Monday, March 17, 2008

Hiking in the high country





On Sunday Laura, Elaine, and I decided to do the "big hike" since a lot of the snow had melted up in the mountains. The hike took most of the day and I brought home some very tired doggies. My legs were a bit sore this morning from all the climbing. When it's not an agility competition weekend, I like to take my dogs up in the mountains for a hike. It allows them to run, play, sniff, roll in nasty dead stuff and.... well, just be dogs.

Friday, March 14, 2008

FRAAD AKC trial

Last weekend was the 3-day (Friday Excellent only) AKC trial. Sage did well on Friday and took 2nd place in Standard and 3rd place in Excellent FAST but had a wrong course in Jumpers so no QQ. Saturday and Sunday we were just not connecting as a team. We had a wrong course in three of our runs that weekend. Lately I've been focusing Sage's training on distance work and obstacle focus in preparation for Master's gamblers and Excellent FAST. I think I need to back off all of the distance training and balance it with some close technical drills and discriminations that require more handler focus. Oh well.... I tend to to get a bit obsessive and in anticipation of her moving up to the Masters level in gamblers and FAST, overdid the distance training. Maybe....

Summit did very well for his second trial. Saturday he qualified in Novice FAST and earned his NF title. He had a nice jumpers run but took the wrong end of the tunnel. His Novice Standard run was absolutely amazing (I didn't think we would experience a run like that until much later). He earned a 1st place and his NA title.

Sunday he qualified with a smokin' run in Open FAST. But then in his jumpers run I had to take him off the course when he blew his SLS. He waited for his release in Standard but slid off the table and missed his wp entry twice - I think his young brain was a little fried by then.

Here are links to some of the videos from the trial. Unfortunately, Don didn't get Summit's Novice Standard run on film. It would be fun to re-live it!

Sage's Excellent B Standard run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX6KLVD3x3c
Summit's Novice Jumpers run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI-6yXedOxo
Summit's Open FAST run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKZtnCRc1V0 (starts just after the send bonus)