Hopefully I’ll blog about it when I get back. I won’t have to be on my feet all weekend which, I think, will be a good thing.

I will need to pick a theme and restore it, too. This is just a generic one for now. But since my next three weekends are packed with stuff to do, it may be a while. My pictures are uploading now, from backup, and hopefully will be up before I go to bed tonight.

This coming weekend I have an ASCA agility trial, should be fun. Jet is entered in everything. Chase is even entered one day. Been feeling kinda bad since he’s just doing obedience now. I can’t do flyball anymore, I just don’t have the time. And he gets walks and stuff but still he misses the running full bore things. So even though we don’t really mesh in agility, we’ll see how it goes for a day. Tatum is entered on Sunday in just a couple of runs to keep her going and have fun. She can’t make ASCA times but we have fun anyway.

The following weekend a friend and myself are going to a Chris Zink seminar in Grand Junction, Colorado. That should be fun and I’m really looking forward to it.

The weekend after that is a 2 day AKC agility trial. Maybe Jet and I can pick up another QQ or so.

So in between I’ll be restoring blogs and finding new themes. And finding better ways to protect my sites from being hacked. Dumb hackers. Dangit, they need to just leave well enough alone!

Agility Trial

I haven’t seen anyone yet with a fender american special telecaster guitar at an agility trial, though. But you never know. Actually some people get picky about having music play at trials. Some people don’t really like it. And I guess it’s probably most polite to let people have their own personal music in their ears, then making everyone listen to music they may not like. But either way is fine with me, really.

I have an ASCA agility trial this weekend. Jet is entered both days in everything. Tatum is entered just on Sunday in a couple of runs. And Chase… strangely enough, is entered on Saturday. I’ve been feeling guilty that he hasn’t been doing anything other than obedience lately. So we are going just for fun. He doesn’t understand a Q anyway, he just understands fun.

Jet and Chase

The format was okay, much like the Stacy Perdout-Goudy workshops I’ve been to here. She set up little course sequences then we all ran them and she’d tell us what she liked and didn’t like and gave us ideas to handle things differently.

For me and Jet, mostly she just told me to run with him more. Probably to speed him up. He’s not a speedy dog, because I didn’t train him to be fast. I trained him to be consistent, and getting 3DQs is first year of competition… I think we have the consistency I wanted.

So we went and we did what she said and we ran the courses, and I just wasn’t really that impressed. I think these types of seminars are more geared toward the fast border collies and other dogs that need some help. Me… I just can’t see the fraction of a second difference that it takes in cues to get a dog to go over an obstacle. I never could. That’s probably why I always had so much trouble running Chase, my border collie. I used to want speed… if you read back on this blog, there are many posts from 2004 and so that I said I wanted speed. But, I learned my lesson, because I know that I don’t have the timing for it, and so I no longer want speed. I want consistency and accuracy and that is what gets Qs.

So anyway, I think I’m not going to go to agility seminars anymore. For some reason obedience seminars make more sense to me. I can understand the training philosophy and see the differences in technique. And I prefer places with pa electricity that have heat. I’m tired of sitting in the cold all day watching agility seminars. Give me a comfy chair and a warm spot and I’m much more happy!

Jet Flyball

I’m not a big seminar person. I don’t like them much… sitting around listening to different types of training that I may never actually do. But when Jet was having a bad weekend last June, I kinda panicked, and signed up for this seminar. After that trial, he started doing really well and now I’m not sure I’ll really get much out of it. And it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, and be cold, and it’s a 45 minute drive. UGH. I hope Jet’s not too cold, I’ll bring his coats and warm bed for his crate, but still I’ll worry. I don’t think I’ll be wearing yellow box sandals this weekend, I’m going to have 20 layers of clothes on!

So, if I have time, I’ll post about the seminar this weekend. Or next week, or whenever I can.

Jet's Ribbons This Weekend

Today he Qualified in Time 2 Beat in the morning, took first place and got us 10 more points for the T2B title. So far he has 5 Qs and 42 points. He needs 15 Qs and 100 points for his T2B title, so we’ll keep doing that for fun. I am not doing FAST with him since I haven’t trained distance on him.

