Enzo has just been named the 2009 D2iSC (Disc Dogs in Southern California) Champion! It’s an annual award given to the disc dog team that earns the most points based on your finishes in your best 3 out of the 4 major competitions hosted here in southern California. Enzo and I beat out over 80 other teams to get this award! It will be presented at our holiday get-together.

Enzo also finished in 5th place with Jenn due to their great toss and fetch finishes this year. That’s impressive considering they don’t do freestyle. Freestyle teams earn more points.

Tooney and I finished in 12th place!

Here’s a couple pics from this year of my bestest buddy in the whole world. And yes, I love him so much, I bring myself to say “bestest”. I can’t help it:

What a fun but exhausting weekend. It was the windiest competition of the year, so some of the rounds weren’t as good as maybe they could have been. Jenn was also recovering from the flu. It was the biggest UFO and Crusty Classic in California history! Both days ran really late. This was the last disc competition for a long time for me, so I had to make the best of it!

Saturday was the UFO major. In intermediate division, Jenn got 3rd with Enzo with I think only 6 points. Yeah… the wind was THAT bad. There were probably more scores of 0 than not. Tooney didn’t compete with Jenn because she’s at the age we need to start resting her a bit. For my first round of freestyle with Enzo, the wind was really, really, really strong. He did great and after the 1st round, he ended up in 5th place. His toss/fetch was very solid at 7.5, but I only got 3 throws off – it was my fault, sorry Ebby! He missed the t/f top 10 cut by only 0.5 point. For the 2nd round of freestyle, Enzo was AWESOME! I knew since he had a solid t/f score that our placement should move up. They announced the awards for the top 3 freestyle – I figured we had a REALLY good chance of being in the top 3 – no mention of Enzo. Wow, that’s odd….. Then, announcing the open overall top 4 (t/f + both rounds freestyle) and Enzo was also nowhere to be found… I thought that was strange, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. No big deal!

SCORING ERROR!?!?! Yes, on Sunday, they found 2 major errors in the scoring calculations on the spreadsheet. After the new calculations, Enzo was 2nd in freestyle and 4th in the overall! Then, after yet ANOTHER mistake, Enzo moved to 3rd in the freestyle… whatever the placements are, he did good!

Enzo’s 1st round freestyle UFO Major. Notice at the beginning, the disc almost blew off my finger and I started laughing since I recovered! That’s a very risky and difficult move to do, especially with the wind, but I don’t back down from a challenge. After my round, friends surprised me by running out and throwing stuffed bananas at me because I dress up in yellow. We didn’t get it on video, though.

Enzo kicking butt for his 2nd round:

Little Tooney had 2 decent rounds in freestyle. It was really windy and she struggles more than Enzo in the wind. She doesn’t have the quick reactions that he does to recover when the disc moves with the wind. As expected, she didn’t make the cut. However, in toss/fetch, nothing can stop her, even with the brutal wind… at least I thought… In the 1st round of t/f, she was great. She ended up in 1st place overall with 12 points. I was stoked, and I figured we’d probably win it because she’s so good. For our 2nd round of t/f, the event was running really late and I was the last person to go since she was in first place (they run last to first). I had my sun glasses on because I didn’t think I’d need to bring my regular glasses with me. I couldn’t see a thing and as each competitor went, it was darker and darker out. Unfortunately, for our second round, we were only average, and yes, I blame it on the fact it was nearly pitch black out. I don’t normally make excuses, but it was a huge disadvantage. She got 9 points in the second round. It caused me more of a problem than her probably. I couldn’t see the lines on the field at all. I think we ended up in 5th place in t/f. I think she ended up 13th overall in the open division, which is actually really good considering how big the competition was!!!

Tooney’s round of freestyle:

On Sunday, the wind was still blowing hard and it was COLD! Jenn and I were freezing with lots of layers on. Jenn didn’t feel all that great and couldn’t finish her rounds, but had a really good toss/fetch with Enzo considering the wind (12 points). The Crusty classic is in memory of Steve “Crusty” Walsh who passed away 9 years ago. It’s also a celebration and show of appreciation to all the disc doggers and their k9 athletes not with us anymore. Since it’s a special occasion and Halloween is coming up, I felt I should do something special. I did – and everybody loved it!!!

For Enzo’s freestyle, we went out as Skeletor and Mr. Bones. I think you’ll like this. I visually lost Enzo on a couple of moves/throws, but it was still worth it! My absolute favorite part is when we’re walking onto the field, Enzo is herding me… SO CUTE!

Tooney and I went out as Hannibal and Officer Tooney. For the first half of the routine, she was on fire. I noticed a lot of blood coming out of her mouth and knew she cut her mouth. This isn’t unusual for her, and I knew she’d be ok to play through it. If she stopped running around or anything, I would have stopped. Unfortunately, she was hesitant when catching discs for a while after that. She didn’t even open her mouth on some of them, but she still did great. She had fun and we looked very cool I must say. The song choice is a classic, so turn it up!

