An Oldie but a Goody

A Good Weekend - A Tazzy Weekend

I feel like an agility person today. I'm tired, but in a good way. Tazz acted like a real agility dog for TWO whole days. Ok, no it wasn't like a FAST agility dog, that would be asking for too much. But he did act like he was enjoying himself.

Sat

Masters standard A good start. No Q, but definitely a good run. A missed contact and a weave pop out, but happy happy happy.

Master pairs. Q and 1st place! Thanks world team member Marcy for being my pairs partner :)

Master Gamblers. No Q. No distance work. Mama's boy.

Master Snooker. Q, happy dog. Happy mom.

Steeplechase. I didn't even check the scores. He did a nice job, but missed an A frame contact. No way we q'd...WAY!!! Next morning I'm walking Standard and I think, maybe I should go check and Whoala there is Tazzies name on the running order. Q!!!!!!

Sunday

Steeplechase. 1st place $15.89. Ok, Ok, there were no other dogs in the class. But hey. In 3 weeks no one is gonna remember that Tazzie was a lone wolf, I still have bragging rights

Standard. What an excellent run he had. If he hadn't taken 4 seconds to lie down, it would have been a RIGHTOUS Q...but no matter. We are getting closer and closer and I feel a MAD coming our way.

Grand Prix: Q!!!! 2nd place! nothing more to say to that.

Ok, here is where I started to loose it. Gamble and snooker, no q, my fault, but I could tell that Tazzie's enthusiasm was starting to wain as well. Skipped Jumpers and headed home.

A great weekend by any ones standards.

A few comments from this weekend I thought especially funny:

In reference to Tazz, "He actually cantered!"

In reference to a dropped bar, "I had the wrong shoes on."

In reference to an owner and her dogs name, "She is either an alcoholic, gay, or a stalker."

Dirt Dogs

And lastly, my friends dog was a little hot this weekend and dug herself a nice hole in the ground. While she was making herself comfortable, a little Papillon was buried in her crate and her pen mate Hobbes was covered in dirt much of the day.

A total Redo

So I got my hair colored today. (I have my own colorist...actually she is Laura's colorist and I have wiggled my way into her colorist heart in hopes that my hair one day will look like Lauras...not likely, but a girl can dream).

I get my hair done every six weeks. I've been coloring my hair since I was 30, so I don't actually know what color my hair is supposed to be except that I peek at the roots and they are grey.

Today She asks me what color I'd like. This is a question of the ages isn't it. I actually don't think it is about color. What I'd like is long thick hair with a light wave to it. What I have is thin hair and not much of it (although I'm not complaining, I'm just trying to answer the question). So I tell her what I always tell her, you make the decision...she is the colorist after all...a trained professional. I'm not trained in hair color, I don't want to be responsible for this decision.

So what does this have to do with agility you ask? I'm not sure, but I think that I run better and my dogs behave better when my hair is beautifuly colored and the grey is not to be found on my head. After visiting Seema, life is beautiful, the trees are greener, my family is nicer, my husband is hunkier, the web is friendlier, diet food tastes better...life is just good.

BTW, I LOVE my hair color. She proved once again she knows her stuff.

Swim Fun

This could very well be our last weekend of hot weather. We spent a lot of time by the pool enjoying the hot temps. Tazz enjoys the water so much now that he'll just swim and swim. Excellent exercise :)

Fin - not so much.

Congrats are in Order

Congratulations to Diane Patterson and her dog Catcher (Fin's Brother) who got the first agility title for our litter. Big boy catcher got his NA and is probably getting his NAJ today :)

Whoo Hoo! Big shout out to Diane for working hard and getting HiMarks Perfect Catch "Catcher" ready and out to his first agility trial at only 15 months!

Here are her words (Catcher is Fins full brother and Kazee is a half sister), "Today, Catcher earned his Novice Standard title! He did it in just 3 runs, all with 1st places, and an average speed of 3.7 YPS!

Kazee, asserting her place as Princess of All She Chooses, earned QQ #6 for MACh2, with a 2nd place in Standard and a 6th in JWW. "

Fin has come "catching" up to do!

Let's just cover it all!

Ok, I've been bad. Didn't get blogs done this week. So here is goes:

Fitness report: Another .5 hits the dust. Gotta do better than this, but I'm happy about it. No fast food. Lots of apples, veggies, and fish.

Training: going good. Fin is having fun in her personal class with Moe. She likes Moe and all the other people and their dogs. She especially likes the water buckets and splashing! She started doing a full dog walk this week. Pretty special. She runs fast and stops at the end...we'll see how long that lasts once we start trialing.

We still need work on the weaves as she does not understand the importance of doing them with distractions. She'll get there. Everything else is going great!

Fun match: Fin participated in her first fun match. I was a bit nerve wracked, but all in all I consider it successful. First time out I only did 3-4 obstacles and then gave her a reward. Last run of the day I let her do all 15 jumps in the jumpers course. We dropped the first bar and I had a VERY late FC after 10, but all in all, she is getting it. The best part of this entire video is the "finger." The gal taping had her finger in the viewfinder the entire time! In addition, a fly landed on her finger and takes center stage!

What I learned today: She needs a little more back chaining on the dog walk to keep the speed up. Her A frame is BEAUTIFUL! She locks onto the tunnel very early and will have NO problem with a gamble. Her table is quite nice. She loves to jump :) She'll stress at the start line if I push her to play too much, but once running will take a break and play just fine.

The Regionals

How exciting! The USDAA western regionals held every Labor day weekend. This year, the Bayteam held the regionals in SMART territory at the Manzanita Park in Prunedale. Dare I say it was some of the BEST agility weather we've had for this regional. I was worried that there would not be enough space, but there was plenty of space for all.

I entered Tazz for all four days and what most surprized me was that he stayed steady the entire time. Yes there were moments of brillance, yes there were moments of slowness, but all in all I was really happy with his runs. I believe lots of "Q's" are in the future, just none this weekend.

Kel was in Arizona this weekend and I had the pleasure of Trish staying with me in Morgan Hill. When I left on Friday for a busy day in Prunedale, the kitchen was a mess. I called and appologized letting her know that I would clean it up. When I got home, the kitchen was "SPOTLESS!" Trish gets to come and visit ANYTIME she wants.

In the evenings we talked and played scrabble. I left each morning before the sun rose and Trish slept in. When I'd get home, there was a hot meal waiting. What more can one ask. I even had a beer on Sunday night and was EXTREMELY relaxed :)

All in all a fun time. One of the highlights was running Havoc. Always a fun ride. Mondays run was GREAT...until we got to the tunnel. Oh well.

Tazz snooker. I still don't understand why we got whistled off, but we did just at the closing...our opening was great!

Standard. A missed contact, slow weaves, and a slow table down were our demise, but other than that he was happy and enjoyed running.

Standard with Havoc. Compare Tazzies run with this one. It is a totally different experience running Havoc. One must think quick for sure!