UKI Trial - Onward to Nationals?

This was by far the most fun trial of the year.  I love UKI but we have so little of it.  At least this year there were 2 full trials and a one day trial.  But all of them 2-2+ hours away and in summer during peak triathlon training season.  And one on 4th of July weekend which is not a weekend you want to be on the roads if you can help it.  I know, whine whine whine.  But I hate the driving, SO MUCH, especially driving from Boulder to and through Denver with the traffic and construction and stupid Broncos game traffic or whatever it was that brought the highway to a standstill on my way home.  Thankfully there is a bypass so I wasn't in the parking lot for too long.  Takes a little longer but at least it was moving.  But still, 2 hours 20 minutes stuck in the car on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. O.k., enough whining about the growing traffic situation of Too Many People on the Front Range.  On to UKI.

First round for us was Agility.  Here's the course map.

And the video.



Fun course but I was super rusty and Strummer was wound up and flying around the course.  Not a great combination but somehow we managed a Q.  He has no masters level standard agility Q's in USDAA after how many years and somehow he pulls off one in UKI?  He hasn't trialed since May and we've barely practiced in the past few weeks due to heat and schedule conflicts with my training partner.  And let's not even get into the soreness and fatigue in my legs from training and the big quad busting climb on my bike the day before.  Maybe that's the key to success?  Don't practice and work your way into physical exhaustion.  Sounds like a plan.

 Then on to Masters Series Agility or Super Fancy Agility as I call it.

It wasn't pretty but we got it done without an off course.  Elements of it were similar to regular Agility so we had a little practice from the previous run.

Then on to regular Jumpers.  The one thing I don't like about UKI is weave poles in the jumpers courses.  Strummy got his entry but popped out for some reason.  I think I slowed down a bit to praise him and he thought something was wrong but who knows.

Next was Masters Series Jumping.  I don't have video because I turned the camera off when I thought I was turning it on.  Because I'm a genius that way.  We had just a refusal, I forget where.  I know he got his weave entrance so it wasn't that.  Again some similar challenges to regular Jumpers.

 And finally Speedstakes which is my favorite class and the one I was sure we would Q in.  No weave poles, fast straight forward course, perfect for Strummy.  But I rushed my handling after Jump #6 and didn't give enough forward cue to Jump #7 causing him to back jump #6.  Oh well. 

Overall he got 4/4 weave pole entries which is pretty darn amazing for him though admittedly the entries played to his strengths.  Also got both teeters and A-frames and 1/2 dogwalks.  Can't complain about his obstacle performance especially since he hasn't been on obstacles since May except maybe the odd weave pole or teeter at my training partner's house.  My handling though, yeesh, I need to practice for me.

Overall he ended up getting a Q in the Masters Series and a bye to the Finals Round at Nationals.  And he won a small sum of money which was a surprise to me.  Didn't know you get money for Masters Series.  Now, do I want to drive for 3 days to go to Perry, GA for Nationals?  This was not even a blip on a blip of my radar.  I can't imagine all that driving.  6 total days of driving for 3 days of agility and realistically only a few minutes total of time in the ring?  Agility is a bad bang for your buck/time when it comes to competition.  But it might be a fun experience and I've never been to the south.  And it would almost certainly be my last opportunity at a Nationals competition with Strummer.  He's 10 1/2 and still going strong but who knows for how long.  And I have no youngster waiting in the wings so it would be years before I could ever go to another Nationals.  But Three Days Of Driving.  Then turn around and do it again 3 days later.  Hmmmm.


In all we got 5 runs in and were done by just past noon.  And I didn't even enter Gamblers which ran first, could have been 6 runs.  I wish agility was always like that, I'd be more inclined to drive the 2 hours each way.  But wow, only 4 dogs in the masters classes.  Total, all heights, and Strummy the only one in his class.  Personally I don't mind but it's probably not sustainable for clubs to have that kind of turnout.  And where was everybody?  I know it's a drive but if I can do it all the way from Boulder, sheesh, it's not so bad from Denver.  But I think people are entrenched in their pursuit of titles and there isn't enough of a critical mass of UKI trials yet to interest people.  I would much rather have interesting, challenging courses than worry about titles.  They're mostly a marketing gimmick anyway to get people hooked and keep them coming back.  Why not try something new rather than trotting around the pinwheels weekend after weekend for MACH 107?  Ah well, you can't tell people what they should enjoy doing.  Just wish we had more UKI and closer to home.

Historic UKI Trial

Laramie, WY

Went to my second UKI trial and Wyoming's first ever UKI trial on Sunday in Laramie.  Very fun, very laid back trial.  Unbeknownst to me it was held in conjunction with Stacy Peardot's agility camp so there were people there from all over the country.  In fact out-of-towners made up most of the crowd, there were only five of us that were local.  There's only ever been one other UKI trial in Colorado and that was 4 years ago.  I think I may be the only person who's competed in both.  Anyway, it was a very fun trial - small, laid back, super fun courses, 5 runs.  My idea of a perfect day.  Except for the part where we had a whole hour and only 2 dogs ran.  There were a lot of procedural delays because the venue is new and the trial was put on by a skeleton crew so there were unexpected glitches here and there.  But still the trial started at 11:00 a.m. so I was able to sleep in for the 2 hour drive and I was done by 5:30 so I was home in daylight.  Not too bad all things considered.

We didn't get course maps so I can't post those but I do have videos of all my runs.  I split them into Jumpers runs and Agility runs.  One thing about my GoPro camera is that the high quality of the video footage means huge files and my computer doesn't have enough oomph to handle them so I have to split things up.

Speedstakes, Fancy Jumping and Super Fancy Jumping

UKI Fancy Jumpers from colliebrains on Vimeo.


Fancy Agility and Super Fancy Agility



I have to confess to not being clear on what UKI calls their various classes and the premium is off the website so I'm not sure what they were called.  What I'm calling Fancy Jumping and Agility were the regular masters level titling classes and Super Fancy Jumping and Agility were the combined Biathlon classes that qualify you for something or other that is probably way too far away for us to attend.  Not that we qualified anyway.  But those courses were the most challenging and very fun.  We had off courses in both because I managed to get momentarily lost in both but I thought we did pretty well considering we don't see this stuff very often in trials and Strummer never saw the back side of a jump before a few years ago.  We've come a long way in our international handling at trials and I was super happy with his runs.  We did have a nice fast clean run in Speedstakes for 1st place though we were the only dog in our height.  Our titling jumpers run had only 2 refusals, thrilled to get through that without an off course. 

Strummer had a blast getting so many runs in.  Normally I would never enter so many in a day but with a 2 hour drive I figured I'd enter everything and pull if he looked tired.  Strummer very rarely looks tired and he was raring to go for all his runs.

Was fun to see so many new people running their dogs.  Definitely different from your everyday local trial without the pressure of a national or regional event.  UKI is by far the most fun of all the venues, I so wish we had more trials.

And apparently we can't have a UKI trial without pigs.  During the hour delay I took Strum for a walk around the Animal Sciences barn at the trial site and found the pigs.

I couldn't get any closer for pictures because do you see that moat of muck in front of their pens?  SO gross, no way I was stepping in that.  Also the pigs were getting agitated by the sight of me and/or Strummer and making angry snorting noises, getting stiff aggressive postures, etc. so I backed off pretty quickly.  And somebody was very, very scared of the pigs and pulling my arm off to get away.

So I snapped a couple rushed photos and got out of there.  Plus the smell.  OMG, the SMELL.  Just as bad as the other UKI trial.  Horribly dirty animals, I don't care how smart they supposedly are.

No more trials until maybe DOCNA in August and then USDAA in Sept. but sadly they'll never approach the fun and challenge of UKI.

Get your Cowboy on - UKI at the Larimer County Fair

The County Fair and agility, I'm not sure it gets much better.  I loved the County Fair as a kid and I still do.  I probably wouldn't take the time to go though if it wasn't for the agility trial.  Last year was USDAA but they gave the club such a hassle this year that the club decided oh forget it we'll just do UKI instead.  This was Colorado's first UKI trial and I was excited to try a new venue.  Unfortunately we were stuck in Beginners since UKI doesn't recognize DOCNA titles for grandfathering  but otherwise the venue has a lot of nice amenities including reasonable jump height cut-offs and lots of heights to choose from, 24" weaves (though we didn't have them for this trial because the club hadn't received their new set yet), displaceable tire which the club did have, no up contacts are judged-hooray for the big dogs!  The upper level courses were on the tight, twisty, technical side which a lot of the dogs didn't seem to care for.  Lots of frustration, 'you want me to go where?' barking going on.  The Beginners classes were fine though, similar to what you see in USDAA.  In a way I was glad we didn't have to do the harder courses but in another way I think we would have done better on them because it's more the sort of thing we practice in class with Joy.  Strum collects a lot better and keeps his head about him more when there are lots of turns.  It's when things are more wide open and he starts charging around that he loses his head and the bars come down.  Still I think too much of that technical stuff is demotivating for the dogs even if it is more interesting for the handlers.

