Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Agility Musings

Wahh..so much has happened recently, I just haven't had the time to sit down and write it down!

The 8-9 we went to a trial. Holy poop, my dogs are awesome!
Toffee had some pretty rad runs. It's kinda weird going between Tof and Mach. I know Toffee isn't slow, but she seems SO slow compared to Mach. Even though we're still wipping out 35 secs standard runs, it just feels weird.

After we got home from the trial, the judge had emailed me and asked if she could interview me for the On Course magazine. For the october issue, they're featuring the national winners as well as junior handlers. It's a two-in-one deal with me! ;) Personally I think Toffee should be interviewed. She's the superstar in all of this. Though they wouldn't get very far in the interview...she'd just be laying on her back, demanding a belly rub. Silly girl.

ALSO, we were asked to be in the Superdogs show in Moncton! Very exciting! I'm a little nervous, though. We only know how to play agility...we know very little outside of that. Even to catch a frisbee...I'm not sure Toffee would be so superdog-ish in that section. Eep. Oh well. It's the 29th. We go for practice in the morning, and then the show is in the afternoon. Hopefully everything goes well! Wish me luck!


This is how cool my dogs are.
Here's Toffee's video. 

Mach was AMAZING!
I am so so so proud of him!
My goal for the weekend was to get good dogwalk contacts. And I soo got them! He was a little rockstar on his dogwalk all weekend! As well as his teeter and aframe.
Bobbled a couple times in the weaves - at the 10th pole. But we really haven't worked much on them lately. However, after I was done teaching one night last week, I had him doing some wicked entries. He even surprised me! The only one he has trouble with is the big piece of the pie for onside. He's getting faster in them, too. Sometimes he'll even break into single step for a couple poles. Not sure if he'll fully change or not.

Anyways, the trial. This is how it went.
Standard 1: Perfect! His first Starters Standard Q!
Standard 2: 1 bar, but beautiful contacts <3
Gamblers: Awesome points and a Q...move up to adanced!
Jumpers: Off course at the very end! Ahh, heart break. Would have been his last leg to get into masters!

Standard 3: Another awesome run! His 2nd Q in standard! One more :)
Standard 4: Knocked the first bar, so I was proofing things - weaves, table. And then knocked the double.
Snooker: Beautiful opening, however it was awkward to get 4 reds. I settled for 3, so I needed 6 to qualify. He knocked the middle jump of the pinwheel of #6. Oh well. One more snooker for his SGDC title!
Steeplechase: Popped the weaves, so took him back and then knocked a bar...


So he did knock quite a few bars that weekend. I have been training him at 26" so hopefully it will help. I find courses are very condenced and he has a hard time getting his feet under him to take off nicely. I really do need to do jump grids with him. I find he'll start jumping from his front when things are tight or when he's going nuts. Meh, what do I know anyways?

Here's Mach's video.


Training today was super amazing awesomely awesome! I've been working on our threadles lately - we totally sucked at them, but they're looking pretty good! At my house, there's not too much room, so it's hard to work on acceleration. We work mostly decel's/tight turns, etc. Holy cow, they're so good! I was so excited today. And he kept most of his bars up all practice!


Since Worlds were that weekend, too, in my head I was running at worlds. Lame, I know. :)
I was so excited to hear about Tori and Rev and how well they did! She is such an inspiration to me every day! Such a cool experience, wouldn't it be? Ahh, so lucky.
I was living vicariously through her and others on my facebook. Just hearing about everything they were doing lit my fire and I wanted to go out and run all those courses again and again and again.
I never did set up a course...too big. But I did set up a section of the Large Team Standard, I believe it was. I ran it with Mach. And he rocked at it. I on the other hand, really suck. I need to re assess how the poop I'm going to get around a course with running contacts and a dog that is much much faster than I'm used to!


We're almost done agility trials for the year. One more to go. In 3 weeks.
What on earth do normal people do on weekends?
Whatever, I'll just end up playing agility anyways :)
But the trial is on turf, so it'll be interesting how Mach runs on it. It may change when we get there, but as of right now, my goal for Mach and I is to get weaves. I mean, I'm hoping his contacts will be awesome again, but one thing at a time, right ? :) It'll all piece together soon enough.


School has been pretty hectic lately...I should have been studying for my two unit tests tomorrow or working on a math assignment that's due thursday when I wrote this. But meh, I needed a break. And talking about agility is much more interesting than sliding filament theory, porous bones, ossification, Canada's food guide, macro/micro nutrients or the 6 dimensions of wellness...right? Right.