This morning we got our Standard Q in a really nice run. The judge is Dan Butcher and his courses are actually pretty hard. Yesterday they were super hard, today they were not quiet as hard but still difficult. Lots of off course traps, lots of turns and side changes. Jet got 15 Speed Points in Standard this morning, which I think is the most he’s ever gotten in one run.

His JWW run was good too, he took first place and got 9 speed points. Wow, how cool is this, actually tracking QQs and speed points! First time in my life, after 8 years of agility. I’m still thrilled and grateful every day that Jet, my little Danish-Swedish Farmdog, is doing so well at agility!

So this puts him up to Three Double Qs and 70 speed points towards his MACH. At this rate, maybe we could have a MACH by the end of next year… dang! How weird would that be!

I use this free software, Agility Record Book, to track his runs. So far he has an 85% Q rate in JWW in Excellent B. And a 50% Q rate in Standard in Excellent B. Not too shabby. The software keeps track of all his points and QQs and Qs and percentages. It’s really nice!

Yesterday it was cold and rainy… originally they were going to have the trial outdoors, but moved it indoors because of the weather. I’m so glad! I would have needed some nice heated gloves if we ran outside. Today wasn’t too bad, sunny and warmish, but still I’m glad we were indoors. Don’t have to set up a tent, or worry about weather, or mess around in the cold.

So I’m thrilled at how well Jet is doing. We don’t have another AKC agility trial until January, which is a bummer. We have an ASCA trial the end of this month, though, which should be fun.

Jet and Dare

So the first day he was pretty distracted out on the agility courses, but he ran fairly well. I need to load up some video that I got. Haven’t had time or energy since I’ve been back. The second day he only was distracted a bit in the early runs, and later on he did a really nice job and did everything I asked him to do and we had fun.

Unfortunately at the championships there are only ribbons for placements. There are no Qs. And Jet is not fast enough to be really competitive at the 16″ level. He would have Q’d almost every run, but since he’s not that fast, we didn’t get any ribbons. But that’s okay we had a good time. However I don’t know if I’ll go back next year, since I do like a ribbon or two, so we’ll have to see.

The prior weekend not only did he get one Double Q in the AKC trial, he got two Double Qs! He got one on Saturday then again one on Sunday. I was thrilled. I wonder if they are on the AKC site yet, I love looking at legs on the site!

This weekend we have a break, then the next weekend we are doing another AKC agility trial. I hope for some more speed points and maybe another QQ! I’m really excited that I finally have a dog, after doing agility for 8 years, that’s able to get some QQs!

Oh and this picture was taken at Corn Lake in Grand Junction… that is Jet’s best girlfriend in the world, Dare. And their relationship is just like the picture. Jet adores Dare, but she could take or leave him. It’s such a cute picture I had to post it up!

Jet at Camp

Yup, we finally did it. Jet got his first official Double Q in AKC agility today! I’m thrilled. He didn’t Q in either JWW or Standard yesterday, but today he did, and I was excited! Not only is it his first Double Q, it’s also mine! In 8 years of doing agility, I’ve never gotten a Double Q on a dog in Excellent B. An official Double Q that counts towards a MACH. Woo HOo!

And no, I don’t have any video… I am getting kinda tired of feeling like I’m begging people to video. So I decided to just run this weekend and have fun and not worry about it. I figure I can’t get video of every single one of his runs anyway… so we are just going out and doing our agility and having fun. Jet is an amazing little Danish-Swedish Farmdog, and doing awesome at agility.

Tonight I rest, maybe look up a life insurance quote since we are looking at changing, and watching TV. Unfortunately my Interstitial Cystitis flared up today, and I felt rotten. I haven’t had a flare for about 8 months, I’d forgotten how absolutely horrible they are. I amaze myself that I can function with so much pain sometimes.

One more day tomorrow. We are having fun running Time 2 Beat, too. Picked up 20 points for that title this weekend.