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Category Archives: Agility

USDAA and Chase

April 24, 2008 – 5:14 pm

This weekend I have entered Chase into a USDAA agility trial. I have taken him before… just once, if I remember correctly, and he does have one Snooker leg and one, I think, Standard leg. I have to look it up on the USDAA site again.

Should be fun. It’s outdoors, and so it might be cold. Ugh. If it’s in the 50s that’d be okay. And he’d like it better. I’ll take Tatum too, and maybe Muffit, though I haven’t decided on Muffit yet.

For the next couple of months I’m only running Levi in AKC agility, and Chase in USDAA agility. I guess maybe I’m just weak.. or something, can’t find the word, but I have a really hard time switching my brain and focus between these two dogs in the same trial. So my trainer has advised me to only run one dog per weekend. Ugh.

Of course the decision was hard to make. Chase is going to do USDAA for a while, and not AKC. Levi gets to keep doing AKC because I want to get him is MXP and MJP titles. He has 5 more to go for his MXP, and 8 more to go for his MJP. We’ll see if maybe if I can focus on him alone for a while, I can get these titles on him. He’s 8… and i don’t like to think about that.

I’ve been told a number of times that Chase would be a great USDAA dog. And so we are going to try it out. He is very fun to run in Gamblers and Snookers. It’s fun when we can make up our own course and even screw up, and still Qualify!

I’m not clear on the teams and pairs, though. Not sure how that works. I guess in June on a Saturday it is teams and pairs only. But how many times do the dogs run in teams? Just once? And Chase is in the Performance category so he jumps 22″. I don’t want him to jump 26″ though I’ve considered it. For now he’s in 22″. So I guess the teams has only 2 dogs? Oh, where is Johann when you need him? LOL.

Wish us luck! I’ll probably take pictures of Tatum… LOL.

By Cynthia Blue | Also posted in Chase | Tagged Agility, Chase | Comments (17)

Too Busy to Rest

March 25, 2008 – 3:18 pm

I was just looking at my calendar and realized that yes, I am going to be much too busy this spring. As usual, I guess. Lots of dog sports going on. And my Husband wants to squeeze a camping trip in there too… we didn’t go camping at all last year, and we both missed it. So this year we have to squeeze a couple in between my dog events. I’m going to need some vehicle tracking to even figure out where I am.

This weekend is Flyball Tournament in St. George. Then the following weekend is a weekend off. After that, April 12th, I’ll be in Colorado doing agility. April 19th we are going camping. April 26 is a USDAA trial I’ve entered Chase in. May 3 is a 3 day AKC agility trial. May 10 I’m going back to Colorado just with Chase for USDAA trial, and then finally on May 17th I’ll be able to stay home that weekend.

Ugh! The worst part will be missing flyball practice. I wonder if someone would take Chase for me, on those rare weekends when he’s not coming with me.

By Cynthia Blue | Also posted in Daily Posts, Flyball | Tagged Agility, Collie, Flyball, Travel | Comments (13)

Pics from DOCNA trial

March 16, 2008 – 8:10 pm

Okay so I managed to get off my rear and get the camera and load the pictures onto my laptop, and then onto flickr. Hey that sounds like a lot of work.. well, it is for me since I’m so dead tired! LOL.

I didn’t take these pictures until after I tore down most of the setup and put the collies away. Chase was still out because he ran the very last course, beginners jumpers, and so he got to wait a little bit longer.

I wanted to get some pictures of the dogs with their ribbons but I had packed them all up and didn’t want to get them out anymore. I get so tired at the trials that, toward the end, I just want to sit around and be a vegetable. Now I need some walk in tubs in my house so I can just climb in and have a nice hot, relaxing bath!

Chase is sitting very nicely by his crate. I remember when I first starting bringing him to trials, I wouldn’t trust his down stay at all. But now, he is doing really well. So when Tatum is goofy and doesn’t have a stay I just have to remember that all my dogs start out without a stay… and then the get one. Stay is so important!