Last time I had photos and no videos, this time I have video but no photos.  I thought I'd try a video montage this time and I have some great footage subject wise-pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, a wee kid leading a bull around, a chihuahua in a pink dress, a log rolling competition, a kick ass Bluegrass band playing a Cheap Trick cover (does it get any more County Fair than that?), 4-H girls in shorts, pony tails and stylish cowboy boots with their pigs and sheep, and a pig with the hiccups.  But unfortunately most of it sucks.  Too dark inside the livestock barns and it turns out my video talents lean towards the 'Blair Witch Project' and are more vomit inducing than the carnival rides.  But I pieced together a small bit of it and added it to my agility runs that a friend with better video skills taped.  I'm starting to wonder if the taping I do for people at trials comes out this badly.

Oh yeah, there was some agility too.  Strum had no Q's which should have been depressing but he was running so nicely and finally hit a weave pole entrance on a full set of weaves like he knew what he was doing.  I was SO happy over that since that was my main training goal for the trial.  I feel like he's finally starting to get it.  He got 2/2 of his dogwalks and 2/3 of his A-frames.  I'm a little doubtful over whether the miss was truly a miss but oh well.  He hasn't missed in A-frame in I can't remember when and I thought he'd got it but to be honest I wasn't watching all that closely.  The only thing I wasn't happy about was the amount of bars that came down.  One cost us a Jumpers Q and he had one down in Standard and Speed Stakes.  I think he kept them all up in Snakes and Ladders.  I've never had a bar knocker before and it's frustrating.  I don't think it's a jumping issue, I think it's mostly a handling issue and maybe a little bit of overexcitement.  It's the #1 reason for us to miss a Q though.  I haven't had a lesson in months, Joy's not teaching right now and nobody else teaches masters level classes in my area.  I've been so focused on the weaves that I've let the handling slip.  I signed up for a handling seminar and a jumping seminar with Daisy Peel in a couple of weeks so hopefully that'll get me back on track. 

Anyway, here's the video.  A little mistake here and there with the knocked bars, a horribly executed rear cross, and it wouldn't be the Larimer County Fair if I didn't get lost on a Jumpers run but otherwise nothing too terrible.  I'm rocking a pretty good crazy dog lady look with my new hat which predictably falls off during the last run and distracts me enough to cause Strum to miss a jump.  I know sunglasses are bad because you can't make eye contact with your dog but I think I need to go back to them because I have yet to find a hat that stays on.  You can click on the link of the video title for a bigger view.

Strummer's runs
UKI at the Larimer County Fair from colliebrains on Vimeo.

I put a little bit of the Bluegrass band, The Blue Canyon Boys, at the start of the agility tape but I also thought I'd put all the footage I had in their own video.  Unfortunately I came into earshot of them at the end of their last song, a cover of Cheap Trick's 'I Want You to Want Me'.  This literally sent me running to the stage but still I was only able to catch the end.  I have to confess, a stand-up bass sends my heart to pitter pat.  Again, the video footage is a bit dizzy making in places, I was finding it hard to stand still.  These guys were great, I was so disappointed that I only caught the a couple of minutes.  The other tragic thing is that it was like me and an old guy in a lawn chair watching them.  How did nobody else see how great they were and come over?  Oh well.  I see they're playing an outdoor concert in the park in Lyons which is only a 15-20 minute drive but it's on a Thursday night and I'll probably be too tired but we'll see.

Blue Canyon Boys-'I Want You to Want Me'
Blue Canyon Boys-'I Want You to Want Me' from colliebrains on Vimeo.

The only downside to the day at the fair is the parasites, and I don't mean the slumming Boulder trust funders.  Last year the dogs came back with a suspected case of lice sending me into a minor panic.  Of course I notice Strummer scratching as soon as he gets in the door then Lola starts up on cue then my head starts to itch.  Then last night I dreamt my arms were covered in 3 layers of parasites, each layer a bigger bug that had come to eat the bug in the layer below.  I've been up since around 4 am after waking up screaming from that nightmare.  Probably shouldn't be reading Stephen King's 'It' before bedtime.