Home From Scottsdale

SUMMARY: Uneventful trip.

Other than the coke spilled on the car floor, the trip was thankfully uneventful. Lots of good conversation, quiet dogs, a visit to Casa de Fruta for some mint-swirl fudge.

There was an odd moment of disorientation last night as we were entering the L.A. area and moisture spattered on our windshield. It took me a few seconds of wondering where the water was coming from before it occurred to me: Oh, yeah, sometimes water falls from the sky! It has been SOOOO long since we've had rain, and after a week in sunny 90-ish dry heat in Scottsdale, it was the furthest thing from my mind.

Now I'm back in San Jose, it's cool, windy, and rainy. Dogs have too much energy, I have 500 emails, 5 phone calls, hundreds of photos, a heap of dirty laundry, FOUR more shirts (! -- and I keep saying I don't need any more t-shirts or polo shirts, thanks! although the new polo is special), and lots of memories to sift through. We'll see how much I get done before collapsing in bed.

...oh, yeah, and I have to fill out my absentee ballot that I ordered so I can get it done ahead of time and not worry about having to get to the poll on election day. Huh. How's that work again?

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Nationals Musings

SUMMARY: Meant to say some of this Sunday and forgot.

Early working version of Boost's photo for t-shirt:

• I can barely believe that, a week from today, we'll be on the road to Scottsdale. Where'd all my practice time go? Why aren't my dogs perfect yet?
• Tika didn't show any signs of soreness yesterday (Monday) at all. I have been giving her rimadyl. I haven't been restricting her running.
• Found out over the weekend that one of Boost's teammates came up lame last week. Argh. But the report as of yesterday is that she's looking good and is planning on competing next week.
• Haven't heard anything more from USDAA about whether for sure we've been assigned a draw 3rd for Tika's team. Other people tell me that they just leave you hanging until you get there. Presumably that's to keep people like my partner from saying "I'm entered only in team and there's no point in going if we don't have a 3rd" and bailing out. I can only hope that the earlier response, "If you teammate withdraws her entry. I will place one of the dogs I have entered as a draw on your team," really means that we really will have a 3rd, since our teammate withdrew her entry later that day. But it would have been nice for them to send a confirmation to us that they've acknowledged our teammate's withdrawal and that they do have a draw for us (it's been over 2 weeks since she withdrew and 5 days since my last email query). I realize that this is a huge show and they've got a lot to do. Still, we're the ones paying the bills--
• Now that it's almost here, I'm getting excited about it again. I do like going. I am working on being upbeat and optimistic about our chances for everything. I have great teammates (at least, the ones I have left).
• Our last practices before Scottsdale: Any day at home in the yard, where I can refresh contacts, work on rear crosses and serpentines, practice some snooker moves. Thursday night in class; I'm planning on leaving Tika at home, which I never do, I don't know how she's going to react to that. Unfortunately I'll miss Power Paws' annual pre-Nationals practice this weekend while I'm off at my photography seminar. And then Monday, at home in the yard again. I just don't have time this week to take a couple of extra hours up at Power Paws. Although...jeez...Boost sure needs that work with wider-open spaces. Crud. Crud.
• One of my teams has a shirt designed & printed. The other team...well, I've been busy, one person has scratched, and we haven't even talked about it. I wonder if it's too late for some kind of rush job. But... what?

T-shirt for Kevin with Jill, Lisa with Carson, and Ellen with Boost, hereafter known as Handling Distortion (thanks, Kevin, for a great job and Spinal Tap for inspiration!):

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Goals and the Iditarod

SUMMARY: A former Bay Teamer completes the 2008 Iditarod.

In my earlier days of agility, there were three Jakes competing in the same jump height and the same level of competition: My Jake, Bill Cuthbertson's Border Collie Jake, and Liz Parrish's Aussie Jake. About 10 years ago, Liz and Jake and the rest of their crew moved to southern Oregon to run a dog-friendly bed and breakfast with acres and acres of land on Klamath Lake. (I've mentioned Crystalwood Lodge before, in August and in 2003 and my photos here.)

While there, she traded agility and flyball and all that for dogsled racing, and has been pursing the singular goal of running the Iditarod for her 50th birthday. She succeeded, running and finishing the 2008 Iditarod. She gave a talk here Tuesday night about her training, her determination to reach the goal, her dogs, the Iditarod itself, and her first lead dog, Briar, after whom her kennel (Briar's Patch) is named.

Of the roughly 98 teams who started the race, 78 finished, and she was among them. It is interesting to note that, in 2008, 290 people summited on Mount Everest, but only 78 finished the Iditarod. It's a grueling, extremely challenging experience through harsh wilderness. And she's not a big burly gal whom one could imagine wrestling a moose; she's more than petite and had to overcome tremendous physical challenges to achieve this goal.

But she trained and conditioned her dogs well for this, knew what they could handle, and monitored every one of them carefully for signs of problems. In a sport that is sometimes criticized for how hard it is on dogs, she has won awards for best-cared-for teams in some of her races, and she finished the Iditarod with 14 of her original 16 dogs, one of only two competitors to do so well. And the only dogs whom she sent back simply had sore muscles--and she knew that the same way that we agility people know immediately if something's wrong with our dogs: They don't leap to their feet immediately, they start out a little slowly, they might be completely willing to work and go all out once they've loosened up, but you know that there's something going on under that fur.