By Cynthia Blue | Tagged Agility, Chase, Collie, Levi, Tatum | Comments (9)

Lots of Ribbons

March 16, 2008 – 6:13 pm

Well, Levi and Chase won lots of ribbons this weekend. Today Levi got 3 out of 4 runs. And Chase got 1.. and he was very close on his others, too. Levi does so awesome. He would have had that standard run, too, but he was in a good mood and ran off to do a jump I didn’t send him too. But I actually like that it means he is having good forward focus and he’s having fun!

Chase also did good. I took some pictures but I’m too lazy to go upstairs and get the camera, so I’ll post them up tomorrow. Or maybe tonight after I go and feed the dogs. It’s just about dinner time and all the dogs are hungry.. of course. Though Chase, Levi and Tatum are pretty pooped and are all sleeping already.

Levi is so much fun to run. I’m starting to wrap my brain around running Levi and Chase at different trials. I am seriously considering going with some friends to a USDAA trial in May. I probably won’t go to the Blackfood Idaho 4 day trial if I do. The May USDAA is in Colorado, and splitting gas and hotel would make it cheaper than Blackfoot. I’d only take Chase, too.

Hrm… Well, I’m very tired, and the dogs are hungry!

By Cynthia Blue | Comments (10)

Good Day at DOCNA

March 15, 2008 – 9:13 pm

Well, back from the DOCNA trial. As it’s after 9pm I’ve been back for a while, and the muscles are starting to stiffen up. But that’s okay, it was a fun day. I do wish I could run Levi and Chase both well at the same trial. Today was Levi’s day. He got 3 out of 4 Qs. Two Standard and One Jumpers. Chase only got One Q, in Snakes and Ladders. He is strong in that, though. The Gamblers I messed up because I wasn’t sure about my course. And the Standard he was blowing his contacts so we trained instead.

Muffit did pretty well.. though most of the day he was wide awake and very over stimulated. Not until about 2pm did he start to settle down. He will stay home tomorrow, one day was definitely enough for him.

Tatum did great, she slept most of the day and come out to play and work occasionally. I walked her over to another building where they were doing obedience and conformation fun matches… and that made her nervous but she didn’t die, and later she was fine again.

Levi went through the obedience fun match and did great! I was impressed and we used minimal treats. So.. I’ll be entering him in ASCA obedience this summer to see how he does and get that CD. I took Chase though too, and he needed a treat on his target stick to pay attention to me. It is still hard for him but we are working on it.

The dogs are now very tired and sleeping. The Mum is also tired, and will be sleeping shortly!

By Cynthia Blue | Tagged Agility, Border Collie, Chase, Collie, Levi, Muffit, Obedience, Socialization, Tatum, Training | Comments (0)

DOCNA Agility This Weekend

March 14, 2008 – 7:48 am

Well, I think I’m deciding to take Muffit with tomorrow to agility. It’s DOCNA, will be laid back, he’ll get some good exposure, and if he gets stressed I will call my husband to come and get him. I love this picture of Muffit and Tatum running in the back yard.

It’s going to be a long weekend with a couple of long days. Now I’m thinking I should have entered only one day instead of both. I am going to be doing a lot of AKC and USDAA trials this year, and flyball tournaments, and so I am going to have to cut back on the other venues. I do like DOCNA, though. It’s a lot of fun and they have good courses. And I use it for training… and the dogs just have fun. So we’ll see how it goes.

By Cynthia Blue | Also posted in Muffit | Tagged Agility, Muffit, Play, Tatum | Comments (2)

Should I bring Muffit to Agility

March 13, 2008 – 8:53 am

Muffit has only been in our house now since February 1… what is that… 5 weeks? I think maybe I overestimated his adaptation abilities. Though he was fine at flyball practice, I could tell, just barely, that he was stressed for the next day or two after we got home.

I really want to bring him to the DOCNA trial this weekend to get him out of the house and socialize him and get him into the environment… but maybe I should wait a month or two more. Hrm…

[poll=3]

Of course I’ll make the ultimate final decision but thought I’d make up a poll, too. And avoid any drug treatment that we may have to use afterwards!

By Cynthia Blue | Also posted in Muffit | Tagged Agility, Muffit, Socialization, Training | Comments (27)

Chase had an Awesome Day

February 16, 2008 – 7:57 pm

Chase is so much fun to run. When we work together, and he pays attention. Today was great. We did AKC agility.

