Friday, October 2, 2009

Days 5 & 6 - ASCA Nationals

I've had some technical difficulties the past couple of days so I haven't been able to keep up - I think I've got it worked out now though! So here goes the past couple of days:

Wednesday
I showed Kaylie in obedience first. She did a pretty good job, but didn't qualify. They ended up moving the obedience to a different building - this building smelled bad (it was called the Livestock building - I'm guessing they put cows and other farm animals in there for various events). And it was loud and everything echoed. Our ring was right next to the Open ring where they were throwing dumbells. The dumbells definitely caught Kaylie's attention, so she wasn't focused 100% on me. Her signals were good, she got both of the correct scent articles, she got the right glove, but on the moving stand, she didn't stay - she kept walking with me. That ended it. Bummer! And then the go-outs were non-existent. She ran to the jump closest to the Open ring, barking the whole way - I thought for sure she was going to jump the baby gates to go get the dumbells! Crazy girl. Oh well - there's always next time!

Next came our Brace obedience with both Kaylie and Conor. Brace is when both dogs are connected by a coupler and you do the Novice exercises. They actually did pretty good, although we had a couple of no sits on our halts. But overall it was a good performance and we ended up placing 3rd.

Next came our Team obedience. What a crack up!! Team obedience consists of 4 people with their dogs. Again we perform the Novice exercises. The only difference is for the recall, we have to drop our dogs in the middle of the ring. First one person calls their dog, tells them to down, and then it goes down the line, meanwhile the first dogs have to stay in the down position. The perfect performance would have all the dogs lined up in the down position in the middle of the ring. Of course that didn't happen with us, but we did pretty good. The twist we threw in this year was that we all dressed up as sheep. We each made our own sheep costumes. Boy were we ever the hit of the show!! We were like movie stars - everyone wanted to take pictures of us. We ended up placing 3rd.

Conor also did agility today. Today was just the Open Jumpers runs. He placed 1st in his first Jumpers run, but NQ'd on the second run. He was a little crazy and I had to really work to keep him on course. He ended up 1.13 seconds over course time. BUMMER! So close. But his first run was absolutely beautiful!

Thursday
Thursday I just had agility. I had both dogs in Open Standard and Kaylie was in Elite Jumpers. I'm very proud to say that we qualified in all of our runs! I can't remember the last time I've Q'd in everything. Kaylie got 1st place in her first Standard run and then 2nd Place in her second Standard run. Conor got 5th place in his first Standard run and 3rd place in his second Standard run. Kaylie qualified in both of her Elite Jumpers runs, and placed 13th in the first run and 17th in the second run. This is still pretty good because there are well over 100 dogs in this class. And that also finished her Elite Jumpers title. Wooo hooo!!

We have just one more day to go. I'm hoping the weather is better for Friday. Thursday it was EXTREMELY cold and EXTREMELY windy. I'm guessing the highs were in the 40's. NOT good for this Phoenix girl!
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1 comment:

Diamond Girl said...

Huh. I can't remember the last time I Q'd in everything, either. :)

Congratulations!!!!!

I hope you have pictures of the sheep costumes!

October 3, 2009 at 11:01 AM

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Kaylie - The True Wonder Dog

At our last DOCNA (Dogs on Course in North America) agility trial in Prescott, Kaylie did fantastic! We are trying to be the first team to earn the MEX (Merit of Excellence) who started in the Beginner level. We are getting VERY close. All the other teams that have earned the MEX were grandfathered in at higher levels. Kaylie was just starting her agility career when DOCNA was created, so we had no choice but to start at the beginning. And as it is, I believe there are under 20 teams that have even earned the MEX to this point.

Well, going into the trial at Prescott, we needed 2 Specialist Gamblers legs and 2 Specialist Standard legs. In DOCNA, there are two types of Gamblers runs -- Traditional and Strategic Timed Gamblers. Unfortunately, we have only earned 3 Traditional Gamblers legs -- one from the Beginner class, one from the Intern class and one from the Specialist class. All the other Gamblers legs have come from the Strategic Time Gamblers. So, I knew going in that the chance of getting that Traditional Gamblers leg on Saturday was slim. We walked into the ring, and I knew Kaylie was on fire and ready to go. The Gamblers class is usually the first class of the trial, and Kaylie is usually absolutely wild in the first run. Well, this was no different. She was incredibly fast, and I was not -- I kept getting in her way, and things just fell apart. At 30 seconds, the buzzer rang, which meant I had to get to the gamble portion of the course. I sent her over the jump to the tunnel -- she took the wrong end of the tunnel, then came right back to me over the wrong jump and that was the end of that. No MEX for us this weekend. BUT, she did qualify in the two Standard runs she needed, getting First place both times, and she got her Strategic Timed Gamblers leg on Sunday, earning a Second place. Wooo hooo Kaylie!!! Out of 10 runs over the weekend, we qualified in 8 of them, placing 1st, 2nd or 3rd in all but one run -- our Jumpers run on Sunday. I got lost on the course and just got confused. Luckily, Kaylie can read the numbers on the cones (that's the only explanation I can come up with) because she ran the right course despite my mess ups! Hence the name "Wonder Dog." So we still Q'd, but got 6th place. Still, not too bad!!

So, our next DOCNA trial will be in Pinetop the end of August. Hopefully we'll get our MEX there! Just one Gambler leg to go.