Quick update - Trial report, etc.

I was playing on Google maps this morning after an article I read and was surprised to see that there is suddenly a street view available for my house! This is a pretty new addition to Google maps, as it hasn't been that long since I was tinkering on there. The picture is not new, though, because it still has my gravel driveway. It must be from last summer, I would guess.

At any rate, I chuckled when I zoomed in because you can clearly see Kaiser sitting in the window seat, watching the world.  :o)  It's nice to know that Secret doesn't hog that spot all day long and lets the others have a turn.

We had a NADAC trial here in La Crosse this weekend. By "we" I suppose I should clarify that THE BOYS had a trial. Secret and Kizzy got to sit this one out. I had several people ask me where Secret was on Saturday. The reactions were a little surprising when I explained that I don't think she likes NADAC. The biggest one was, "But she's so good at it!" --- I'll admit, she got her 13 Elite Chances Q's faster than either of the boys, finishing her NATCH when she was only three years old. But she TROTS on the majority of Chances courses. I don't care if she's "good" at it if she thinks it sucks bad enough that she trots through the course.

I stopped entering Secret in the games classes (Weavers, Touch-n-Go, Tunnelers & Hoopers) after finishing her Elite Versatility title because she doesn't seem to enjoy those classes at all. She hates Chances, which leaves Regular and Jumpers. What is the point?! We don't need to earn 5,000 points in those classes with the inability to achieve higher titles. She doesn't care if she doesn't run NADAC anymore. So yes, I think I'll just save my money and spend it doing things I feel she does enjoy more, like AKC (and I'm sure we'll get back to a USDAA trial eventually).

The boys, on the other hand, do quite enjoy NADAC so I'm sure I'll continue on a more limited basis for them (considering that Luke is going to start cutting back and Kaiser gets to play in AKC now). They both ran very well on Saturday!

I have no video and I didn't take ribbon pictures OR pictures of the course maps, so this will be a pretty dull recap. Kaiser qualified in both rounds of Regular, which I feel largely redeemed me from my horrible handling at Champs... It's nice to know that we can, in fact, still do agility together.  :o)  Not only that, but he had some smoking fast times, too. His was the fastest time in Round 2 of all dogs and he was right behind Konfetti (winner of the 2013 Triple Crown at Champs!) in Round 1.

The Chances course was a total gimmee at this trial, but I'm starting to think I am doomed to never Q in this class ever again. The only contact was the a-frame and it was at the start with no discrimination or line, so no reason to fault it. Then a send out to two tunnels side by side, but the far one was pretty obvious. Then just a push out to a jump, call back, send through the tunnel, a bit of a turn away from the a-frame and run out with your dog. Luke got it just fine but knocked a bar on the turn after the far jump. I was further ahead than I expected with Kaiser (because holy hell, I am getting faster!) and found myself literally on top of the line without realizing, causing me to stupidly take a step back as he was coming out of the tunnel. Naturally he followed my body and boom, so much for that.

Kaiser had Weavers up next. He was stressing at the start for some reason (yawned) and it took three tries to get him in the first set of weaves. It reminded me of Round 3, the Weavers-focused round at Champs. Do we have issues with weaves being at the beginning of courses now?! I have no idea why... At any rate we recovered and ran clean and we squeaked in under time. Can I say right now how much it irritates me that a small dog can have such a massive blunder like that on course, easily wasting 10 seconds, and still make time? Luke and I struggled for years in that class, coming in with time faults after perfectly clean, faultless runs. I've always thought that the discrepancy was terribly unfair.

Both dogs got to run Hoopers at this trial. Kaiser because he was running on a free day, and Luke because I figured I only had to pay for his runs that day and he'd enjoy it.  :o)  It was a numbered hoopers course, which I could take or leave, but we had fun. Luke had one very close call where I screeched and he literally slid to a halt in front of a hoop, pushing it over 6" out of place as his paws slid into the base. Apparently that is not a fault, because he Q'd. lol Hoopers is always fairly exhilarating with Kaiser and somehow we also managed to get through clean.

Jumpers was last and I knew it wouldn't be a Kaiser course, although he ended up going off course where I hadn't really expected. After that happened I had fun and threw some blind crosses at him. I actually did several blinds with him that day that he read well (typically always where there wasn't a real off course opportunity, granted). It helped my knee a lot... (that started hurting on Tuesday, yay...)

Luke's Jumpers run was kind of a hoot. You know how I mentioned earlier that I've gotten faster? Well, that's putting me in places I didn't plan on being! Bless Luke, he handled it really well and actually managed to keep the bars up as I continued to get in his way.

In other news, Kizzy's weave training has finally begun. I would like to actually give trialing a shot with her one day, which means she needs to learn this skill eventually. After the initial introduction to the first weave base (2x2) outside with toys, I moved the weaves into the basement to commence training on the mats. She's just too high with toys and we can't get enough repetitions in. We'll get a lot more done with food to start and can move on to toys once she gets the hang of things a bit more.

So far so good! She's catching on remarkably fast in the three sessions we've had downstairs. Surprisingly, she also auto-sucks to the table (that never got moved outside this year...) for some reason. We'll see how long that lasts.  :o)  Speaking of, I should probably take Kaiser into the basement for some table work this week. We get to play AKC all weekend!