Category Archives: Chase - Page 2

Flyball and Lake Mead

Posted by on May 17, 2011 3 comments

Last weekend Chase, Jet and myself went to Las Vegas for a flyball tournament. It was pretty fun, though busy and loud. And windy. And Saturday was too hot and Sunday was too cold.

Our teams did pretty well. Both teams placed in their divisions on Sunday. Only one team placed in their division on Saturday. But really I go because the dogs have fun, and to get points for titles. Not really for placements. :) Though I do like it when we do our best.

On Friday before the tournament, and Monday before we went home, I took the boys out to Lake Mead. Jet has never swam before, but he did this time! I was thrilled. Ignore my dumb yays on the video because I was just happy to see Jet swim.

Jet was cold after swimming, poor boy. I needed some hand dryers to warm him up. Maybe I should put a hair dryer in the van that can be powered by the van itself. Do they make such things? Hrm..

Anyway, Jet’s box turn was pretty good, I think. We barely had enough people to race dogs, box load, and shag balls, so I didn’t get any video. Bummer. I wish I did because I want to make sure Jet’s box turn is holding up good. From what I saw I think it was, but it’s hard to tell from way back in the lanes when Jet is up at the box.

Jet ran a singles of 4.6, which is good. I know he could run faster but I don’t train for speed. I train for accuracy and consistency in agility and that’s my primary goal. So I’m happy with how he is doing. Jet was start dog on his team, Chase was third dog. Chase is usually start dog so it was fun to have to pass him this time for a change. Even passing Chase had consistent 4.7 times. That’s what he usually gets starting too so that tells me that my passes were good and tight. I only early passed him I think 3 times the whole weekend so I was happy with my passing for the weekend too.

Next weekend is agility… I need to sleep for three days first, but I have to work instead!

Successful Flyball!

Posted by on March 29, 2011 4 comments

Well we had a lot of fun! The flyball tournament went really well. Our handlers really need to work on tighter passes, or else we have to slow down our seed times, but that’s okay. The dogs had a great time most of all and that is what is most important.

Jet did awesome and I’m happy to say he had a really nice box turn. His rear end did hang once in a while but all and all he did great. The first day he got a bit over excited and crossed lanes to chase the other dog a couple of times, but he got the hang of it and the second day he was solid in his lane.

Here’s some video of the races. The first one is short, the second day is a bit longer.

Day One:

The second day has a few closeups of his box and I’m really pleased with how he’s doing. I did some slow motion of his box too. :)

Day Two:

I’m dead tired, as usual. And I need some blackhead removal since my skin has broken out from the hotel water. But all in all I’m doing okay, vertigo and all. LOL. I still am having some vertigo which sucks but I think it’s getting a bit better. I’m going to check out a doctor next week and see if he can help me out too.

So now it’s back to work. I’d rather be at home resting during the week, playing with the dogs during the weekends. Hopefully I can do that when I retire in a couple of years!

Racing Ourselves

Posted by on March 24, 2011 3 comments
Back Yard

Back Yard

Well, tomorrow I leave for the flyball tournament. I’ve been having vertico for the last week, and accompanying nausea, and I’m not really feeling much better, so I hope I don’t just hate the whole weekend. I usually can push my discomfort to the back of my mind and body well enough to function, and possibly even enjoy myself, so I hope I can do that this weekend too. (Doc says I probably have a virus in my ear, whatever.)

We are racing three teams, two singles and a pairs this weekend, so I am going to be on my feet almost constantly for both days. Which is, actually, how I prefer a trial or tournament. I can’t stand sitting around, so I work. But then I get pretty tired the entire following week. Oh well. One bad thing is that two of our teams are in the same division. And both my dogs, Jet and Chase, are on each of those teams. Soooo… I’m going to have to ask someone to race Chase. He’ll race for just about anyone, as long as there’s a tug at the end of the game. Jet is more sensitive and he’ll probalby only race for me. Plus, it’s his first team so I want to know how he’s doing.

I hope the four to five hour drive is okay, and we don’t hit any bad weather. Supposed to rain all weekend, which sucks, though the tournament is indoors so that’s good. Hopefully I won’t need any cheap auto insurance, the stuff I have should hold me over!