The next round was bullseye, which is a toss and fetch type of event with 2 discs. I always do really well with both Enzo and Tooney, so I was excited about this. It requires a lot of running around for both the dog and handler. Since I’m in good shape, it always works out well for me. I was testing out an idea with Enzo off to the side before my round and OUCH! WTF??? Something popped in my leg, just above my knee. It was horrible pain and couldn’t stand at all. Well, to make a long story short, when I went out with Enzo, I could only barely walk. I usually get 8-9 throws off with him, but I only got 5 off. He caught all 5 for the maximum # of points, so we still had a good round. Because of the wind, most people were getting really low scores, so I think he had one of the best of the day.

When Tooney went, I was feeling somewhat better and I got the usual 8-9 throws off with her. Unfortunately, when I was throwing discs the 1 direction, she kept missing them and she NEVER MISSES! My throws were perfect and she’d tip them. We figured out later it was probably because she was going from a sunny area to shade. Oh well, she still did pretty good by catching about 5 or 6 I think.

Jenn was sick so we had to leave early and we didn’t get to hear the placements. It turns out Enzo ended up in 3rd overall! If I knew that we scored that good in freestyle, I could have pushed myself during our bullseye round and we could have placed higher. It doesn’t really matter, I was just happy to put on a good show.

I must say… I look GOOD. Wow, Jenn’s a lucky girl.

We went to Vegas for a UFO Local last weekend. Small competition but well run and the Vegas people are great. The weather was not so great though. It was 108 degrees when we left the field on Saturday! Tooney and Enzo did great in the heat. They didn’t seem to mind. Tooney had a great freestyle round, she had tons of energy. Enzo was also awesome. He didn’t have any drops until about 2/3’s into the routine. Ended up with 3 drops total. Tooney rocked Toss and Catch. Not sure what the total was but she had 5 catches and 3 or 4 were in the zone. Enzo had a good T&C round too but Jeff didn’t quite have enough time to get the 5th throw out. Tooney had pretty decent rounds with me in intermediate too but I messed up Enzo’s 2nd round.

Tooney ended up 3rd with me in intermediate and won the Open divsion with Jeff! Enzo got second in intermediate. The little girl is still improving and really suprising everyone! That had really factored into our decision to put off getting another dog for a while. We’ll re-evaluate in another year.

Sunday I went to an AKC trial but didn’t Q in anything. Tooney was off in her JWW run and ended up throwing up afterwards so I scratched her for standard. Enzo knocked 1 bar in JWW when I was too far behind and late on a rear cross. I crossed behind him when he was over the bar. I probably should have just let him jump long on that jump and crossed after he landed. In standard, Enzo had another nice run but missed the aframe contact. I think he’s taking little steps instead of striding down the aframe which is causing problems because he’s not patient enough to take enough little steps. I’m going to try putting a stride regulator back on top of my aframe and see what that does. I think ee did his aframe the way I want him to do it in class tonight. Hard to see exactly what he’s doing sometimes.

Had a great time at the Bay Team Regional in Prundale, CA. Great location, great weather, really well organized trial. Saturday was the DAM Team/PVP and Grand Prix round 1. Tooney was paired up with a young Pyr Shep named Gator with the team name Gator’s Wild Ride in ToonTown and Enzo was teamed up with Pixel and Sparks with the team name of ESP.

Unfortunately our first run of the weekend was Grand Prix Round 1 and it was a really tough course. Both Tooney and Enzo were wired and the course started with the dogwalk and an off course tunnel right in front of the dogwalk. Tooney ran straight into the tunnel and Enzo leapt off from halfway down the down ramp and almost went into the tunnel so they were both NQ’d right off the bat. The course had two places where you had to send to the backside of a jump and both dogs did it right the first time but went around it the second time. Need to practice that some.

Next was Team standard. Tooney and her partner both went off course in this. Enzo had a pretty good run but missed the aframe contact and then crashed the last bar. Tooney had also crashed into the last bar and I thought that was strange so I turned around and saw that there was a gopher hole right before the jump! I pointed it out to the jump setter and they filled it. Luckily no dogs were hurt.

In team jumpers, Enzo had a really nice run with just one bar down when I mis-timed my rear cross on a tight wrap. Tooney had an ok run, I got a little lost and front crossed a little too soon and pulled her off a jumped and got a refusal and then she missed the weave entry and got another refusal.

Team Gamblers was pretty straightforward. I got a little messed up with my opening plans but both dogs did a bunch of stuff and got some points.

In Team Snookers Enzo had a decent run and got through number 3 in the closing when he shot out of the straight tunnel and went over the wrong jump. Tooney had a really good snookers run got throught the closing and ended up in 6th place.

Both Tooney and Enzo’s teams weren’t doing very good going into the relay. Both teams did pretty good in relay and that brought us up but not quite enough. Tooney’s team ended up one placement below the cutoff in PVP and Enzo’s team ended up two placements below the cutoff in DAM team. Everyone in Enzo’s team was already qualified so we were just playing for fun, but we were hoping to get Tooney’s teammate qualified. It was kind of a weekend of a lot of almosts for me!

