Here are the professional videos by Bow Wow Video from the Invitational, very different angles, and in Zhora’s Round 4 which has haunted me for a week it seems to look like she actually mis-stepped before I pre-cued my front cross, which primed her to pop the poles, so not 100% my fault, which made me feel a bit better (plus she looked a bit distracted in that run, moreso than any of the others). I see some things from this angle about my handling that I need to work on, and I can really see that Zhora was just thriving on that environment and getting higher from it, whereas Nina seemed to be made more Zen and focused by it, which is a very interesting thing to see – my friend Barb commented at the Invitational that Nina seemed very focused and she wondered if Nina was just used to trialing in that kind of environment, but really she’s only been there three times and normally trials in far less chaotic and noisy places.
Well the 2016 Invitational is in the books, and an awesome time was had. My girls did the best they have done to date, Nina was awarded the 2015 Top MACH Dog award at the banquet on Friday night, what a great experience with great friends and a really wonderful and positive crowd in Orlando Florida.
Checking out a tree on the way to Orlando!
We rented an agility field on Thursday for practice.
Arrival at the Orange Country Convention Center!
Sue and I all set up in our shared crating space early Friday morning.
Catching some rays out front of the West building at the OCCC
Nina’s slide at the banquet for 2015 Top Agility Vallhund, so proud of her! Picture courtesy of Wendi Pencille
Here it her certificate!
The Royal Canin fairies came in the night bearing gifts!
Zhora and Nina both qualified in Time 2 Beat on the Friday (Nina coming in 9th, Zhora 19th), and Zhora went on to run clean through three rounds, holding on to 19th place out of 139 dogs before I made a stupid mistake in an otherwise perfect Round 4, which I elected not to go back and fix, thus earning us a zero (we needed to go clean to win the breed medallion or be in contention for the finals). Since 11 8″ dogs go to the finals, we were genuinely in contention for the finals, and it was just amazing to have people come up and comment on how well she was running and ask if we’d made the finals after round 4.
One of the talking points read over the loudspeaker for another dog really touched me, the handler said that every time she and her dog ran they won, they either qualified, or they learned something. I am trying to take that to heart going forward.
“Official” videos to follow, Zhora’s Round 1 didn’t get taped on my camera.
Nina Saturday Round 1 Jumpers With Weaves (NQ, I turned my back on her at the start which caused the bar down, and pulled away in the weaves which caused the pop):
Nina Saturday Round 2 Standard (NQ, I pulled her off the panel jump by over-rotating and she didn’t send out when I tried to layer the jump at the end):
Nina Round 4 Jumpers With Weaves (NQ, crowded her in the serpentine and mishandled the jump after the broad jump so she read it as a rear cross):
Zhora Round 4 Jumpers With Weaves (NQ, heartbreaker, I rushed my front cross in the weaves and made her pop the last pole, I didn’t fix it because it wasn’t her fault and she had run so beautifully all weekend, I decided to take the zero score):
On our way home, we took a detour to American Beach on Amelia Island like I did last year – so worth it to walk on the sand, put our feet in the ocean, ground ourselves again, and let the dogs just run around and be dogs for a while….
On to Nationals in March, and the 2017 Invitational next December!!!
Here’s an awesome video of Lobo (Alkemi Beowulf del Roble LS CDX PT RATM CGC) and his mom Jan trying for his second UD (Utility Dog) obedience leg. He didn’t pass this time (he has one UD leg already, he needs three for his UD title) but I have no doubt he will get it soon. This is a very tough title, the runs are long and involve a lot of different skills (he has to heel, perform skills at a distance, discriminate an article Jan has handled from a bunch of articles, and he has to do this with different materials). Jan is a wonderful (and very experienced!) trainer and she clearly has such an amazing bond with her Lobo, the bit where they look at each other while they wait for the judge to place the discrimination article, and there is so much love and trust obvious between them…that does my heart good both as a breeder and as a dog person, we should all have that kind of bond with our dogs!
