Oh Yeah, You Blend

Judge Michele Fletcher designed some fun, fast and subtly technical courses.

The dogs and I are out of shape thanks to the weather we’ve had lately, we will all be hitting the treadmill.

Poor Nina had a pancreatitis flare on Friday night, and she was still feeling a bit icky on Saturday morning. I was ready to scratch her, she didn’t even want to do the practice jump, but then her meds and her love for agility kicked in, she dragged me to the ring, and off we went for a nice Jumpers Q. A bit slower than her usual, and I was more than ready to just stop and go off if she seemed off, but other than being a bit slow, she was fine. By the time Standard came up, she was back to normal, broke her startline stay, argued with me on the table, sassy. Love that dog so much.

Zhora was slow and clingy (hormonal methinks) and pulled off the LAST jump in Jumpers Saturday. Qualified in Standard. And then earned QQ # 57 today! 3 more to MACH3! Love her!

Nina Saturday Jumpers (third place, 15 points):

Zhora Saturday Standard (second place, 25 points):

Zhora Sunday Jumpers (fourth place, 16 points, QQ #57):

Nina Sunday Standard (second place, 30 points, had to jam some front crosses in, ugly but a Q’s a Q):

Zhora Sunday Standard (fifth place, 24 points, QQ #57):

Holy crap. I can’t believe how well this little 4 month old is doing! Huge thanks to Sue! We were using bumps but she was stepping on them. Per the OneMind Dogs folks, you’re OK to use jumps below hock level, so that’s what I’m doing. She’s doing very little jumping anyway but I needed something for her to go over rather than step on.

Today we went to a Barn Hunt workshop and found some rats! Very fun to get out of my comfort zone and learn about a dog sport I know nothing about! She did great. Awesome focus and working drive on this puppy.

This is the slide they put up at the banquet where the Top Dog awards were given. Zhora was the 2016 Top MACH Vallhund. Love this girl. Fabulous picture from the old Countryside in Edinboro by Cindy Noland.

…The Return Of Zhora.

She made the most of it! Turning in a perfect weekend in her first trial since early last July (other than the Invitational, of course). She was amazing, even accounting for my stupid handler tricks that nearly cost her a Jumpers Q today. She picked up QQ’s # 55 and 56, only 4 to go for MACH3!

Nina had a lovely JWW Q yesterday but Nina’d the rest.

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (part 1 of QQ #55, 18 points, third place, 4.75 YPS):

Nina Saturday Jumpers (Q, first place, 22 points, 5.36 YPS):

Zhora Saturday Standard (part 2 of QQ #55, 26 points, third place):

Nina Saturday Standard (NQ):

Zhora Sunday Jumpers (part 1 of QQ #56. 13 points thanks to my random misplaced front cross that nearly sent her to the wrong jump, I praised her for calling off it, which nearly caused a refusal…then she slowed right down because my GPS was clearly malfunctioning):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (NQ, rough angle on that first bar down, then after the third bar I say “HEY!” at which point she shouts back at me, judge Laura English said it was like she was saying “HEY YOURSELF!”, she didn’t knock any more bars though!):

Zhora Sunday Standard (part 2 of QQ #56, 26 points again, third place again, at least she’s consistent!):

Nina Sunday Standard (NQ, allergic to yellow, I caused the weave issue by praising her for making th entry):

Look who’s the cover girl on the AKC Dog Agility Community Facebook page today!

Zhora still off due to needing several sports bras. I cost Nina a double Q today but she is SO HAPPY to be back running. We got a Jumpers Q. Always love judge Candy Nettles! Thanks to Zap as always for videoing!

Jumpers (first place, 18 points):

Standard (NQ, nice run):

Nina and I have been off since the end of September (basically she got her MACH on a Saturday, another double Q on that Sunday, and then we were off for puppies). But since we’re going to the Invitational in December, which is getting extremely close, we really need to start getting back into practice. Since the puppies are still nursing a lot, I scratched Zhora, but still ran Nina. I crated out of my car and only took her into the building to warm up and run, to hopefully minimize exposure to other dogs as much as possible.

Nina was AMAZING! Over the course of her career, she’s had some periods where she hasn’t had three double Q’s in a YEAR, and she came back after 12 weeks of and DOUBLE Q’D! That’s three IN A ROW, she’s never done that. 10 year old Nina was so excited to be back she couldn’t stop bouncing up and down and barking. When we went to Sue’s on Wednesday just to at least try and remind ourselves how to play agility, she was so happy she zoomed!

