Been a While

Yes, it's been a while since I've posted here.  I've not been so successful at keeping my commitment of posting at least once a week.  Most of the problem is due to the fact that I've been posting to Facebook.  It's much more interactive, so head on over and check out my profile.

In other news....it's the 2nd day of spring here in McKinney and this is what we've woken up to.

 

And it was 74 on Friday!  We were supposed to trial this weekend (our first ASCA outing) but Dinah's been a bit off so we stayed home.  And then this weather hit.  I'm sorry Dinah's sick, but I'm much happier all warm and toasty inside on the couch!

Levon's Princess Dinah - RN, AX, MXJ, CGC, TT

I didn't think I'd ever ever get to make this brag, but Dinah earned her AX title on Saturday at the DOTC trial in McKinney. AND...she got it even with having to do a down on the table. Now granted, it was close. We spent 20 seconds on the table, and we finished with a time of 67.54 seconds and Standard Course Time as 68 seconds! But we were clean and we even wound up in 3rd place! We didn't do so well in the Jumpers run. We had one refusal in what was otherwise a wonderful run.

Today, was Dinah's first run in Excellent B Standard and she Q'd again! And earned 13 points to boot! Again, we didn't have a good Jumpers run, so our shot at our first official Double Q went out the window. But who cares! We had a blast.

Here's Dinah posing with her latest batch of ribbons.

Dylan Weaves!

Just a quick post to publish the first ever video of Dylan actually weaving.  It's not the best set up, as she doesn't have any room for any entry work, and the footing is not great.  But it worked! The girl can weave.  We have a long way to go.  We've got to nail those entries and we need to work on speed.  But we'll get there!

OK - No comments about the fuzzy slippers or the outfit.  I was getting ready to go train and just had on my long johns.  I guess it's better than my jammies, the more usual garage training outfit! 

McKinney Blizzard of 2010

As promised, here are a few pics from our Big Snow.  We got over 12 inches. Yes, I know it's NOTHING compared to what was received elsewhere, but you have to remember, this is the south.  We're not supposed to get snow like this.  If you live in Chicago, Baltimore, or Buffalo, you EXPECT to get this stuff.  I don't even own a shovel or scraper.  This was an all time record for the Dallas area.

Yes, it was incredibly inconvenient.  And people who live here DO NOT know how to drive in the stuff.  But you have it admit, it's awfully pretty!

Texas Chute Out Agility Camp

Dinah and I spent the weekend at the Texas Chute Out Agility Camp, which was a two day seminar hosted by the Den-Tex Agility Club. Although we froze our you-know-whats off, we had an absolute blast. The days were cold, long and really pushed me way beyond my handling skills, which of course was the point of the whole thing. We spent two days working on Serpentine and Treadles, Front Crosses, Jumping Skills and Send and Go's. I learned a ton and Dinah had a great time. Now if I can only remember and put into practice what I've learned.  I do know that my biggest success of the weekend was getting over my fear of Front Crosses. I've always HATED front crosses and Elizabeth has a heck of a time convincing me to do them. On Saturday afternoon I spent 4 hours with Renee King learning how and when to do a front cross.  Here's a little clip from my experience:


I'm much more comfortable doing a Front Cross now. Are they all perfect? Absolutely not. Do I always get to the right place at the right time? Unequivocally NO! But I'm getting better and that's all that counts in this game.

More video from the weekend to follow later in the week. And I've also got to show you the pictures from the Dallas Blizzard of 2010!

Q-Less in McKinney

This weekend was the DFWESSA AKC Agility trial.  Let's just say it wasn't one of our best showings.  We went 0 - 4.  Absolutely not one Q.  BUT.....we had two big wins.  Dinah did the table in both Standard runs.

On Saturday, the Jumpers course was a killer, really tight and loaded with traps.  We started out OK.  That is if you call jumps 1 - 3 a good start.  #4 was a Tunnel, which Dinah promptly took on the wrong end.  It went downhill from there.  We had off courses, we had refusals, we had bad weaves.  We did it all.  I split responsibility for the train wreck at 50 - 50.  I certainly made some handling mistakes, but Dinah was also just being a toot.

The Standard run on Saturday was just as bad.  She missed her Weaves to go smell something yummy and blew by a few Jumps, and refused the Chute.  But she got on the Table and even did a DOWN!  Yay Dinah!  We had to work on it, and we were way over time, but by golly, she did a down on the Table.

Sunday's Jumpers run was also a difficult course, loaded with traps.  But it was wide open and built for speed.  It was a course made for Dinah.  Unfortunately, she popped out of her Weaves at pole 10 and I made her go back and do them again.  Everything else was spot on perfect.  Even with going back to do the weaves for the second time, she still came in under course time by 7 seconds!  She was smokin!

Our friend and trainer Elizabeth Evans (EE) ran her in Standard on Sunday to see if she could get a better Table behavior from Dinah.  The run started out great, but then Dinah was looking for me and at the end even ran out of the ring to me.  However, she did do a sit on the Table for EE.  Another win!

So while we came home ribbonless this weekend, I'm hopeful that we're on our way to  a Table recovery!  We just need one more Q for our AX title.

We're off next weekend (Agility Camp) but then we'll be back trying again!

The $68 Ribbon

Well, it wasn't quite so cold today so it was a bit more tolerable at the trial. Dinah had an awesome Standard run, but she WOULD NOT sit on the table. This whole table thing is so frustrating to me. I know she knows her job on the table. She does it all the time in class, at home, on other fields. After her run today, I ran her over to the very cold aluminum bleachers and told her to sit - she did so immediately without hesitation. The we went over to the 20" measuring table. I told her "table" and she hopped right up and went into a sit without any prompting. So I know it's me in the ring. She has to be reading my apprehension and and stressing on the table when we're in the ring. Sigh.

We did Q in jumpers though! She picked up her 14th Master Jumpers Q and another 5 points. We're now officially over 10% of the way towards our MACH points goal with 79 of the required 750 points! :-)

But we have to work on our "Cost per Ribbon".  This weekend it was 1 ribbon in 4 runs - or $68 per ribbon. But heck, we'll take it and treasure it. It's just fun running with her and I know she's having fun (except for that table part!).

There's always next week!

Texas Kennel Club - AKC

SATURDAY:  Brrrrr - It was cold this morning! The temperature was 27 and the windchill was about 14. I had planned on just keeping Dinah in the car and going out and warming it up every now and then, but my friends from Best Friends had heaters set up by their crates and invited me to crate Dinah by the heaters. Yay! It was much warmer for Dinah.

Unfortunately Dinah was NOT hot on the courses today. The Standard run looked fun, but we really messed it up. I guess it was harder than I thought it was! There were a lot of traps and Dinah took every one of them. And it was a down on the table again. Today Dinah said - NO WAY. But she did do the chute!

The Jumpers course was way fun and Dinah did smoke it. Unfortunately I called her a little too strongly on one of the jumps and she missed it - totally my fault. Other than that, it was a great run. She hit her weaves and got all of the tough parts. And she was fast.

The best part of the day was that we were done at 10:00AM! And...there's always tomorrow.

Dinah Does a Down on the Table!

Holy Moly! Dinah actually did a down on the table last Saturday and earned the second Q in Open Standard! And she got 1st Place to boot!

We had a very fun weekend at the AKC Lone Star Poodle Club show. Dinah Q'd in both the Standard run and in Jumpers With Weaves. It was her 14th Q in Excellent B Jumpers and she's now the proud owner of 72 MACH points! We're almost 10% there!  :-)

We didn't do so well on Sunday. Dinah had an AWESOME Standard run and would have had her 3rd Q and her AX title. Except for one little problem. That girl would NOT go through the chute! It took me 4 attempts to get her in and even when she did go in, she got half way through the chute fabric and turned around and came back out! Little twerp!  :-)  And the Jumpers run? What a disaster that was! It was a very twisty and confusing course. I thought I had it down. But....Dinah took an off course jump about a third of the way through and once she did that I was totally lost. I had no idea of where I was going, so we just ran around, jumped and got off the course.

Like they say - there's always next week!

Here's the video of her Saturday Standard Run. I'm going to have to put a bright collar on her. She's exactly the same color as the dirt and most of the time it looks like I'm running a ghost!

Our NADAC Weekend - A Little Late

OK, so I'm a little late with this post about LAST weekend's NADAC runs.  We had a blast.  Dinah cleaned up in the Ribbon/Title department and let's just say that Dylan had fun and was extremely entertaining.

Here's Dinah's summary of the weekend:  4 Regular Open Qs for her OAC Title; 2 Open Touch 'n Go Qs for her TG-O Title; 2 Open Jumpers Qs for her OJC Title; and 1 Elite Tunnelers Q.  Here's her video from the weekend.

I'm very proud of my little girl!  We're really starting to come together as a team.  I can really tell her confidence in me is growing.  I'm really looking forward to the long string of weekend shows ahead!


And then there's little Miss Dylan.  What a crack up!  She had some very good bursts of good runs.  We really do have a focus issue, but that will come along as her confidence grows and she gains more ring experience.  I won't enter her in any venue except NADAC yet as NADAC is a very safe place for the babies.  So here she is having a blast.  

She really is "Coming Out"!  So look out world, here comes Dylan!  She's going to be a very nice agility dog.  Go Dylan!