My post on the world's most expensive polo shirt makes it seem like a complete bargain compared to what she called "the world's most expensive belt buckle" and the 6 solid months a year she spent training for years, and driving to and from Minnesota and Alaska and everywhere else they needed to go. Just the equipment and gear and fees and travel for the Iditarod alone she estimated at $50,000. She did find some sponsors, but still-- Wow.

She printed a ton of really nice t-shirts with a picture of her team running around Crater Lake
and I bought myself one on a green background, although it was hard to pass up the purple one, which also looked great. If you're in the mood for a mushing t-shirt, short- or long-sleeved, I'll bet that you can still order one.

And then go back to being glad that agility is such an inexpensive sport that requires only one dog!

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The World's Most Expensive Polo Shirt

SUMMARY: I'm out of excuses. Guess I'm going to Nationals. Besides, I want that shirt.

In her life, Tika has had 9 opportunities to earn a bye into the Grand Prix semifinals at the Nationals (and get a nifty "free" polo shirt to commemorate the occasion), which you can do either by placing in the top 50% in Round 2 of the regionals or the top 50% in the quarterfinals at the nationals:

• Regional 2003: Made it to Round 2 at her first-ever regionals. Still a green dog. The run was flawless--well, except the little detail of running between the tire and the upright instead of going through the tire
• Regional 2004: Made it to Round 2. Don't know what happened--we had 15 faults there.
• Nationals 2004 quarterfinals: 5 faults. Placed 36th, and 34 dogs went to the semis.
• Regionals 2005: Eed in round 1.
• Nationals 2005 quarters: 5 faults. Placed 50th, and 41 dogs went.
• Regional 2006: Made it to Round 2. Got called on the dogwalk up for 5 faults Placed 16th and 13 dogs got byes.
• Nationals 2006 quarterfinals: Clean up to the next to the last jump, where I got overexcited and caused a backjump.
• Regional 2007: Made it to Round 2. Fell off the dogwalk and Eed when I spent time making sure she was OK.
• Nationals 2007 quarterfinals: I just messed up and pulled her out of the weaves early trying to run aggressively. Clean otherwise.
• Regional 2008: Clean run and pretty fast for the Tika dog, and for her mom, too! (Although a full 6 seconds off the fastest dogs.) We did it! We did it! Taj MuttHall is just about overwhelmed with joy!

Who cares if no Taj MuttHall dogs Qed in dumb old Gamblers, Standard, or Steeplechase! Those Qs were probably all sour anyway.

The cost just to pick up the polo shirt that I've been wanting so badly for so long: A week off work, a drive to Arizona, a week in a hotel, massive entry fees for the Nationals, team shirts for the DAM teams... and all the incidental expenses, too. We're not adding up the cost to *earn* that polo shirt.

Another competitor was speculating that, if she earned that bye, maybe she could just send in her entry form and pay the entry fees, not bother making the trip, and just have someone pick up the shirt for her. Pricey for a polo shirt, but not as pricey as actually making the trip.

Boost and Tika celebrating their nationals qualifications with a little frisbee:




Scully, the Princess dog who never plays at trials, thinks that might actually look like fun:


Sparkle believes that there is evidence to be found, even if it's not yet clear about what:

There might be gophers here:


Ewww, what's this? Smells gross! Ewww! Guess I'd better roll in it!


Most of the judges getting their instructions from Leslie, who organizes workers:

Judge Scott 'splains what it's all about:


Taj MuttHall and Tie-Dye Superwoman pay no attention to the camera while working at the score table all weekend:


Our rideshare, Scully & Sparkle's mom, walks a course in her cool tie-dye.

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Sometimes It's Just Nothing

SUMMARY: Snooker: It's not about the points, it's about the clothing.

The Zero-Point Club: Step right up, join the club! Got a dog that knocks bars? Got a dog that particularly likes to knock the first bar and is so fast that you can't call her off the next obstacle? Well, friends, have I got a deal for you: You, too, can become a member of the Zero-Point Snooker club.



To inspire and delight you, here are our bona fide, certified credentials for membership in this popular club:

						Points
Boost	Snooker	4/14/2007	Dixon	USDAA	Advanced	0
Boost	Snooker	5/5/2007	Petaluma	USDAA	Advanced	0
Tika	Snooker	4/20/2003	Dixon	USDAA	Novice	0
Tika	Snooker	4/20/2003	Dixon	USDAA	DAM	0
Tika	Snooker	10/19/2003	Madera	USDAA	St/Nov	0
Tika	Snooker	2/22/2004	Salinas	USDAA	Starters	0
Tika	Snooker	9/17/2005	Turlock	USDAA	Masters	0
Tika	Snooker	4/14/2006	Dixon	USDAA	Masters	0
Tika	Snooker	9/16/2006	Turlock	USDAA	Masters	0
Tika	Snooker	3/9/2008	Turlock	CPE	CLev	0
Jake	Snooker	5/20/2001	Ventura	USDAA	Masters	0
Jake	Snooker	3/27/2004	Sunnyvale	CPE	5Lev	0

But we're really special upper-crust club members: DogPlay gave us this lovely t-shirt because Tika is the only dog we know who manged TWO zero-point Snookers ON THE SAME DAY. So there's something to strive for, you young'uns. (And, lookee see, the dog on the t-shirt has knocked the first red and is already in the first pole of the weaves, so zero points! W00t!)

