. Woohoo! In P3 standard, he knocked the first bar and fell off the table but other than that he did great. He even had to turn up the dogwalk from the tunnel underneath and still got he contact. I recalled him up the dogwalk instead of babysitting the entrance and that let me run up and did a front cross at the end. Glad I practiced that at home this week!

Enzo ran clean in Performance Grand Prix. The dogwalk exit was straight off so that made it easier. He ended up in 2nd place by 0.2 sec. There was one wide turn when I was late on my front cross so that cost a little time. I need to make sure I rotate quicker when I front cross. One of my bad habits.

In Performance Speed Jumping (or is it Performance Steeplechase now?) I was late on a front cross again and he almost took an off course jump but he called off of it but knocked the next bar. He still made it into the second round and got a Q.

Today we ran in gamblers first and this time it was a more reasonable gamble. You could pick either a weave send or teeter send so I picked the weave send. He sent out to the weaves but when he got there he stopped and looked at me standing next to the teeter and ran back. Gamblers just isn’t something I train for so can’t blame him. He did hit both dogwalks though! Then we had to run the 2nd round of PSJ right after that. Sometimes he’s slower when he does back to back runs but he wasn’t this time! I ended getting stuck behind him and got an off course.

P3 Standard was good but unfortunately he knocked the very last bar! I think he lost his footing in the dirt. I heard him scambling. oh well! nice run anyways.

P3 Snookers was pretty straightforward. I did two 6’s and two 7’s. He finished everything and ended up 1st for a Super Q! Good boy! Snookers with him always makes me a bit nervous since he’s and scanner and shoots away from me easily.

P3 jumpers had some tricky angles. At this point the dirt was hard packed with loose stuff on top so he had trouble with his footing and wasn’t able to run as fast. He tries to hard to move quicker, lots of scrambly steps and knocked a bar.

I’m happy with his runs this weekend even though the Q rate wasn’t high. He got 6 of 7 dogwalks and all of his aframes!