This was our first time showing under judge Bob Jeffers, and I hope it won’t be our last. His courses were challenging but very fun, they ran better than they walked, and Nina double Q’d! So NO complaints!

Jumpers With Weaves (Q, third place, 4.9 YPS, 20 points, the top 3 dogs were all within half a second of each other):

Standard (Q, second place, 4.06 YPS, less than 1/10th of a second behind the first place dog):

The last time we showed to judge Howard Etzel, we had a no Q weekend. This time Nina earned her MACH, earned QQ #21 (#1 towards MACH2), and had a perfect day today! Her tally for the weekend was two QQ’s (one of which earned her MACH), two Premier Jumpers Q’s, a Time 2 Beat Q and a Master FAST Q. Her best weekend to date.

I was crying so hard when I went to hug the judge I could barely see. This MACH has been a long and amazing and educational journey and there were times I thought that we might not get there, and that would have been fine anyway!

Every single run with Nina is a joy, Q or no Q, and I try very hard to never forget to feel grateful for each and every one, thanking her for the privilege of her effort is part of every run). So very, very proud of this little dog.

At 10 years old she is running faster and smoother than ever, she loves this game more than anything, she is still bouncing with excitement at the start line, and she was a qualifying machine this weekend. This might have been our best qualifying weekend to date!

She is just an amazing dog. And I think HER favorite part of her MACH was that she got another turn to run!

Bert was awesome too! He earned his first NAJ (Novice Agility Jumpers) leg, and is really starting to get the hang of the game! He goes home in September and I will really miss him, I look forward to seeing how he progresses!

Nina Friday FAST (Q):

Nina Friday Premier Jumpers (Q):

Nina Saturday Jumpers (MACH part 1):

Nina Saturday Standard (MACH!!!):

Bert Saturday Standard (NQ, but really coming along nicely!):

Bert Saturday Jumpers (first Jumpers Q!):

Nina Sunday Premier Jumpers (Q):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (part 1 of QQ #21):

Nina Sunday Time 2 Beat (Q, bonus scritches at the start):

Nina Sunday Standard (part 2 of QQ #21!):

My girls did it again! They are such amazing dogs and they run their hearts out for me every time, and they LOVE the agility game so, so much!

Zhora qualified in first place again, Nina in fourth. This will be Nina’s fourth year in a row being invited, and Zhora’s third in a row (she’s only been in Masters for three years).

SO proud of my girls! And huge congratulations to my BFF and training/traveling partner Sue Verbocy, who also qualified with her two Vizslas! Orlando here we come! Look out!

Nina was on 19 1/2 QQ”s today, but I overhandled a tunnel entrance in Standard and cost us the MACH. Oh well, it could be next weekend, it could be next year, but I am so happy to be here with her and running with her. Michele Fletcher’s courses were very technical and challenging but fun, you really felt like you’d accomplished something if you qualified on them! And Bert made his agility debut and did AMAZINGLY well! For a dog with just a few weeks of training (and not daily training either), he was wonderful, brave, focused, willing. What a good boy! He wore Tish’s pink Brilliant K9 harness all weekend and didn’t seem to mind, too!

Nina Saturday Jumpers (NQ because she slipped in the weaves, tried to keep going but had already slipped out. I had no idea how I was going to handle the opening, and then I did a blind cross which was not ANY of the different ways I walked it, worked nicely though!):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (NQ thanks to handler error that sent her to an off course):

Nina Saturday Standard (NQ):

Zhora Saturday Standard (Q, second place, 29 points, really tough weave entry and she drove ahead and nailed it!):

Bert Saturday Novice Standard (NQ, but what a great very first run, I was telling him all the way around what a good boy he was and what a great job he was doing, you can see on the table when I tell him how awesome he is and his tail starts wagging faster, what a sweetie):

Bert Saturday Novice Jumpers (NQ, but very nearly a Q! And he’s so focused on getting going at the start that he doesn’t want to sit):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (Q, fourth place, 20 points, the first four dogs were within a second of each other, the handling error that caused the near-refusal cost us time, this was a tough course!):

Zhora Sunday Jumpers (QQ # 54, 18 points):

Nina Sunday Standard (not MACH….you can hear me call to videographer Zap “Did we Q?” at the end, after we destroy the course, the line after the non-wing jump after the aframe ate a number of teams alive, that…wasn’t where we had a problem, I called her even though she was headed to the right end of the tunnel after the dogwalk and earned a refusal):

Zhora Sunday Standard (QQ #54, third place, 29 points):