Wintery Training

Posted by on December 21, 2010 5 comments
Jet and Cookies

Jet and Cookies

Well it’s that time of year for sure. Snow is on the ground, and it’s wet and icky outside. So I have had to move my training indoors. Fortunately we got a lot of training in last summer. I think Jet and Tatum both have a really good handle on agility, and next year they are both going to be competing on a regular basis. I suspect that Jet will move up in the ranks faster than Tatum. But I’ll be proud of them both no matter how they do!

So the indoor training goals for this winter include the following….
1. Scent Articles for Jet and Chase: They are both doing really well when there is cheese or some sort of food on the bit, but when it’s gone, they aren’t doing so well. So I’m going to clicker train the scented articles with both the boys, so they understand what they are supposed to be doing. I’m getting this from Clicker Training for Obedience by Morgan Spector. I like the book, and I think it’ll work well for them.
2. Send to the Back of the Jump: Doing this just with Jet. He needs to learn the skill of being sent to the back of a jump, then coming around to jump it towards me. It does seem this is getting more common in trials. It’s a skill we need and he’s catching on fast.
3. K9 Nose Work Boxes etc: Working this with all the dogs! They love it. Moving from boxes to other obstacles like chairs and stuff too. I also hope to put the scents in this too soon. Birch, Anise, and Clove.
4. Back Up: Jet still doesn’t know how to go backwards. The rest of my dogs do, so this is on the list to teach him!

And hmm… now I forget what else is on my list that’s stuck on the fridge in the kitchen. But those articles are going to take some time, I think. And they are fun! Maybe I need go get some document scanning going so I can make copies of my training list and put one at work too.

Oh and this picture? This is jet ‘helping’ us make Christmas Sugar Cookies yesterday. He’s such a goof. It was really hard for him not to eat all that dough, even though I told him he’d get super sick! :)

Jet’s First Flyball!

Posted by on October 26, 2010 9 comments
Flyball

Okay yeah I’m a nut. :) Jet is not ready to be racing in Flyball… but I’ve been itching to enter him in something. LOL. So on Friday, a fun surprise happened, and they were accepting day of show entries for Singles and Pairs at the U-FLI Flyball Tournament!

Well of course I had to enter him. LOL

So now I’m watching the video and I’m thinking that he’s really hitting the box with his shoulders, and he’s not hitting it with all four feet. So I’m coming up with plans about how to get him to hit with all four feet.

See I’m a strange trainer in that I don’t want a dog super high to do flyball. Nope. I have worked very hard at Jet’s drive shaping and I want him to be able to do a controlled box turn before he gets into high drive to do it. I’m not going to get into that in this post, though. But I may put in some stride regulators, and take out the ball so he get’s more muscle memory of just doing his feet before he combines it with the ball. I plan on setting something up in the back yard and doing some video to see what I can do with him. Hopefully the husband will help.

Anyway the tournament was fun. Chase did awesome and ran fast, he got below a 4.5 seconds heat and I was thrilled. He was start dog. We didn’t get any 000 starts but that’s okay, we got pretty close. :) I love running start dog. Not only does it make me feel special… LOL, I think it’s way easier than passing. Plus you get a really accurate time on your run.

I sure don’t need any www.lipofuzefatburner.com after this weekend, since I was on my feet the whole time. I just need a few days to sleep now!

Flyball

Flyball

A Weekend with the Boys

Posted by on October 24, 2010 No comments
Silly Jet
Silly Jet

Silly Jet

A weekend with the boys is awesome. I do wish that I could bring Levi too… and even Tatum, because they love to travel and the do so good at it. But the van is only so big and so some have to stay home.

As this posts I am still, yet again, at flyball. But I love spending time with Jet and Chase and having a stress-free competition weekend. I don’t stress at flyball. Not like agility or obedience. Flyball is just for fun. If we win, great. If we don’t. oh well. It’s fun to get a placement but the only things that counts for titles is points. And if you run below 24 seconds, you get points. yay for points. :)

And soon the weather will turn cold and we won’t have the nice green grass to spend time on. Ugh. I will miss the green grass and the outdoor training. We have plans for indoor training, for sure, but I just love the outdoor training so much better.