Sunday started with Tooney’s P3 Standard and Tooney did great in this run but the judge got in my way when he was judging the aframe and when I was trying to avoid running into him, Tooney ran off course. The judge apologized but we were still eliminated 😦

Then Tooney and Enzo both ran in P3/Masters Gamblers. The gamble was a tunnel/aframe discrimination and they had to take the tunnel on the other side of the aframe. Both of my dogs took the aframe. They’re pretty much trained to take the obstacle closest to me unless I’m pushing into their path so that was expected. My opening plan was a little messed up because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. I also forgot that I was running Enzo in this when I walked it and then decided that I wanted to practice his dogwalk without ever walking that plan.

Next was Enzo’s Advanced Standard run. He did really good and got a Q and 2nd place. That was his 3rd advanced standard Q so he can move up to masters now in standard.

Then we had to go right over to the Steeplechase ring. He was a little slower than normal since he ran back to back and he was a little confused about where to go in the opening. He ended up knocking a bar anyways because I didn’t get ahead enough for a serpentine move. I wanted to make sure that I supported the triple enough before that but I needed to get ahead sooner. He wasn’t fast enough to make the cutoff with the bar. without the bar he would have just made it. Tooney had a really good PSJ run and made it into the second round. I layered a jump in the opening which I didn’t do with enzo and that made a big difference in the part where he was confused. I don’t really like layering if I can avoid it. I didn’t have a choice with Tooney because she wouldn’t let me lead out far enough but that actually worked out better.

Last run for Sunday was Advanced Snookers for Enzo. I had to improvise a little when I didn’t get ahead enough to push him off of a number 3 jump that I wanted him to run by. I kind of forgot what I was doing there. He got the Q though! That was his first Advanced Snooker Q so he needed that one.

Monday was a little lighter on runs. Thank goodness because my feet were trashed at this point. I have flat feet and they hurt a lot when I’m on them a lot. Enzo only had Advanced Standard and Advanced Jumpers. He didn’t need the standard leg so I tried to work his contacts a little. Then advanced jumpers was pretty tight and a tricky for an Advanced Course. At one point I had to run around a jump and that caused Enzo to knock a bar. Hoping to get that Q so he could move up to Masters for everything. Oh Well.

Tooney had Masters Snookers, Jumpers and Standard. In snookers I didn’t walk my plan enough and ended up sending her over the wrong jump. She did well in Standard and got 4th. Jumpers was a mess. I had trouble remember the course for some reason. Then at the end of the day Tooney ran in the second round of Performance Speed Jumping. Finally a nice course! She had a really awesome run and ended up in 6th place. Only around 1 second out of 3rd place. Nice to end the weekend with a smooth run!

Jeff took a lot of video so I’ll be posting some later!

It was a very hot weekend for SoCal. Saturday we had an FDDO frisbee competition in Long Beach. It was probably mid 90’s or so there so hot but bearable. No freestyle at this competition so we just had the games: Obstacle course where you throw the disc through obstacles and hope the dog can catch it, Speed disc where you get 3 discs and try to hit a box at 15 yds, get a 20 yd throw, and get a 30 yd throw in under 60 seconds, and the final event was distance pyramid where you get 3 throws but only your last throw counts. The FDDO games are a lot of fun.

I only played with Enzo and Jeff played with Tooney and Enzo. I did pretty bad with Enzo in the obstacle course, my timing with him on shorter throws is not there. We finished speed disc and got 3rd in intermediate in that event and I got a big zero in the distance pyramid. Jeff did ok with Tooney and awesome with Enzo. They got 3rd in the obstacle course and 2nd overall!

Sunday we went to an AKC trial in Van Nuys. It ended being over 100 degrees. Way too hot! Jeff ended up coming along so I got some video this time. Not the greatest day to watch agility but it’s nice when he goes with me. In JWW, Tooney broke her start and went straight into the wrong end of the tunnel so I just pulled her. It wasn’t worth going on and I really needed to do that for a while anyways just didn’t want to. Enzo had a really nice run and got 1st place. Here’s the video:

It was even hotter when we ran standard. It wasn’t too horrible in the shade but in the sun it felt like you were baking. Tooney had a nice run and we got through that difficult line in the back from the dogwalk to the not obvious side of the tunnel. Right before the teeter I took my eye off of her and she didn’t come in to the teeter.

Then in Enzo’s run I got behind at the chute and he curled in towards me and didn’t see the jump. He had already knocked the jump before the chute anyways. I think I said go chute when he was over the jump. At the end I cut the rear cross too tight and he ended up missing the last jump. Unusual for him to not go on but I can see that I got too far ahead before the rear cross and I needed to hang back a little and done a more gradual rear cross. At least his contacts are back to where they were before…Not stopping but going all the way to the bottom.

So the past few weekends haven’t been great for Q’s but we’re still at 608 points for the invitational so far. Still meeting my goal of averaging 300 points/month.