Tooney, Enzo and Slayte had their USDDN and local Skyhoundz competitions the past couple of weeks.

USDDN

USDDN consists of a Super Open (2 rounds of freestyle + 1 round toss and fetch) and a Super Pro (2 rounds of toss and fetch only).

At the USDDN, Enzo was simply awesome. He won the Super Open division and got 5th in the Super Pro and qualified for the finals in both!

Slayte had his best competition yet (up to this point)!!! We managed his resources by keeping him cool in the air conditioned RV and rested him as much as possible. He finished 3rd in Super Open, qualifying for the finals!

Jenn also got to play with Slayte in Super Pro, so she had some fun with him. She forfeited her last round so he’d have more energy with me in his last freestyle round. That was nice of her and it paid off!

This competition is too much for a dog of Tooney’s age to do all the events so I entered her only in Super Pro. She was STELLAR! She came from behind and won the Super Pro division qualified for finals!

Torrance Skyhoundz

Next up was the Torrance Skyhoundz competition that consists of a toss and fetch type game, hopscotch and speed disc. These are games mostly of accuracy and control.

Slayte had his best competition yet!!! (notice a trend here??) He was so friggin’ good I almost couldn’t believe it. He had a 23.5 in the toss and fetch which was best in the competition. He also was the only dog to complete the hopscotch, winning that also. He did solid in the speed disc and finished 1st place overall! The best part was he had good energy the whole competition and was very consistent.

Tooney won this event last year and did good again this year. She got 2nd place in toss/fetch and 2nd place in hopscotch and got a second place overall!

Enzo, as usual, was not good at this event. He runs too fast and jumps too far. This makes it nearly impossible to hit the scoring zones that require accuracy. He doesn’t care. He still got to run, jump, catch and have fun! That’s all that really matters. Instead of being frustrated by it, I learned a few years ago to just go out and simply play some frisbee with my dog and not worry about how he does in terms of scoring.

I love starting the baby dogs. Never know what to expect which makes it exciting! I entered him in T2B only for his first trial. When I entered him, I didn’t know if his stop on the dogwalk would be ready yet and they run T2B in the morning so I wouldn’t have to wait all day for Novice. His stop on the dogwalk is actually good now so I’ll do novice with him on July 29.

Here’s the video from his first run. He did really awesome. He just forgot how to hit his weave entrance. I didn’t help much either. Lol. Watching the video I can see that I just went flying past them like I would with Enzo and then I was too spastic trying to bring him back which just got him too wound up. He also hit higher than he normally does on the Aframe but that is kinda normal when he gets on a new aframe. Luckily he normally hits pretty low unlike Enzo who is almost always in that top 6″! I wasn’t sure if he would do the tire properly since the last time we did it he kept going under it, but he did fine with that. No issues with the bouncy teeter either which is just awesome. I also exhibited self comtrol by not saying anything when he stopped a little short on the teeter until he put his front feet on the ground. Ha!

I went home and practiced weaves and of course he did fine there. Next day, Slayte did awesome again. He was pushier at the start which was not suprising. He has been having issues with stays lately in practice. Patience has never been one of his virtues! He remembered how to weave though. Yay! Also nice stop on the teeter even and nice deep hit on the aframe. There was one turn that I thought was a little wide but that was my fault. Can you figure out which one? LOL because my standards for Slayte’s turns are much higher than for Enzo.

Oh and here are a couple bonus videos of Enzo.

Slayte is really starting to come together. I have him entered in T2B in two weeks to see how he does. I am not entering him in Novice yet since he needs some more practice on his dogwalk. I decided to switch from running to a stop about a month ago.

We did some fun runs yesterday just to get him running on different equipment and in a new environment. His first run was a little scatter-brained but the next three were all good. He didn’t always stick his dogwalk contact though so we definitely need more practice and proofing. He just startes doing the full dogwalk with the stop last week so can’t blame him for that. His running aframe looks really good and doing different teeters doesn’t seem to bother him. He doesn’t always collect for his weave entrances yet but I worked that last week and I see improvement there.

Exciting times! Hopefully he will do well in T2B and then I can enter him in Novice in August!

Enzo and I were invited to the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge this year. It is an honor and privelege to be able to perform freestyle in front of that crowd in that arena. Plus a chance to make it on TV!

On Friday was the qualifier, so I entered Slayte. I wasn’t expecting to have a realistic chance of him qualifying. He did really well despite being somewhat distracted, but he fought through it and caught really well in the round. I made some nice fancy throws including some skips. Here’s his fun round:

I am proud of Slayte because he is already doing things in his routine I won’t even attempt with Enzo. That’s how good this dog is! He can catch skips, butterflies and other difficult throws that my other dogs never could catch.

On Saturday was the finals and Enzo performed well. He was super fast and wild in his routine. The wildness lead to quite a few drops, which took us out of contention for the win. He ended up in 4th place and I’m happy with how we did. I wish I would have ajusted more for the down-wind throws. They were lower than Enzo wanted so he kept jumping over the disc.

After the freestyle round is the 2 bonus throws. It’s about 37 yards from center to center of the squares. It’s not easy to hit the bonus throws. I am happy that we finished strong by hitting both bonus throws.

