Oh Yeah, You Blend

It was a lovely weekend. Got the deck set up thanks to Jim and the power washer, just in time for it to be cold again this week. Oh well. Warmer days are coming.

Judge Ginger Robertson gave us some tricky but fun courses. Alice earned her second NAP leg and did TWO SETS OF WEAVES and we felt some mojo happening! I am thrilled with her. Zhora uncharacteristically knocked a bar in JWW yesterday but won Standard, and then double Q’d today, AND SO DID NINA! Nina earned her first PACH QQ today and looked and felt awesome. The trial was tiny this weekend and today I only had 3 dogs between my girls but it worked out just fine.

And then we came home and Tish killed a rabbit. So…circle of life or summat.

Nina Saturday Jumpers (NQ):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (NQ):

Nina Saturday Standard (would have been a Q if I’d slowed up to pull her over ther 180):

Zhora Saturday Standard (Q, first place 29 points, 3.86 YPS):

Alice Saturday Standard (NAP leg #2!):

Alice Saturday Jumpers (NQ but nice run):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (PACH QQ #1, first place, 23 points, 4.7 YPS):

Zhora Sunday Jumpers (QQ#105, second place, 16 points, 4.44 YPS):

Nina Sunday Standard (PACH QQ #1, first place, 34 points, 3.845 YPS):

Zhora Sunday Standard (QQ#105, first place, 29 points, 3.896 YPS):

We headed down to Erie for just one day, as it turns out, because of pretty dire weather warnings. Glad we went! Tish came out of semi-retirement for a birthday run and did MUCH better than expected. Zhora was one wrong tunnel entrance from a beautiful standard Q, and Nina got a standard Q. Judge Michele Fletcher’s courses were deceptively trappy and very fast.

Nina Saturday Jumpers (NQ, but look at the distance she let me take in the weaves!):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (need to work those tunnel discriminations! Love the sass and that she let me peel off a bit in the weaves, training mode!):

Nina Saturday Standard (Q, first place and 33 points, you can see me whispering to her at the start as I always do that I love her and that she needs to please be careful on the bloody dogwalk!):

Tish Saturday Standard (not a Q, obviously, but she ran SO MUCH BETTER than I expected! And no ring stress):

Zhora Saturday Standard (not a Q, nice run though):

This was our first time traveling to Niles, Ohio for a trial. What a lovely venue and a great bunch of people! The dogs loved running there, Zhora did some of her best yards per second to date, and Nina was 1/100th of a second out of a placement in Jumpers today (some of the fastest 8″ dogs in the country were at this trial, so no surprise!). Zhora and I took a lesson with our friend Sue Verbocy to try and figure out what happened to Zhora’s weaves last weekend, and what Sue helped us with worked! Zhora went 3 for 4 this weekend and earned double Q #6! Nina ran beautifully, only pulled out a Jumpers Q today (on a course with a really tricky weave entry), but had some gorgeous JOLT (Just One Little Thing) runs. Louise McCombs was there from Colorado with her two Vallhunds, so we had a miniature regional specialty with just the two of us! Judges Ron McClelland and Deborah Funk designed some tricky but fun courses.

Nina Saturday Jumpers (what a heartbreaker, my fault for not handling that jump after the tunnel near the end):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (Q and 9 points):

Nina Sunday Standard (such a nice run but that off course got a lot of dogs, Nina was no exception!):

Zhora Sunday Standard (hooray for startline stays! Part 1 of double Q #6! 18 points):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (Q 1/100th of a second out of fourth place, 12 points):

Zhora Sunday Jumpers (5 points, double Q #6!):

Mother of my sweet Rakki, great-grandmother of my beloved, amazing Nina, great-GREAT-grandmother of the loving Tish and wonderful Zhora. Such a wonderful, wonderful dog who only seemed to get better as she got older. I loved that sweet Cranberi, and I know she will leave a huge hole in Ulla’s home and heart. She had such a wonderful and long life, I am sure she is chasing anything and everything up in heaven now, leaping over tractors and running her heart out. Rest easy Cranberi, you live on in so many pedigrees, Nina dedicates her agility runs this weekend to your memory!

Interesting courses from judge Windle Ewing. He sure likes 180’s and serps… the courses on the whole ran much better than they walked. He’s a super-nice guy but he takes his time and I was glad it was a tiny trial in terms of entries since otherwise we’d have been there until midnight. He is very generous with his calls (you will see Nina’s standard Q from yesterday almost wasn’t at the teeter), and pretty generous with his wheel (except when he isn’t). Nina earned 31 points in that standard run! We got jumpers on Friday for 15 points and would have had standard except for my big mouth costing us a bar, which is also what happened in jumpers yesterday! DO NOT OPEN YOUR MOUTH WHEN NINA IS JUMPING YOU IDIOT!

Tish ran fast and happy but didn’t weave, not even on the second or third try (I ran her in standard today and purposefully didn’t even ask her to weave, pulled her away from them). She is entered one day next weekend and then she isn’t trialing any more until we figure out the weave issue (or don’t).

Zhora was the superstar of the weekend, earning herself Novice jumpers AND Novice standard legs #2 in a Novice double Q! The judge said in the not-brief-briefing that you could still Q with an 85, and Zhora decided to prove him right in standard, she used every one of her allowed faults! She got her weaves on the first try and I celebrated so much that she switched to handler focus so much that she ran past a jump and had to go back to it, typical baby dog stuff. Her jumpers run was perfect other than needing all three tries at the weaves (heel side is not any of my dogs’ best side!). She visited the judge once when he was right in her line of sight and couldn’t resist, but she came right back and worked. She had a beautiful start line stay in Jumpers, did her perfect 2 on 2 off teeter in Standard, AND she sassed me quite a bit, which I love! Her Jumpers run was really speedy too, I am so happy with how she is doing!

Nina Friday Jumpers (15 points):

Nina Saturday Standard (31 points):

Zhora Saturday Standard (Novice Standard Leg #2!):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (Novice Jumpers Leg #2!):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (NQ but nice run on a course with some seriously funky angles and traps):

Tish Sunday Standard (weaves missed on purpose):

Nina’s 2015 Nationals tally: 1/4 double Q’s, 16/20 legs, 306/500 points

Not a great weekend in the Q department, Nina won Time 2 Beat and got a Standard Q yesterday, but that was it. Tish ran fast and happy but didn’t weave. Zhora was the star of the weekend, earning her first Novice Standard leg AND working through a huge distraction when the door to one of the crating rooms was left open RIGHT BESIDE THE WEAVES! She went and had a look, listened to the dogs barking, then came right back and worked. I am having so much fun running her!

Nina’s Saturday Standard Q for 28 points:

Tish Saturday Jumpers:

Zhora Saturday Novice Standard Q:

Nina’s 2015 Nationals tally: 1/4 double Q’s, 14/20 legs, 260/500 points

We finally broke our NQ streak, but barely. Nina won Time 2 Beat on Friday, and got Jumpers today for 16 points. We were close in the other runs, although she came off the table today. Some fun courses from judge Susan Stephon (and I met her handsome Cardigan Corgi Crush).

Tish did wonderfully today! She WEAVED in both her runs, Jumpers on the second try and Standard on the third.  She was fast and happy today and seemed comfortable. We are only going to do a day or two here and there for now, but I was happy with how she did today.

Nina Sunday Jumpers (16 points and first place):

Tish Sunday Jumpers:

Tish Sunday Standard:

And here is Zhora having fun at 8″ at the match (look at those contacts!):

Nina’s 2015 Nationals tally: 1/4 double Q’s, 13/20 legs, 232/500 points

Nina got jumpers yesterday (I took her off in Standard yesterday for bailing off the teeter, the only thing I take her off for, but it’s a safety issue), and got standard today…but no QQ! Today’s standard run finished her MX title though and was a beautiful run! Tish is running faster and faster, and very happy, but the weaves…they are a problem.

Nina Saturday Jumpers (18 points, and her seventh jumpers Q in a row):

Tish Saturday Jumpers (took her off after the weaves to jackpot her right away):

Tish Saturday Standard:

Nina Sunday Jumpers (she saved our butts by driving to the weaves even though I was so far behind, but a bar came down):

Tish Sunday Jumpers:

Nina Sunday Standard (MX title and 28 points!):

Nina’s 2015 Nationals tally: 1/4 double Q’s, 11/20 legs, 203/500 points

We were only entered Saturday and Sunday this weekend (and Time 2 Beat on Friday). The weather has been horrible here, extremely cold, so the dogs have had far less exercise than usual, which meant that Nina basically had rabies in T2B. Nina went 2 for 2 in Jumpers, extending her Jumpers Q streak to 6 now. We were a spin away from a double Q today, but she came off the table behind me and didn’t know where to go so she spun in front of a jump and earned a refusal. Today Tish WEAVED for the first time in a VERY long time at a trial, I had to try something different and really babysit them, but it worked. Unfortunately that run wasn’t recorded. Yesterday I turned away from her on the table and she decided to go visit the judge (making the crowd say “Awwwwww”, judge Lisa Rieves told me later that she thought Tish was so cute she wanted to pick her up), she is running very fast for Tish, and very happy. Very proud of my girls!

Nina’s 2015 Nationals tally: 1/4 double Q’s, 9/20 legs, 157/500 points.

Nina Saturday Jumpers Q (14 points):

Nina Saturday Standard:

Tish Saturday Jumpers:

Tish Saturday Standard:

Nina Sunday Jumpers Q (15 points):

Nina Sunday Standard:

Tish Sunday Standard: