We brought Nationals to us!

While I am wallowing in sorrow at not being able to attend any fun national agility events this year, I had a super fun time cheering on all of my agility friends from home as they rocked Cynosport in Colorado this past week. Several of the local agility crowd did super awesome! I had fun tracking Nari's progress as well -- we always have to root for the Klee Kai! They ended up in the Grand Prix finals!

There was quite a bit of buzz online when the Team Jumpers course was posted on Friday. The Team events don't have the same "rules" as the traditional classes, so the judges tend to throw fun stuff at everyone. The main chatter for this course centered around the pull between jumps after the last tunnel. I thought it looked super fun, so I printed it out hoping that one of these days I'd actually have the energy to play with it.

Well, I didn't have the energy, but I pushed through tonight anyhow. I spent about as much time/energy filling Secret's STUPID HOLES in the yard as I did setting the course. I've taken to locking the dog door after we are in for the night to keep her in, as that's when she tends to go out and do the most damage. She is, of course, also ripping up landscape fabric on a near daily basis, but she isn't doing quite so much damage there anymore (probably because we are running low on landscape fabric at this point).

Secret did a great job with this Jumpers course! She tended towards being sticky at the third jump and I found I really needed to support it to get her over it smoothly -- she wasn't so keen on the Ketchkers there today.

I also had to be sure to support jump nine (the wrap) or she'd stop short. Secret has always been good at reminding me to support obstacles. I can tend to get lazy since Kaiser & Luke both tend to be "point and shoot" because their momentum carries them over.

The sequence following the broad jump was fairly embarrassing for me. I thought front crosses were the obvious choice, but lord help me I could NOT get there for Secret (typically because I was stuck supporting the wrap, whereas I could send Kaiser and run). Thankfully, though, she handled the sequence really nicely with rear crosses and other odd combinations I threw at her.

Secret's weaves were lovely tonight, I'll give her that! My course only had six weaves because I couldn't squeeze all 12 in for whatever reason. Partially due to the difference caused by the 24" spacing, but I must have set the right side of the field a little tight. Oh well. I also ran out of jumps, so the two "jumps" after the weave poles (that you can't see on camera) are hoops.

We were 50/50 on that pull through the jumps at the end. When we missed it, it was all my fault (ie: lean towards the jump and expect your dog to take it!). For sure we started to get worse as I got more and more tired. We did take a break around the 7 minute mark and then I brought Secret out for a second go after Kaiser was done. This always recharges us both!



Kaiser was a good little Klee Kai tonight, if you don't count the fact that he wouldn't hold his start line for anything. I edited out the NUMEROUS times I went back and reset him when he broke (and of course, I'm sure all of the times I let him break and kept running helped this so much...).

Kaiser did better than usual with the wraps, but he wouldn't let me Ketschker on him. lol He only crashed one jump on one of the first runs and thankfully he didn't seem to let it bother him too much.

I expected the ending to be nearly impossible for Kaiser because he seems to have it in his head that if there is an obstacle within eyesight, he should take it on his way to me. That said, he did REALLY well! Now, would he do this well in a trial? Probably not -- so who is to blame? Oh yes, probably me.  :o)



I am not leaving Luke's video out this time -- Luke didn't get to play tonight.  :o(  I'm not sure what happened, but this morning he "couldn't" run when we went out to play fetch before work. He wasn't limping, but he was gaiting oddly. He was not reactive to any poking and prodding, so I decided to just let him be and see how he does. He was NOT happy that I didn't let him play tonight. He was running around the yard like a fruit loop while I set up and tore down, though, so he seems to be feeling better. My first thought was Lyme or Anaplasmosis again, but we'll see. I'll keep an eye on him and see if it crops up again.