Jenn and I headed north to Dixon for a small disc dog competition. It’s a total of about 7 hours and we left Friday evening with hopes to drive about 4 hours or so and then make a quick stop around 1AM for a few hours of sleep before finishing the drive early in the morning. Unfortunately luck wouldn’t be with us. The traffic through the Grapevine was backed up forever due to an accident. It took us about 3 hours to get through that. We ended up with about 2 hours of sleep. That doesn’t bode well for a competition!

The dogs did OK for the freestyle and toss/fetch with the exception of Slayte. He was totally wasted. He couldn’t hardly do anything because of the lack of sleep. It’s ok, he’s still learning about all of this traveling and competing still.

After the normal competition was a long-distance event. Enzo won the men’s division! We won it with a 66 yard throw. The coolest part is next year’s trophy will have Enzo’s picture on it. How neat is that? Jenn got 3rd place with Tooney in the women’s division. Her throw was around 44 yards I think, which is awesome!

Jenn entered Slayte into his first agility competition as an exhibition and he’s now officially all grown up! He did AWESOME! He was over 6yps on both runs, which is totally phat. Here’s his videos:

Just got back from the Dixon, CA UFO and long distance competition. The last two competitions we’ve attended (this and the AWI) can be summarized up with the dogs redeeming themselves. At the AWI, all the dogs had problems during the day and ended up in lower than expected placements early in the competition. Then in the last round, Enzo and Slayte were awesome and both qualified for the finals.

On our way to Dixon, we got caught in nasty traffic and ended up only getting about 2 hours or so of sleep before the competition. Jenn and I both felt like we were going to pass out all day. At this competition, the dogs all pretty much performed way under par in toss and fetch, leaving us pushed down kind of far in the standings. Since we want to go to the UFO finals, this was a disappointment. Again, though, there would be redemption.

During the competition, Slayte was slow, tired and uninterested. He redeemed himself in a very odd way. After the competition, he was TOTALLY crapped out. He couldn’t even hardly move. Even though he was extremely tired during the competition, he never ran off the field and never quit. At the time, it seemed like he just didn’t care, but in reality, he was simply by trying to stick with it.

After the UFO competition, there was a long distance competition. I don’t ever practice distance throws because of my elbow ulnar nerve entrapment problem which causes tingling, weakness and pain in my elbow to my hand. Luckily this problem is slowing improving. I have good form and understand wind really well. Enzo redeemed himself by winning the Men’s division with a 65.7 yard throw. I wanted to hit a 70 yarder, but given the fact that there was no wind to help the throws, 65+ was still pretty good. Imagine if I actually worked on my distance throws and footwork. First, I know I’d be able to compete with the guys that can really throw far. Secondly, I would screw up my elbow again. Although it was fun, the long distance stuff really isn’t of much interest to me. Freestyle and toss/fetch are much more fun to me. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it. It involves throwing a disc to my best buddy, so it’s still great! Enzo, on the other hand, LOVES distance. Not like freestyle, but he really, really, really thinks it’s awesome.

Since Enzo won, next year’s award will have a picture of him on it!!!

Tooney redeemed herself by getting 3rd place in the women’s long distance with a throw somewhere over 40 yards. Overall, Tooney did really well, though.

Jenn and I also have come up with a new theory on how to try to train Enzo for toss/fetch. We are going to try working with him in practice where we don’t call him back. Throw the disc and just let him come back when he wants to. When I do freestyle or long distance throws, he runs back to me fast. He doesn’t screw around with the disc. The difference is with toss/fetch, I’m calling, yelling, etc, trying to get him to come back faster. We will see how it works out, but I have a feeling it may work.

Our 2012 Ashley Whippet World Championship qualifier was a bag of mixed emotions. Slayte had a really good first round of freestyle and Tooney had a decent round of freestyle. Enzo attacked a disc laying on the ground for no obvious reason, decided to start running circles around me during one sequence and missed a lot of discs. It wasn’t his best moment.

Toss and fetch was also not very good for the dogs and they seemed to be missing discs for no obious reason and Slayte was wandering off the field. The dogs set high standards for themselves so when they don’t blow it off the charts, it feels like I let them down.

They read off the list for the dogs that made the second round and Slayte and Enzo both made the cut! I was surprised but happy. I was considering cutting Slayte from the second round since his previous toss and fetch round was a disaster. Jenn and I decided to let him have another shot. The second round was much windier that the first round and I was worried about both dogs performing in the conditions. Enzo was in 11th place and Slayte was around 8th. The top 5 (minus people already qualified) make the world championships. Enzo was out of a qualifying spot and I think Slayte most likely was at this time also.

Enzo went first for me in the second round and was GREAT! I don’t understand it. It was windier, yet he caught a high percentage of dissc. I expected it to score high as most people were struggling in the wind this round. I told Jenn that Enzo did good enough to jump up in the standings into a qualifying spot. She thought I was nuts, but I thought he did that good.

I am so glad I let Slayte run the second round. It was awesome! Despite the wind and the discs changing directions and being blown around, he caught almost everything. I was super proud. When I came off the field, I felt he also did better than most of the other dogs this round.

I don’t know the exact placements as they didn’t share that information for whatever reason, but both Slayte and Enzo qualified for the world championships! I can’t believe Slayte did this at just 14 months!!!!

You will notice that Slayte had the ?’s removed from his image on this blog. I am proud to say he is now a full member of Team Furrari and earned his right to stand next to Tooney and Enzo.

Enzo round 2:

Slayte round 2:

Tooney Round 1: