not too much agility

Trying to get organized

school wrapped up today - and while that was smooth there was a LOT to do

I have a summer job - only 4 days of work but I had to set that up before going on a week of holidays - its a cool program called teachers into business and I'll be working at the Food bank in July

I have 25 people coming for the weekend (YAH - THIS weekend) to celebrate my mother in laws birthday

I have my first team competition on Sunday (leaving all the guests for a bit -you know I'm not popular eh?)

Dad and Jean have offered to take Fitz for a few days of the chaos - it's his first time away since we started fostering him so that's lots of organizing too

had to take Jackie to what turned out to be an easy doctors appointment as nobody else was available

had to find golf clubs for my first time ever on a course (turned out to be fun but not a talent I think I have)

need to set up home for a week away - the home crew need organizing

need to clean up a bit so I can bear to come back when the week is up

and so on and so on

agility is nowhere this week :(

oh well - holidays are here and it can move up my priority list I hope :)

manners minder

not quite sure how I'm going to use it but I have a bunch of dogs who think it's wonderful already :)

and I JUST put the batteries in maybe 10 minutes ago

too funny to see them all cocking their heads and watching the food dispenser whir around

http://www.puplife.com/Shop/Control/Product/fp/vpid/4470967/vpcsid/0/SFV/32255

proud of the gang

CPE day on Saturday

it was a BLAST

Jackpot was a non traditional gamble called "tunnel suck" with FOUR tunnels on course that ALL had to be run through before the whistle blew .. you also needed to accumulate more points (I never did figure out exactly how many) and then after the whistle you had 5 seconds to run to the table ...

Thea went first and we hit all the tunnels - and wracked up lots of points- sadly when the whistle blew the closest obstacle to get to the table was the dogwalk and she FROZE on it - too 7 seconds to get to the table- NQ

Brody trucked around the course and was in the table in plenty of time - Q with no sweat or bobbles

Sally TOTALLY blew me away - she was attentive and focussed and did everything I asked her to do - all four tunnels, two aframes and the teeter and a couple of jumps - what an AWESOME run ... she lost a little attention at the very end which just took us close to the table so when it went she leapt up on it no problem at all :) her first Q!!

the standard runs were next for Brody and Thea- Brody ran well - a bit slow the first time but fine - 2 Qs without much worry - Thea did the dogwalk freeze and then bailed the first time but did the chute (chutes, dogwalks and teeters all alarm her sometimes) so I was very happy with her NQ run.. the second run she did the dogwalk (SLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWLLLLLYYYY) and the chute (there is no teeter in level one cpe) and got her Q! what a gal!

I think I'll leave Thea in level one CPE til she's BUSTING to move up (I like that about CPE - you can stay in a level and just accumulate points!)

last course was snookers and I found the course a little choppy - however both Thea and Brody got Qs despite me - not because of me and Sally made it through the WHOLE opening - I went slowly and carefully and made sure I was happy with her running - she only earned 16 points but they were well earned points so I was pleased with her NQ

it's getting hot - wonder how long Brody will want to play in the heat?

lazy days

I took Monday and Tuesday off training! It felt quite odd - I just walked dogs and played ball and chilled - by Wednesday Sally was OVERWROUGHT on her morning walk she was throwing herself into a down and freezing in place in the hopes we'd play the wait game at the very least ... GOOFBALL

Thursday Nancy and I drove out to Spot On for a practice - it was great - I ran and ran (had Brody Thea and Sally with me) and was very pleased with the way all of them worked

Nancy played with Fitz over a little jump - he was great and I much appreciated the help!

We let everybody race around the field afterwards - was great to let them run FLAT out - Fitz is incredibly fast!

chutes instead of SHOOTS ;)

lovely weekend of no trials

in laws for weekend - Dad and Jean for lunch - nice hot mellow weekend - hardly any time to train BUT I did haul out my NEW pac n go chute




and staked it down - first dog through was HANK - too funny how hard he wants to play :)

I really set it up for Thea though as she hates chutes ... the wind was blowing it open and it was flapping a bit so we did it about 6 times for both sides - with support - she wasn't ready to be sent ahead and with the other dogs leaping around a recall was too tough but she did it well and happily

Brody also zipped through it a few times happily (he's always liked chutes) and Sally was TOTALLY insane - as I had he big jolly ball to throw out to reward her ...

she is a BAD DAWG - all there is to it :)

did weave work with Brody and Sally too - nice and fluid ...

more...

some links relating to the last two weekends ;)

Ontario regional results (Brody is in 10 inch vets here)

http://aac.ca/EN/Regionals/PDF/ON08.pdf
here are regional pics - Brody is in group 1B in 10 inch (but was missed in 10 inch jumpers Friday :(

href="http://www.fotosbyharvey.ca/regionals2008.htm">

I'll add more later ;)

Team eh - aka being Canadian

There were 14 Canadians competing and what a great group we were!
We did very very well I kept hearing fellow Canadians names at the awards ceremony


I just have to show off the very cool jerseys Art ordered for us!

Sunday - what a rock star!

The THIRD day dawned sunny and breezy too. I could NOT have asked for better Brody weather honestly.

I grabbed the notion of running with intention for the whole day. I was a little worried about Brody's fitness (never having done a two full day trial I had no idea how a three day one just 4 days after his first two day would be. Apparently I have conditioned him well.. I worked out a plan and stuck to it - for him and me but never having tried it before I wasn't sure what would happen.