Our first run was Open Jumpers with Weaves. He did so well, he paid attention to me and turned and came when I wanted him too, and it was not an easy course. This judge is hard, but her courses are a fun challenge. Chase only had one refusal on the weaves which wasn’t bad. That’s his second Open JWW leg. One more for his title.

Standard wasn’t so good. I don’t even remember now what we did, but we missed some things. He’s in Excellent A Standard now. I was happy with the run though he did a good job.

Then Chase ran in Open FAST. Oh. My. Gosh. It was an awesome run. The send was HARD! It was tunnel, weave, tunnel, and quite a distance, too. And as soon as he entered the tunnel I was yelling ‘WEAVE!’ and so he nailed the weave entry, finished them all (which is hard for him when a tunnel is after the weaves) and then hit that second tunnel. Wow! He was one of only two dogs that Q’d in that whole class! I was thrilled. So was the other woman who Q’d! We celebrated. LOL. Chase even picked up 79 points (out of 80)!

So I’m proud of Chase this weekend. He did great. That’s his open FAST title so I moved him to Excellent FAST tomorrow. He’s great at fast, his distance handling is nice, and we can just point collect.

Levi’s runs weren’t so good. Well, they were good, but just one mistake each run again. ugh. Actually, I think maybe more than one today. But it was a great day all around! We had fun!

Tatum came with too, and she was very nervous. It was a place she had never been before. But that’s okay, she needs to come to different places to get used to them.

So now I’m tired and I need to go to sleep! It was a long day.

By Cynthia Blue | Also posted in Chase, Levi, Tatum | Tagged Agility, Chase, Levi, Tatum | Comments (28)

Good days and Bad days

February 15, 2008 – 5:07 pm

I guess I’ll be up and down for a while with this diagnosis of Lucy having cancer. I have managed not to think much about it since Wednesday… thinking about it now just makes me cringe.

Wednesday was a bad day. I was really down all day after the vet appointment on Tuesday. Even though it wasn’t too bad… what.. what am I talking about? Any cancer is bad! Ugh. The vet said they had ‘good news’ so we were really hoping to go in and have them say “It’s not cancer!”. But they did not. They just said they could not find a main tumor. I didn’t think that was good news at all.

Anyway, Lucy gets to go to Dr. Kim Hennemen on the 25th so that will be good. I like her a lot. Her limp is doing okay… as is mine. LOL. I need some posture correction, and some ankle and knee therapy, it seems.

I have agility all this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday. I hope it goes well. I’ll try to get and post up some videos. I run Chase and Levi. It’s AKC. I have to really be serious about it… get the Qs! Bah.. just have fun, eh? Yeah, just have fun. And hope I don’t hurt my ankle or my knee anymore.

By Cynthia Blue | Also posted in Info, Lucy | Tagged Agility, Cancer, Chase, Levi, Lucy, Videos | Comments (15)

ASCA Agility

February 10, 2008 – 11:54 am

Well we did some ASCA agility yesterday. I just entered the one day. I’m glad I did. Chase was so tired last night when we got home that he was showing his teeth to everyone, even Lucy and Levi and he doesn’t do that often at all.

Both Levi and Chase did great. Levi got a couple Qs, Chase didn’t get any but I did want to practice with him. And it’s so much fun to run him now. We have come a long way, and we still have a way to go but I’m learning. I’m especially learning lateral distance. Sometimes I think I can be further away from him than I can be. He missed a tunnel entry because of that yesterday. I thought he’d hit the tunnel he’s such a tunnel suck. But nope.. he check in with me instead, which was good!

Levi did awesome, too. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind because of Lucy’s most likely Cancer, but I was happy with the boys. I brought Tatum too, and she’s doing so well there. She goes up to everyone now looking for Livers, which she gets thanks to her Mum. Afterwards we were in the parking lot and I dropped her flexi… suffice it to say, we have to practice her dragging the flexi. Because the Mum can be a dork sometimes and drop them. She was pretty frightened of it dragging behind her.

Today is a rest day, which I need. Muffit is sitting beside me sleeping. He is such a snuggler. He is still snuffling, we might take him back to the vet tomorrow or Tuesday for a checkup.