This doesn't mean that you're bound for eternal zeroness! In his agility career, Jake ran 96 Snookers (combined CPE and USDAA) and earned his Snooker Championship Bronze in both Masters and Performance 3. Tika has run 136 Snookers (CPE and USDAA) and has her Snooker Championship Silver. So Boost is obviously well on her way to following in their footsteps!

Visit dogplay.com for a wealth of useful information about everything dog. No commercials. As a sideline, DogPlay also runs an online shop; you can order a Zero-Point Club t-shirt like mine and many other agility-related shirts at the Dogplay agility shop. (Disclosure: Dogplay is a Bay Teamer and a friend, but I'm not getting paid for this and she didn't ask me to do it. I recommend dogplay.com for dog info to many people, in particular those getting their first dog or wondering how or where to get a dog.)

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Wendy Does Tie Dye

SUMMARY: Contact info for my tie dyer.

For those who inquired about Wendy's tie dying, I checked with her, and she'd love to hear from people interested in commissioned work. Contact her directly at wendybruce (at) comcast (dot) net.

Here are reprises of some of her commissions for me:

	Tie-dye hankies March 2008
	2005 USDAA Nationals team (Run-TMZ) shirts at Scottsdale.
	Me in 2006 at Scottsdale in my 2004 team shirt (G'day Bayou).
	2006 team shirts with finalist team, "Three's a Charm."
	The backs of our shirts.
	Detail of shirts
	Yet another wendy shirt.
	Borderin' on K-Aus, scottsdale 2007
	Shirt details.

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Tie Dye Rules the Nose

SUMMARY: Now I can clear my sinuses in style.

I'm one of those people who always carries a hankie, because my nose always runs. (Sometimes faster than I do with my dogs. But not faster than my dogs. Usually.)

Anyway, I'm also one of those people who hates white. I mean, it just gets dirty. Well, OK, everything just gets dirty with dogs, but with white, you can tell that it's dirty about 30 seconds after you get it out of the drawer, especially (but not exclusively) with dogs in the household. So, for me, no white hankies (or sheets, or towels, or undergarments, or shirts, pants, shoes, tablecloths, walls, or nuthin'--I mean, NO WHITE! The only reason I own bleach--and sometimes I don't, for years on end--is because sometimes I have to kill something).

Hankies are a problem, because for some reason everyone assumes that the fabric upon which you exhale your sinusoidal byproducts (good word, must use more often) should be white. No one asked me, or I could have demonstrated why white's a bad idea. Anyhoo--I've had a huge stack of lightly flowered white hankies for years--they were gifts, and although I'm not particularly a pastel-flower type of person, either, they were much much better than all-white. However, now they're all wearing out, and I need replacements. I can't even find little pastel-flowered ones in mass quantity.

I tried tie-dyed men's hankies in the past but they are wayyyyy huge. That seems to be the only size that the ubiquitous tie-dyers at all the Art and Wine shows sell--perhaps they think that (a) only men blow their noses? (b) only men would dare to use nonwhite hankies? Well, I just don't blow my nose THAT much, plus I have little dainty ladylike pockets in my jeans. (No one asked me about that, either.)

Fortunately (and this is where dogs come in), through dog agility, I met the fabulous Wendy who does fabulous tie dye for many folks in the agility community, and when I sent her a package of brand-new white dainty ladylike hankies, this is what I just got back in the mail. Every one is like a little artwork all on its own! I particularly like the one in the lower right; makes me feel like I'm on the Millennium Falcon, blasting my sinuses into hyperspace.

Blowing my nose will never have been so much fun!

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Clothing and Weather

SUMMARY: #5 of several posts about this weekend. It was cold but sunny. And agility is ALWAYS about the clothing.

Barb, Jessica, and someone else huddling around one of the large propane heaters. They kick out a lot of BTUs!

Judge Lesa McCann wore appropriate gloves.

Judge Art Malott dressed to wake us up in the morning.

Dave, co-owner of the WAG facility, pretty much always wears tiedye. Plus he's wide awake from looking at Art's shirt.

Susan (right), co-owner (and Dave's spouse), was so busy all the time that I could capture her only in blurred motion.

It was cold overnight. Cold. On Saturday morning, the dog-water bowl that I left outside the car had a solid frozen lid. Not thick, but all the way across the bowl. And not the bowls in the wire crates, which were uncovered outside. Odd.

Sleeping in the van, with down over and under me--two down layers over me, because I used my long down coat--plus a wool blanket--I was mostly warm. As the night wore on, if I changed positions drastically, I'd be quite cold until my body warmed up the part of the fabric that hadn't yet been warmed.

I made the dogs wear coats overnight. Tika gave me dirty looks but dealt with it. Boost threw herself all over the car in a bit of a tantrum and hauled various items around in a fit of excessive angst, but the coats stayed on. You know how it goes--if mom is cold, the kids have to put on a sweater.

During the day, WAG provided several large propane heaters, and individuals provided plenty of smaller-scale propane heaters. Really needed them only in the morning until maybe tennish, and then later maybe after 4ish. But they sure were nice to have. I wore my full-length down coat a lot in the morning and evening--boy, I am SO glad to have that. Except for my freezing fingers, it kept me toasty. I got a lot of "wish I had one like that" comments.

I didn't actually wear ANY tie-dye this weekend. However, there was plenty of it around. Maybe it's California. Maybe it's the influence of Wendy and her Wendy Wear on Bay Area agility. Seems to me we've always had a lot of tie dye, though. I think that agility and tiedye have a lot in common. I'm not sure what--it's just a gut feeling.

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Tie Dye Rules

SUMMARY: Team shirts are almost done.

In an unfortunate twist, Carlene's & my third teammate, Mike, hurt his back pretty thoroughly a couple of weeks ago and won't be able to run his dog at Scottsdale. Fortunately, his wife is also a fine agility competitor and contacted USDAA to be sure that it's OK for her run Trane. That means that she's going to have to wear one of Mike's team shirts on our Special Day--that is, whichever day we decide to wear our shirts together, since the odds that we'll make it to the Relay finals again are so long as to be circumglobal.

Last weekend, I got to see our mostly completed team shirts. Tika, the Aussie-probably, is teaming with two Border Collies. All of us have our issues, shall we say, so we're Borderin' on K-Aus (say it out loud).

This will be the fourth year that my team's shirt is tie-dye by Wendywear (local work for agility folks). Our shirt pairs the black-and-white of border collies with a little tie-dye chaos. Here's my concept sketch; I can assure you that the actual shirts will be niftier. I'm excited. (Remember, it's all about the clothing.)

You can see the artwork, or finished results, for a lot of clever Bay Teamers' team outfits on this new page.

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More Hiking, No Dogs

SUMMARY: Hiking at Castle Rock State Park.

I love my dogs, but love getting out and about, too. The weather was just perfect again today, so I headed out with a friend to Castle Rock State Park. Here we are, pausing for a self(s)-portrait (me on the right in the blue Cynosports World Championships t-shirt...can't get away from it completely!):



To see the complete 10 photos with story and captions, go here.

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Team Names

SUMMARY: The fun thing about doing 3-dog Team Tournaments

The three-dog Dog Agility Masters (DAM) Team tournament isn't offered all that often, because it requires five classes--none of which are qualifying for normal titles--which is pretty much an entire day of competition. However, it is a qualifier for one of the three main Nationals events, and now your Championship title requires that you earn at least one of those DAM[n] qualifiers. So it's being offered much more often than it used to be.

One fun thing about it is that, unlike any other event, you get to create a team name that reflects yourselves, your dogs, your attitudes, your cleverness, or anything else that you want it to reflect. That's not to say that it's not perfectly OK to name your team after your dogs--e.g., "Fluffy, Fido, and Fang" if those are your dogs. Some people do that. But the rest of us spend weeks agonizing over just the right clever name, which NO one will ever pay any attention to except us, and maybe the trial secretary as she types it into the database.

For our Labor Day trial, Boost is on a team with her sister Bette; our third is Maiya, whose name is Klingon for "friend". So we are Sisters on a Star Trek.

Tika and Brenn are teaming once again; last DAM trial and for Labor Day with different dogs, but both border collies. In other words, our team has two Border Collies plus Tika, my famous Aussie[probably]. And we all have our issues with, say, dogs flying off contacts or grabbing our feet or such. So we are Borderin' on K-Aus. (Say it out loud.) (Thanks, Gwen, for the name.)

I just got email from a friend whose teeny tiny dog is on a team with another teeny tiny dog (toy dogs would be the correct terminology) and a very large Border Collie named Fleet. They debated Fleet plays with toys, but finally agreed on Gulliver's Travels (because they have two Lilliputians and a Brobdingnagian).

More Old Team Names

All my old team names that I've been able to glean so far. Seem to be missing some trial info for at least 3 trials that I know we did Team in (and I save EVERYthing, so I wonder where it all is?).

• Sept '01: Dream Weavers (Jake, Haley, and Mysti: We wore shirts with photos of our dogs doing the weave poles)
• Sept '01(?): BT Cruisers (because we're from the Bay Team; after the newly introduced PT Cruiser; Boomer, Spike, and Remington)
• April '03: Sound and Furry (Tika, who runs quietly, and Tally Ho! and Squeeze, aussies who bark while running)
• Sept '04: AT&T (Annie, Tika, and Trane)
• April '05: No Ex-Qs ("No Excuse" and "Qs" for qualifying scores) (Tika, Spike and Magoo)
• Sept '05: Got Legs? (three very tall, long-legged dogs: Tika, Haley, and Jasmine)
• Nationals '05: G'Day Bayou (Tika the Australian Shepherd, JJ the Australian Cattle Dog, and CateE the Catahoula Leopard Dog)
• April '06: Aussie Skeetering on the Border (Tika the Aussie, Skeeter, and Brenn the Border Collie)
• May '06: Two Stars and A Little Sparkle (Tika, Brenn, Sparkle--although Sparkle was replaced before the event so I don't know what name we actually ended up using. Something like "Last Minute Substitution")
• Sept '06: Three's a Charm (Tika, Brenn, Skeeter; this was Tika & Brenn's third try at a Q after failing the previous 2 times, and we wanted a new name; so, there are there of us and three times is a charm. It seems to have worked.)
• Nov '06: Three's a Charm (Tika, Brenn, Skeeter)
• Nov '06: Bee Gees (Boost, Gryphon, and Gryffindor)
• April '07: Two Bigs and a Bit (Tika, Brenn the border collie, and Roxy the Papillon)

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Power Paws Camp Day 3

SUMMARY: Mostly crosses of various types.

My cartload of gear stands ready next to my faithful dog-hauling vehicular unit.

Sharon Freilich providing feedback on one of our session-mate's runs.

Our group huddled under a canopy ringside.

Jim Basic doing his workerly work.

Nancy Gyes instructor one of her more hirsute students in International Handling Patterns.

One of our session-mates taking notes.

Another of our session-mates taking notes. Note the artist way I photographed over their shoulders to show both them and their notes. Don't we all look studious?

One of our session-mates (and Thursday morning classmates), Tracy and her Golden, Cal.

During Nancy's session, she had everyone simultaneously go stand in their chosen lead-out positions before discussing the run. There was much jostling for position, but it was also interesting to see how spread out some of the choices were.

If I were to buy another t-shirt, it would probably be this one. Front says Run Fast, Run Clean, Run Groovy. How cool is that? (Available from CleanRun.com.)

Again, a look across the field with rows of trees converging to the horizon.

A typical page of my course handout booklet after a session. Perhaps I'll be able to decipher it later when I look at it again, or perhaps not. But it helps cement the ideas into my tired brain.

Thai Chicken wrap lunch. Mmm. But enough for dinner, too.

Friends at lunchtime--Bobbie, Ken, Lisa, and (finally a picture of) me. Sorry it's not that great a photo of Bobbie.

Sandy Rogers discusses the graceful aspects of front crosses.

The peanut gallery for Sandy's ring.

Most of my drive home looks something like this. Plenty of buildings, but also lots of landscaping, mostly green from the winter but not everything. Nothing really noteworthy, especially in the rain. Sort of monocromatic.

Then, all of a sudden, surrounded by Fremont industrial parks, a brilliant swath of glowing yellow alongside the freeway. Wild mustard, I believe.

Don't have time to type much this evening, but will upload a ton of photos. I don't know why most of my interesting photos of instructors don't show their faces, but what can ya do?

This morning looked like it would be mostly sunny but on the colder side again. The fair weather held out until lunch break at around 1:30, when a blast of cold air arrived and with it the threat of rain. Fortunately that held off, just spitting occasionally, until we were done for the day. They're predicting a ton of rain for tonight and tomorrow morning, though, so I'm hoping that the field won't be underwater or a giant mud pit on the morrow. I've already done my soaking-wet agility weekend for this spring, thank you very much.

This morning we started with Nancy Gyes, whose topic was supposed to be International Handling Issues, but we ended up doing mostly basic types of crosses and weaves--our group is mostly babydogs, around 2 years of age, although I think that Boost and I are in many ways the least advanced of the crowd. Boost did weaves fine early on, but when we got to some harder entrances, she couldn't get in correctly or stay in correctly. Nancy did a brief correcting exercise with just us right after the end of the session, and then we had no more weaves for the day, so that was that.

Second session was with Sharon Freilich, again talking about crosses. (We're getting a lot of crosses this camp.) She had lots of individual advice for people as well.

Somewhere in there a couple of us were talking to Nancy about the down-sized, more relaxed Camp and how useful it was, and it's not clear how often they're going to be doing Camp again. WIth the proliferation of seminars and other camps, and now the 4-day Haute TRACS the weekend before, a lot of their participants have been drained off or sated or just can't afford the 2 weeks off, and while they barely broke even last year, this year is way down. I hope they can find a less expensive site (hard in the bay area) and can still manage to do it. It really provides a great service to the agility community.

Instead of having a catering company come in as they did for the giant camps of the past, they're just bringing in box lunches, but very nice ones. First day I had roast beef on some fancy roll with salad, fruit, big cookie; yesterday was hummus salad and pita bread with fruit and a brownie, and today was Thai Wrap with lemon bar and fruit and salad. Anyway, tasty, and a nice chance to sit down, even if only briefly.

Jim Basic taught a workshop on Thursday but otherwise isn't teaching; instead, is being the camp Main Facilities Guy, which means that he's getting speakers working and hauling fencing and equipment around and dropping in and schmoozing at any session he feels like, which I think he's enjoying immensely.

Our last session of the day--each ran 2 and a half hours yesterday and today--was with Sandy Rogers. Lots of very helpful info on front crosses, double front crosses, converting those into serpentines, and clarifying the whys of Greg Derrett's system. Really, it's becoming clearer that Serpentines are the handling phenomena of the latter half of the decade. Everyone who's anyone seems to be doing them and mastering them in the most interesting and unusual situations. It does seem to me that we've been doing more and more edge cases of serpentines in class the last year or so. And they can really make a course run fast--IF you and your dog have the skills for some of those interesting maneuvers. Yeah, I'll try to put up a couple of examples later next week along with everything else. :-)

I got a couple of nice compliments on Boost yesterday and today, in slightly indirect manners. Yesterday, one of the other people in our group said that she'll be wanting a new border collie in a year or two and is starting to look for a possible breeder, and she really likes the looks of Boost and wanted to know more about the breeder and how to contact them. Today, Sandy said that Boost looks a lot like Tala (Boost's mom) when she runs, which I've noticed more and more (although because I'm more familiar with my baby, my version is "I've noticed more and more how Tala runs like Boost" :-) ). And running like Tala is no backhanded compliment. I'm pleased.