When I get back from the tournament it’ll be time to go Christmas shopping. Maybe I’ll check out some amazon gift cards and see if those would be good, easy presents. I really do like easy! :)

Getting Ready for Agility

Posted by on October 7, 2010 1 comment
Chase

Chase

Chase

This weekend we have a 2 day ASCA agility trial. Should be fun. Chase and I are ready, since we had fun at DOCNA and the courses are similar. Nice and wide open with lots of room for Chase to stretch out and extend over jumps. It’s what he’s good at. :) Maybe we’ll be lucky and get some ATCh points while we are at it. I even forgot if he’s got all his Elite titles in ASCA. I don’t think he has his Elite Gambler’s title, but I think he’s got his Elite Jumpers and Elite Standard… but I’m not positive. I need to go look.

I also have Tatum entered. She’s in standard both days, in novice. Though she’s in exhibition only (I think that’s what it’s called) so she can jump 4″ lower than she is supposed to. It’s not titling. But I gotta keep getting her out or she goes and reverts to scardey dog. She’ll have fun. The funnest part is she’ll have to weave! Her weaves are coming along very well. Today in the yard she got 6 polls without guides each time I sent her through. So I hope she gets them at the trial!

I gotta find a good water bowl since mine melted… bleh. Maybe I need to find a distributor water filter website that might have a good water bowl on it! Ugh

So anyway I hope we get some Qs! And some ATCh points!

Chase’s DOCNA Championship Ribbons

Posted by on October 2, 2010 2 comments
Chase at DOCNA Championships

Chase at DOCNA Championships

Well we had fun at DOCNA Championships in Grand Junction, Colorado! Chase was a good boy and did good. I only got made at him… err… I think once. LOL that is pretty good for me. He can really push my buttons, that boy. And he’s so fast, if he blows me off it can really irk me. But he did good, even though he dropped a couple of bars. And there was some serious competition in the 20″ class. There always is, though. The 20″ class has got to be one of the toughest classes to compete in.

On Friday Chase had a fun Jumpers run… he didn’t get a placement (there are no Qs) because he took some extra jumps way off and did a whole big loop. It was kinda cute and if you weren’t watching closely, you’d have think he did a really good job. :) So that put him out of the running on that day. And I was a bit nervous too, because we were going to run that and Snakes and Ladders at about the same time. And we did have to go run Snakes and Ladders right after Jumpers, so that kinda muffed my brain up.

Then we ran a Standard course too, and I don’t even remember how that went, but I don’t think we did very well with that, either. We also had a Gamblers course, and Chase did pretty good at that. Though he knocked a bar in the gamble, which I thought put us out of the running. But, since there’s no Qs, just placements, we still got 3rd place and got our first ribbon of the weekend.

Chase and Dare

On Saturday we did the North American Challenge first thing, and Chase did pretty well on that. He had some spinning when I didn’t grab his head fast enough (which is common for me) and so he only got 3rd place on that one too. But, it’s the big cool class. LOL. So he got 3rd place in the Western Region. The East Coast pushed us out of placements by one, so he could have been fourth place nation wide which is kinda neat.

We also got a Third Place in Trigility on Saturday, and we got a second place in Jumpers on Saturday, so that was fun. But, we didn’t end up getting into the finals for Sunday, so that was a bummer. He got to run the Strategic Time Gable on Sunday but we didn’t do much in that either. Competition was too tough.

So we took home four ribbons, which is 3 more than I was even hoping for. LOL. He did a good job. This weekend is a rest weekend, then next weekend we’ll go to an ASCA trial. I hope we’ll do well there! Gotta work on some ASCA ATCH points. :)

Oh and I had to include this picture of Chase and Dare chewing bully sticks on the bed in the hotel room. Usually Chase is too much of a resource guarder and will growl and carry on. But he was a good patient boy with Dare. And, the Motel 6 had wood floors, they were so neat. No wood blinds but the drapes did just fine. I felt like the wood floors were a lot cleaner and nicer than carpet!