We had a UFO local in Norco. The weather was perfect and the competition ran smoothly. It was really a special time for my group of rabid disc doggies. All four of them got to play and a bit of history was made!

Tooney had a perfect round of freestyle! It was something I always wanted to achieve with each dog. I never expected it to happen at her current age of 10.5, but I am so happy she did it! Interestingly enough, Enzo had a perfect round on the same field last year. Here is her round:

Slayte has been very distracted at disc dog competitions. We’ve tried all sorts of different ideas of how to handle it with little success. We noticed that he tends to be distracted in freestyle with long throws. We decided I would simply keep most of the throws very short and throw a few longer ones at the end. This was our first attempt at it and he did really well with the new idea! I really think this will work in the long run. He did great in toss and fetch (got 5 throws off!) and the result was that he placed higher than Enzo in a freestyle competition for the first time ever! Slayte also played with Jenn and got 3rd place in intermediate with her!

Muse was a huge surprise. She’s only 7 months old, but showed a ton of maturity. In her first round with me, she was spectacular. As the day went on, she got a bit tired and the wind picked up so she had some minor struggles in the other rounds, but it was still impressive!

Not to gloss over it, but Enzo also did really well, especially in his toss/fetch round. He’s had countless great competitions, so it’s time to give the others more face time. I am so elated with how the dogs performed and so lucky to be able to compete with all of them.

Muse is going to likely debut her freestyle at competition in a couple of weeks at our UFO major. I wasn’t planning to do it so early with her, but she’s doing so well that I think it’s time to do it! She isn’t doing any tricks at all, but already can do a nice, smooth and consistent round of freestyle. I don’t have any real sequences yet but I am able to “freestyle” it pretty well with her. She’s easy to work with.

The 2013 disc dog season already started for us with an invitation to the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge in Las Vegas.  Enzo had a great round of freestyle!

Here are the goals for the 2013 season:

Goals for Myself

* Master the forehand throw to a point where it is nearly as reliable as my backhand, especially in wind. A change in grip may be in order.

* Develop another difficult move / throw such as a type of back roll, kick or something similar.

* Ability to throw consistently over 65 yards.

Goals for Tooney

What can I say about Tooney.  She’s going to turn 11 this season and as long as she’s having a good time, that’s all that matters.

* My goal is for her to be able to compete the whole year or at least most of the year.

Goals for Enzo

Enzo is officially no longer the focus of my disc dog training and planning for competition, traveling, etc.  He has accomplished so much for me that it is all just bonus from this point forward.

* My only goal for Enzo is to remain healthy so that he can have a long career.

Goals for Slayte

Slayte is a huge challenge for me.  In practice he is the model disc dog.  He’s fast, jumps high and catches almost everything.  At competition, he becomes distracted, withdrawn and sometimes seems sad.

* Unlike last year when I had big plans for Slayte, this year I have one simple goal.  By the end of the year, Slayte is putting 100% effort at competitions.

Goals for Muse

Muse is a special puppy.  Right now she’s 7 months old and has all the natural abilities to make a good disc dog: strong play drive, good focus, off the charts prey drive and awesome tracking ability.  This little girl has the potential to do some very, very special things in the disc dog world.  It is hard to contain my excitement!

* She has shown some distractibility in public.  By the end of the season, reduce the distraction level to near zero.

* Get 5 throws at 30+ yards in a 1 minute toss and fetch round by the end of the season (even if not recorded at a competition).

* Score 17+ in a toss and fetch round.

* Develop a full 2 minute freestyle routine.

* In competition, have an 85% catch ratio freestyle round. Honestly I don’t think this is realistic to expect for a young puppy, but it makes for a nice challenge for me to be able to throw discs good enough for her to catch that successfully!

* Develop the ability to catch highly complex and difficult throws that the other dogs are unable to catch.  I think she has the ability to do it.  My goal is to put 5 of these throws into her routine.

* Consistently catch butterfly throws.  Currently she is 50% at best.  90% is the target.

* Place top 3 at a local competition or top 5 at a major.  Again, this is unrealistic but makes for a fun goal.  Her best shot is at a Skyhoundz event.

Enzo and I have been invited to the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge again for the 2013 Western Regional in Las Vegas!  It is a special feeling to be considered for this and we will do our best!

We head to Las Vegas for a extravaganza of disc doggin’ with Skyhoundz and UFO events along with the Purina IDC.  As usual, I have only one expectation.  To have a blast.  Being in Vegas, I can promise that will happen!  I will say that Enzo has been at the top of his physical, mental and performing peak for the past year or more and our last several practice sessions have been exceptional.  Enzo will have a full week off from disc practice before going to Vegas.

