Paws for Friendship DOCNA Trial

That photo about sums him up. (Stover Photography)

A fun, relaxing and far less eventful DOCNA trial this past weekend in Peyton, CO which is also far far away out on the plains where the deer and the antelope play and I even saw a herd of antelope both mornings on my drive to the trial site.  I stayed at a hotel for the first time in eons and it was not such a happy experience but I'll save you the whining.  In short I forgot to ask not to be placed next to the pool.  Strum was such a good boy though, not a peep out of him despite the screaming and banging going on just outside the door.  I stayed in Colorado Springs about 1/2 an hour from the trial site and not too far from Garden of the Gods but I was too tired to go and I had just gone last October after a USDAA trial.  Never posted the photos, I'll get around to it eventually.

As per usual a celebrity died while I was out of town.  R.I.P. Dennis Hopper.  I loved Blue Velvet, one of my favorite movies.  The man sure knew how to do 'psycho'.

Rubberized equipment is the best, I wish every club would do it.  Strum had no problem with the slatless equipment since the traction was so good.  Was talking to someone whose dog does have trouble with sliding on NADAC's slatless rubber skins but had no problems with the slatless and granules/coating.  So nice for the dogs and Strummer was much calmer waiting his turn because there was no noise of doggie nails on sanded contacts.

Not a fantastic weekend Q-wise but we did make some good progress with the weave poles.  Had one melt down at the start of the weekend (edited it out of the video to spare you all having to watch that) but by the second day he was finally starting to get his entries.  I'll need to see it in a lot more trials before I believe he truly understands but it was a good feeling to see him finally start to get it.  Unfortunately not too many trials for us this summer.  I could go to USDAA at the end of  June but there's nothing in July.  Thought about registering him with AKC but my stomach turns over and over and over at the thought of giving them my money so I don't think that's a reasonable option for us.  We'll continue with our proofing and hope he remembers until August.

I'm coining a special handling move called the 'Fally On My Assy' move.  Maybe I'll develop my own handling system around it.  It's a crowd pleaser but not so good for agility handling.  It would be nice to get through at least one trial without garnering video for my blooper reel.

Had 3 five fault Standard Runs, that was fun, and a dropped bar in both Jumpers runs, super fun.  Too many bars came down on Sunday, maybe the crazy wee man was finally getting tired.  12 runs is a lot, even for crazy Strummer man though he was completely off his head first thing Sunday morning probably due to the nice 'cool enough for fleece' weather.  He was 10/10 on his A-frames, 6/10 I think on his dogwalks which was not so fabulous.  Most of the misses were when I was too far behind.  Shouldn't matter in theory but it does matter in practice so we need more proofing there too.  Teeter was much better this weekend despite the above photo but I had to babysit him too much and got too far behind at least once causing some bungled handling of a serpentine.  Most of my handling errors this weekend were due to being too far behind because of worries over obstacle performance, mostly the teeter and turns from a tunnel onto the dogwalk or A-frame.  More shtuff to work on I suppose.

We did manage Q's and first places in Trigility (relay) and 2 rounds of Snakes and Ladders and a 10 fault Q and 3rd place in the North American Challenge (like USDAA's Grand Prix).  I didn't know anybody on our Trigility team and we were paired with 2 fast wee dogs who did a great job so we had a good result despite Strum's dropped bar.  I don't typically enter Trigility and Snakes and Ladders but they turned out to be good practice and you need only one Q for your title and to move up a level.

Here's the video.  I turned up the music and turned down the trial noises so you don't have to hear me yelling 'Awesome!!!' then my videographer yelling 'Awesome!!!' back and forth a million times every time Strummer gets a weave entry.  We were giving each other moral support with our various training issues over the weekend.  Instead you can enjoy a nice punk rock version of 'Mandy'.  Maybe you'd rather hear all the 'Awesomes!'?

You can click on the link for a bigger viewer.

Saturday-2 rounds of Standard and Snakes & Ladders
DOCNA MAY 29, 2010 from colliebrains on Vimeo.

Sunday-Trigility, North American Challenge, 2 rounds of Standard

DOCNA MAY 30, 2010 from colliebrains on Vimeo.

Sneaked in a quick bike ride up in the mountains yesterday before going to a friend's barbecue.  First ride of the season on the West Mag trails, so nice to be back on the mountain trails.  Might write more about it later.