Our first run was standard and there was a tunnel dog walk discrimination that looked an awful lot like the aframe we had issues with Saturday. I was DETERMINED that error would not happen again - Brody ended up running a clear round under time! (He placed second in the class as well behind a very cute cocker who had struggled with both standard runs prior to Sunday.)

Our second run was colours and I let up on my goal of running with intention - it was clear and the weaves were excellent but it was a bit slower - we got the q but it was a bit close for comfort. He handled some tricky tunnel entries cleanly though.

Our last run was nearly at the end of the day and I had considered pulling out and heading home but I checked in with Brody and he seemed quite keen to run.. it was snookers too - one of my favourite classes so I decided to try it. I changed my plan a BILLION times but eventually worked out a short path that ad flow and got us our required points without doing the last two obstacles if I ran out of time. Walking to the start line I decided even if we had time I was running for the table (end point for games) rather then doing the weaves as I wanted to end a wonderful weekend on a real HIGH and Brody loves the race for the table. I ran with serious intention and Brody was FABULOUS. He NAILED the course path laid out and we had a couple of spots we could RACE each other so we had a blast!

We decided to stay and cheer the canuks _ I had heard Xena and Emma were top contenders adn knew other folks (like Pat and Lesley) had good weekends too.
So glad I did as I am now looking at a plaque for Brody - High in Standard for his level and his height - WOW!

(a sad note - right as they called Brody somebody in the crowd collapsed - so instead of any cheer there was a GASP as she went down - I have heard she'll be OK but what a sad way to end the weekend eh?)


Brody ran 7/9 qs and placed in every class but snookers but I am thrilled with every run (apart from the tunnel/aframe thing - that just annoys me!)

he truly gets his game on for me - he is a ROCK STAR!

saturday..some blips and an amazing run too

Saturday was lovely again.. the weather gods were smiling at us :)

Our first run was jackpot (gambles in aac) not Brody's strong suit so I planned an opening to get minimum points to get some momentum built for the day .. and felt the gamble was doable for him

we did a nice opening but when I pushed him a little to get the tunnel away from me he actually pushed WAYYYYYYY out and got the far end... an error of enthusiam is something I can celebrate though - I was thrilled with our NQ (no qualifying score run) and pleasantly shocked by our second place... I guess a lot of dogs struggled with the gamble

Then we headed out to the standard ring - Brody got SUCKED into to two tunnels - choosing them over the a frame. TWICE! I was shocked...except I couldn't really blame him - it was HOT and the tunnel takes a lot of work from Brody. He did it immediately and ran a lovely course - including the weaves apart from that. He placed second again as only dog qualified at his level in this class.

Our final run was jumpers. We were back inside and we both like jumpers so we simply FLEW the course- fast and clean and I was thrilled with his Q and first place!

It was another LONG day so we went back to the motel for a bit, tidied up and headed out for dinner. We to Findleys on Sharon's recommendation but sadly it wasn't as good as Bob Evans.

Friday - SHOW TIME

It was a bit drizzly and yucky to start the day - by the end of the day it was MUGGY and HOT

The outdoor rings had the standard runs and the indoor rings had the games

Our first class was standard and Brody dropped a rail on the second jump - in CPE you can get up to 5 faults and still qualify so it was important to keep it together for the rest of the run. WE DID! The sand was rocky and deep and a lot of people and dogs were having trouble.. I was worried about the dropped rail (Brody has never dropped a rail in class before) but he compensated for the weird surface easily enough from that rail on.
He came second in that class and earned a "q" (kind of cool to have Q ribbons from a nationals!)

We had wildcard next and Brody ran ok I thought - the weaves were sticky but the rest was quite nice- but my scribe sheet said NQ and 9 faults... I'm so new to CPE I didn't really look at it - or think about it til the next day when Pat Saito happened to be at the results area at the same time as me - she quickly realized something was amiss - and helped me figure out the correction needed... Brody Qed and won that class after the 'fix' was done.

The next class was fullhouse and honestly it's a blur but I know I got my q and Brody ran nicely ... he earned the q and was 2nd again

it was interesting as he was quite consistent - but the first place dog was different for each event - and often the third and fourth dogs were different too...

it was a late night - we got A & W on the way back to the hotel and crashed there

CPE Nationals - Day One- on the road again

Well we are home from the 10th Anniversary CPE Nationals (our first)in Michigan and while I'm exhausted they were fabulous

The stories are long so I'm going to break it down lots - my attention span is probably short anyhow ;)

We arrived just 20 minutes too late to sign up for the warm up class which caused me a moment of panic as the first time a dog sees a slatted dog walk is ideally not the nationals! I thought it through though and realized Brody is pretty steady, has been exposed to a million surfaces and as long as I didn't make an issue of it he probably wouldn't (and I was right)

We found the motel fairly easily (thanks in no small part to Nancy's awesome navigation skills) and it was perfect for the task - I had a fridge, a big bath and a tv and a BIG bed.. everything I needed was right there - and there was lots of grass and a little parkette for walking the dogs (which was full of wild bunnies the first night)

We went to Bob Evans for dinner - yummy and hot and close - all I needed!

Collapsed early and slept pretty well - the dogs woofed just a little at first then crashed too

up at 6:30 Friday to make sure we got to trial in time for general briefing