Boost did not get nearly as tired today, so Tika didn't get much of a chance to be out of her crate, so she was pretty much bouncing off the walls at the end of the day. Will have to do *something* more with her tomorrow.

My knee is not at its happiest. Not helped yesterday by being launched into while I was holding a 60-pound Golden's toy. My dogs do that too often, and it hurts when they do it, but this was a good one. Plus it's not been at its best anyway. It's been anti-inflammatoried and iced and shortly I'll be taking it to bed, which is where the rest of me wants to be ASAP. Soon as the photos are done uploading.

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Power Paws Camp Day 1

SUMMARY: A cold day but useful workshops in weaves and serpentines ("Serp City").

This year's T-shirt (just what I need--more t-shirts--): A nice cocoa-brown, with attractive but nonspecific artwork (no mention of Power Paws Camp specifically or of the year).

Boost in her pop-up crate, my purple chair, my black bag for carrying miscellaneous stuff (You never know what you'll need ringside). This is what we'll be transporting from ring to ring every couple of hours.

At noon, it was frigid and windy and threatening rain; three friends from Tika's Wednesday night class (Bobbie, Cathy, Ken) huddle out of the way of Mr. Weather. With my purple chair.

Kathie Leggett, our first workshop instructor, explaining the finer points of weave entries and exits.

Mary Ellen Barry walking along the first serpentine set-up which completely stymied me (as usual).

Mary Ellen demonstrates how the angle of your shoulders (and back) demarks the no-go zone for the dog.

Boost's alternate (and preferred) crate: My chair.

Our first day dawned chilly and windy and threatening rain; 40 degrees F in my back yard before we left home at 7. Fortunately I'm going against traffic for most of my trip, so the drive took less than 40 minutes and I just crated out of my car alongside the ring set-up.

It's very different from camp of previous years, which was a major production with 16 working rings plus several lecture venues and 200 or more campers and all sorts of events going on all the time. This was quite subdued; 8 rings, maybe 10 people per ring, and the check-in area. Lunch space was just a moderate-sized canopy with room for the instructors but the rest of us lunched elsewhere. Kind of funny that I recognized more of the instructors and staff than I did of the participants. Also very different from in the past.

Kathie Leggett taught our first 3-hour session, on weaving. Got some excellent advice on exercises to try. Quite a bit I'd heard before in one form or another, but I particularly like the suggestion about getting your dog to turn and find the weave entries (she credited it to Jen Pinder). Usual training methodology has you working in an arc around the weave entrance, having the dog alongside you, facing the weaves, and send her in. You vary the distance and the angle and the speed with which you're moving and add jumps and so on. But this suggestion was to be playing tug with your dog so that the dog's back (or side or whatever) is to the weaves, then wrestle the toy away as usual and just say "weave!" and let the dog figure out how to turn herself around and still find the weave entrance.

Mary Ellen Barry taught our afternoon 3-hour session on serpentines. I mentioned to her before we got started that she came highly recommended from a blogger--and then I couldn't remember the last name (Amy with Flirt and Bodhi, I said) and she knew the last name immediately. Interesting about all these cross-country, cross-internet relationshiops. :-)

I confessed up front that I've been doing agility for 12 years and I *still* can't do serpentines worth beans. Oh, my dogs learn how to do them as long as I stay out of their way, usually behind them or away from them (as in a gamble), but if I try to do REAL driving serpentines with me ahead of the dog, I bobble it. Which I then proceeded to demonstrate. So dumb, because I can WALK it perfectly every time, with the shoulders turned correctly and everything. But add a dog--pfft!

Anyway, she was very helpful. Again, much of what she said was things that I realized I had forgotten or not practiced as much as I thought I had, and so on, but she had some very specific suggestions for me in particular to work on for myself and for Boost, as well as the general concept that was applied equally to everyone. Another well-spent session. (If I have a chance next week I might try to draw a couple of diagrams and write up text for my own review and post here. TBD whether I'll have time.)

Interestingly, Boost did LOVELY weaves all day today, even on some harder set-ups in the serpentine class, which was NOT concentrating on weaves. Could we have more inconsistency, please? I mean, really--

Fortunately, it never did get around to raining, and it warmed up slightly in the later afternoon. Today we were done at 4:00. Helped set up the ring for tomorrow, frisbeed the dogs a bit, chatted with a couple of friends, and was still home, dinnered, and showered by about 6:00. A nice change.

Next two days are longer; start at 7:45 and go 'til 5:00, with sessions with three different instructors each day. Sunday is only two sessions again.

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Notes from This USDAA Weekend

SUMMARY: Tika Qed 4 of 8; Boost 1 of 8. No Steeplechase for you. Focus areas for both dogs. Really long post today--writing it all up after a nice soak in the hot tub Sunday night. Plus there's a supplemental post about the trip home, with photos.

Tika's successes: We're breaking new ground every weekend this year. From this weekend (talking only about USDAA trials):

• Standard Qs: Tika has averaged only one Masters Standard qualifying score (Q) every 6 months since her first masters run in May 2004. (A more useful number: An average of 1 out of every 8 Standard runs.) She got two--TWO!--Standard Qs this weekend. Never before got two the same weekend. That makes three--THREE!--over two consecutive weekends.
• Placements: This was a very small trial--only 10 to 20 dogs in the 26" masters class. Still, I'll take my top-4 placements: Tika earned a 3rd in Gamblers and 4th in both Standards, which means that in the last 3 consecutive trials, she has doubled her top-4 placements from the preceding almost 3 years of Masters.
• Top Ten points: Because of the small trial size, that's a mere 3 Top Ten points for gamblers and only 1 for Standard--but, hey, what the heck. She now has 12 Gamblers Top Ten points for this year and it's only March. She equaled this once before with 12 in Standard for all of 2005. Next highest? 7 for one round of Snooker in 2004. And otherwise just little piddly bits here and there.
• Weaves: My, she has lovely weave entries and execution! We did some tough ones this weekend without a flinch.

Tika's "rooms for improvement":

• Dogwalk: WHERE did she learn to slow to a walk on the dogwalk and get slower and slower and then stop halfway into the yellow zone? We never, ever trained anything like that. We backchained with rapid drives to the end, 2on/2off. We always run full speed to the end in training, and if she's too slow, she gets a "good" but no big reward and we do it over, driving her harder. WHERE did she learn that? I hate self-teaching dogs. I believe that alone cost us 2nd or 3rd places in both our standards, although she did 3 seconds better today when I really drove her screaming & yelling instead of just assuming she'd drive herself.
• Damn bars. Kept them up in Standard but not in Gamblers opening or Jumpers. And she was the 5th fastest of 21 dogs in the Steeplchase, plenty fast enough to have qualified easily with one bar down. But, yes, we had *two* bars down. I despair of ever earning two Steeplechases this year.
• Bars, dogwalk, tires. In Gamblers, I tried a back-to-back tire, which I haven't done in ages. She ran under it on the reverse, costing us 2nd place. (That plus the bar she knocked plus the jump I pulled her past cost us first place... OR the sloooowwwwwwwwww danged dogwalk... either combo would have put us in 1st, as we were only 5 points out and her gamble time was excellent.)

Boost's successes:

• Contacts: Fast and lovely 2 on/2 off and sticks them until released.
• Start line: Beautiful start-line stay and waits until released.
• Speed: She's just fast! Woohooo!
• Gamblers: Took 2nd and Qed of 16 Advanced 22" dogs. Would have been first by a mile if she hadn't blown past her weave entry so that we had to go back for it (in the opening--we "had to" go back for it because I don't want her thinking it's OK to blow past the weaves). But the rest of the course was lovely and her teeter gamble done like a pro.

Boost's areas for improvement:

• Weaves weaves weaves: Gosh, she hardly made any entries correctly the first time this weekend, although we always got in on the 2nd attempt. And now she's decided to pop out at #10 (of 12). Over. And over. And over. And over. Argh! Even when I'm pretending that there's nothing else on course except the weaves like we practice at home, pop! Dang, I hate self-teaching dogs! Of course I don't have it on video, so I don't know what I'm really doing. But I'll just keep working on her exercises for staying in even if the earth moves and a volcano explodes from the earth alongside. We want Tika-solid weaves! I wonder whether practicing with 14 poles would help, or cause some other weird problem?


• Blind crosses on front crosses: Another thing that has suddenly appeared--for the first time in class this week, and then on at least 4 occasions this weekend: I do a front cross and she slips *behind* me. We've never done blind crosses and, according to the current fashion, I've not even taught her any tricks that take her around behind me, ever. Really--I had my video camera *right there* to remind me to find someone to tape, but I'm not thinking about that when I'm getting my dog out and ready.
• Table problems: She has had a beautiful table and down forever. Again this started in in class this week, where she somehow hit the table on the way up. Looked like she was trying to Down simultaneously with jumping up. Then she refused several times in class, and refused a couple of times this weekend, too, although she finally did them. And THEN she wouldn't stay down when I started to move! Carnfoundit, I've *always* moved when she was on the table and it's been at least a year since I remember her ever moving until the release. WHERE do they LEARN these things?!
• Bars: Bars bars bars. Not another bar-knocking dog! Arghhhhhhhh...
• General confusion on course about taking obstacles in front of her. This is now only 1 Q in advanced out of two full trials. Maybe I should pull her again and not compete? Except that I'll be there anyway with Tika, and I *think* I can go back to concentrating on treating the rings as training exercises and not necessarily on attempting the posted courses. I have to remember my friend Nancy D's snooker experience from this weekend. Everyone trying for SuperQs (which is usually pretty much everyone) was wiping out. She just wanted a very simple, very flowing course without any attempt to do 4 reds or high obstacles because her dog needed practice on left-hand entries to the weaves so that's all she cared about. As a result, she got a super-Q.