I don’t want to leave out the other stars.  Tooney is 10 years old and still able to play like a champ.  She will compete as long as she enjoys it.  Slayte is coming along fine and I see him becoming a top team this year because his potential is huge.  Muse is only 6 months old right now and blows my mind every day with how good she is.  At that age, catching discs should be challenging and she’s doing it consistently.  At a clinic, she performed 2 rounds of toss/fetch and managed to catch all 11 out of 11 throws!

I haven’t been much in the mood for writing lately but we have been doing quite a bit of AKC agility. Slayte started getting really bad with lead outs so last weekend I pulled him in T2B and then in JWW too. I think he actually learned that I was only pulling him from the first run of the day. After two runs in a row where he didn’t get to play, his lead outs have been pretty solid since then. Last weekend, Enzo got a double Q with two first places, his third for qualifying for AKC Nationals so he just needs one more. Slayte also got his first Q since his dental surgery. He’s been a little wild since then. He had a couple weeks off after getting a root canal on a broken canine and titanium crowns on all of his canines. He goes crazy and bites his crate when when we run the other dogs so they were all damaged.

Here is his Masters Standard run from last weekend where he got 4th place.

Saturday was a little bit frustrating since I couldn’t get the power side doors open on the van. They latches were frozen! I wasted about 20 minutes on them so ended up getting to the trial later than I wanted too. I ended up not getting any Q’s on either dog. Not really surprising. Today Jeff decided to come with me and do kennel help stuff so that was really awesome. I ended up getting a Standard Q with Enzo and a double Q with Slayte. Enzo’s JWW run was a little wild and he ended up getting a bar.

His standard run was pretty good other than me getting too far behind on the dogwalk. I went too deep to the tunnel and got stuck in soft dirt. It is actually really good for Enzo not to just run straight ahead. He ended up with 2nd place.

Slayte had a pretty fast JWW run even with a spin. We were lucky we didn’t get a refusal. I just don’t do enough landing side rear crosses but I wasn’t sure he would carry out far enough. He was only .06 sec behind Enzo’s time and got 3rd place in 20″!

Standard was also clean but no placement. I think we wasted some time on the line from the aframe to the tunnel. I have to drive forward on the aframe right now to help him hit his running contact so that messed up my line. He also self released off the table but other than that he was a good boy.

We are planning on going to the USASA Nationals at Purina Farms this year so that should be fun! Possibly also going to FL after that for an UFO Major and AWI Qualifier.

Mindy became very sick last week and is no longer with us. She was our Aussie rescue about 15 years old.

In January 2012, I wrote a blog post with my goals for the upcoming season.  Here are the goals I set and the results:

Me:

– Avoid injury by not over practicing, despite sometimes wanting to practice for long periods of time. Keep it to 1-3 times per month at the park for 30ish minutes.
Accomplished! I followed my own advice exactly and managed to not only avoid injury but got better at throwing and my elbow seems to have further healed.

– Don’t throw anything short of the maximum point line in toss/fetch. Past 40 yards is normally my target.
Failed. Technically I said “don’t throw anything…” and I managed to throw a few short of the maximum point line. The instances were very few, so I’m still happy.

– Work on getting a better air bounce and skip that can be used in routines confidently. I can execute the throws, but not in any conditions and with confidence.
Accomplished! My air bounce is good now and I managed to throw in some nice skips early in the season. As the season progressed, the thicker grass didn’t allow for skips, but the air bounces continued to improve.

– Be confident for the dogs and give them the best chance to excel and have fun. For them, having fun is running, jumping and catching discs. Put the disc where they have a chance to catch it every time.
Failed. I did this very well for Enzo and Tooney but I failed Slayte this year for multiple reasons.

Tooney:

– No injuries. She couldn’t compete most of 2010 due to injury and came back big in 2011 with some great performances and wins. It took half the season for her to get her stamina back, but she’s as good as ever right now.
Failed. She aggravated the same injury but only missed a couple of competitions, so it was a minor set back. We aren’t sure how it was reinjured but we suspect possibly from rough playing with Slayte.

– Continue doing her exercise ball at least every other day, preferrably 4-5 times a week to keep her strong.
Accomplished! Even when she got reinjured, I kept doing the exercises with her and she remained strong.

– Keep it fun for her. If she is still running and happy at the end of every round, then I’m doing the right thing.
Accomplished! Tooney had a lot of fun this year.

– Get Jenn some chances to compete with her. As Tooney is getting older, Jenn’s opportunities to really play with her are less and less. Tooney is the dog that really gave Jenn the chance to do well in agility, so she deserves more time with Toons. Jenn will never ask to have a round with her when I could be playing with her, but I have to do my best to get Jenn some opportunities. She is at the age where competing with two people is not possible, so we need to manage her play time wisely.
Accomplished! Jenn got to play with her a few times during the year at competitions.

– Here’s a lofty goal – set a masters division record at our Skyhoundz Regional for either freestyle or toss/fetch points.
Failed. Tooney tweaked her injured shoulder, so was unable to compete.

Enzo:

– Whatever Enzo does pretty much is golden to me. In my mind, he can do no wrong. (yes, this is a goal… the goal is to continue to think this way)
Accomplished! And I still believe this!

– Continue to put the discs in a place for him in toss/fetch that show him off and rack up big points. I feel so fortunate to have finally developed the rhythm, teamwork and skills to do this with him. Don’t lose it!!! He was good in 2010 and awesome in 2011.
Accomplished! Enzo was awesome once again in toss/fetch and had some huge scores. He Even won the UFO Major toss and fetch!

– Come up with more unique throws/tricks for freestyle. I don’t want to make a higher % of tricks in my routine – just replace some I already have by big improvements to the trick itself or to the flow of the trick into the next sequence or from the previous sequence. Also consider replacing entire trick sequences if I am able to come up with something completely novel.
Failed. I did only a few minor tweaks to tricks in the routine.

– Do more traditional types of things that people do to make their dogs look good. One thing I never did with Enzo was a distance multiple. (short, medium, long rapidly). I am doing this now. This is a skill neither he nor I had in the past. We do now. He looks great doing this. It’s traditional and so many people do it, but there’s a reason. Dogs look great catching lots of discs quickly and running/jumping. He does all of those in 1 sequence that lasts 5 seconds at most, but is a huge impression to everybody watching. Maybe do more things like this in the routine, but without losing my ingenuity.
Accomplished! Enzo has a routine that is a bit more traditional but we are still known as being one of the more innovative teams out there.

Slayte:

– Stay on the field for the entire round. Keep his interest up, especially when it’s hot out or he’s showing that he may be distracted. Focus, fun and energy are the ingredients required.
Accomplished! He never left the field the entire year. His new goal is to maintain high energy the entire round.

– Improve catching ability. Hopefully he learns on his own, otherwise maybe try some softer discs that won’t bounce of the teeth as easily if his timing is a bit off. He tends to either not bite the disc deep in his mouth or he closes his mouth before he gets to the disc. The result is the disc bounces off his teeth.
Accomplished! I did not change discs, but Slayte was noticed by everybody as a dog that can catch everything. An interesting side note – I have decided to use Super Flex discs for 2013 because I think he likes softer discs more.

– Try to put up a few big scores in toss/fetch because I know he can do it.
Accomplished! The biggest score was a 23.5 round. This is the highest score ever posted for Team Furrari!

Well, there it is. We accomplished 11 out of 16 (69%) of my goals. This would be a D if I was in school, but one thing you usually have a chance for is extra credit. I submit the following unexpected season surprises for extra credit:

– Slayte qualified for AWI World Championships, USDDN World Finals and UFO World Cup finals all under 18 months of age!
– Enzo finishing insanely high with #6 at the AWI World Championships!
– Enzo records a perfect round in freestyle on the same day Tooney has a 1-drop routine!
– Enzo places 2nd overall at the Colorado Canine Challenge!
– Enzo invited to the Incredible Dog Challenge!
– Slayte wins a competition with about 50 competitors entered!
– Tooney wins our regional USDDN Toss and Fetch competition at 9 years old!
– Tooney scores one of the highest rounds of FREESTYLE at the California State Championships at 10 years old!

Considering all of those, I think we deserve a much better grade. In the end, I grade the dogs an A for their performance this year and I think they would grade me a C averaged (with Slayte giving me a D-, Tooney giving me a B and Enzo giving me an A+++).

Goals for 2013 will be coming soon!

Enzo ended up 1 double Q short of qualifying for AKC Nationals next year. This is the first time that I haven’t had a dog qualified since maybe 2005? Kind of ironic that last year’s finalist couldn’t even qualify. Our consistency is just completly down the toilet ever since he has been doing running contacts. He is just so blazing fast now. Bars are an issue now and so is handling the dogwalk.

So now I’m trying to decide if I want to try for USDAA nationals this year or is splitting my time going to cause me problems qualifying for AKC again? I split my time over ASCA, USDAA and AKC in the first half of this year. Maybe just USDAA and AKC will be ok.

I need to get Slayte worked up to the higher Aframe. I’ve gone up a couple links and so far his running aframe is holding up.

Oh and Slayte did finish his ExA standard title recently so he can start earning double Q’s now! At least I have double the chance to get a dog qualified.