Random notes from the weekend:

• Judges: Had an oddly controlling judge. Courses were interesting and he seemed pleasant enough in general and no complaints about his judging that I heard, but he just barged in and did everything--made course builders listen to his instructions for really basic stuff and had to tweak *everything* no matter how it was set; took scribe sheets out of scribe's hands to figure out the running order himself; moved and set the timers himself; told the score table what to write and where; just lots of things like that that added up to teeth-gnashing from lots of experienced people.
• Jake: Last weekend was much worse for me thinking "dang, I've not pottied Jake all morning--" and then suddenly remembering why. This weekend I was managing to mostly start setting him in the past instead of the present, until the very end as we were packing up and someone I hadn't seen in a while asked, "And how's Jake?" That question put the ton of bricks back in my stomach where it hadn't been all weekend, and after I managed an explanation and brief conversation, I went off and actually cried. That and right after picking up his ashes on Friday have been the most I've cried so far. I haven't cried a lot about him, just feeling oddly hit. Maybe I'm getting to where it can come out. Dunno.
• More t-shirts: Back in January I asked my friend Wendy, of WendyWear tie dye, to do my Scottsdale shirt. It was white. I hate white t-shirts. She accosted me this weekend and said, well, I did it but I hate it. So I'm making you another tie dye shirt to make up for it. Ellen groaned inwardly--oh, yeah, I forgot about that t-shirt: another dog-related one! But Wendy handed it over and the colors are exactly what I wanted and the pattern's good. The logo's a little more hidden under the dark colors than ideal, but it shows up better on the back. It's a fine tie-dye for me, as I knew it would be.



• I've been watching my van's odometer. 99,990 as I prepared to leave the Madera trial site where the club was just packing up the Steeplechase ring.

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Shirts

SUMMARY: What does one really DO with this many dog-related shirts?

I've been telling people, don't give me any more t-shirts! I've got 150 of 'em already! Surely I exaggerate? No, I don't, and stop calling me Shirley.

However, I will share with you only my 43 dog-related shirts (33 Ts and 10 polos). Most of them are specific to agility. And I don't still have all the ones I used to; have given away duplicates or ones that I seldom wear.

So what does one do with this many dog-related shirts? If I compete 20 weekends a year, that provides at least 40 opportunities for shirts, maybe even as many as 60 (if I change shirts to, say, go out to dinner to avoid offending the judges with more than just my attitude or my handling). Then there are classes twice a week on different days, perhaps 45 weeks a year. Power Paws camp gives another few days.

But, subtracting, there are many cold days during the winter and evening classes when I do not wear short-sleeved shirts. And then there are the nationals where, what with one thing and another, I am coerced into wearing my same team shirt three days running (in all senses of the word). Phew!

Overall, my theory is that each shirt gets worn on average twice a year. The reality is that I have favorites and nonfavorites and also some that have specific reasons for existence that affect their wearingness.

	Agility Shirts part 1: All t-shirts. Two years of CPE Nationals. Three years of USDAA Nationals. Five from Power Paws camps, including my "Flying Rearendas" group shirt. Two from volunteering at large trials. And a couple of free shirts from back when clubs still sometimes gave Thanks For Coming gifts.
	Agility shirts part 2: Ten of them are polos, not Ts. Seven from my agility club (The Bay Team). One from CPE Nationals representing California. Three team shirts from assorted USDAA Nationals and two USDAA shirts from same. Two from where I train (Power Paws). Three general agility shirts with drawings of dogs doing equipment.
	Other dog-related t-shirts. I included the two wolf shirts because I don't think I'd have received those if I weren't a "dog person". Or maybe it was from owning a husky all those years.

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That Dang Super-Q...Finally!

SUMMARY: ADCH Tika

Tika finally earned that Dang Third Super-Q on Saturday, so now she's ADCH C-ATCH Finchester's Tika. It is my hope that we can continue to earn more Super-Qs for the fun of it, more often than once every year or so.

Although I felt pretty good on Friday, a sleep interrupted constantly by coughing that night followed by the 4 a.m. wake-and-drive bit Saturday morning, plus apparently being not quite as over my flu-or-whatever as I had hoped, left me rather drained most of the day Saturday and off-and-on Sunday. When I saw the course map for Snooker, my hopes sank: It had only 3 reds with an easy-to-get-to weaves as #7, followed by a very tight little circle of obstacles 2 through 7 for the closing. That meant that it would be a speed course, not a handling course. Our odds are much better on a handling course because Tika can be fast but tight. However, on an all-speed course, we just can't quite keep up with the Top Ten Candidate crowd. So, even if we were to make it through for all 51 points, we were sure to be 4th or 5th or 6th with only three Super-Qs available.

I felt drained enough that I wasn't even sure that I had the energy to push Tika through this course at her top speed. So I went in with the expectation that this would not be our day. And we made it through, with only one place where she started to turn the wrong way after a red and I was afraid I'd just set her up for a backjump when I forgot to do a front cross after the first set of weaves, but we recovered and made it on all the way through with time left on the clock. Still, I watched two other dogs make it all the way through, too, and I put Tika away and wandered off to the latrines, grumbling to a couple of friends on the way that I'm tired of those times when my brain can hold it together for 51 points and still be an also-ran.

Lovely ribbon and our fancy pole, filled to the brim with friends's signatures. (Might try for a clearer photo later today.)

I got a drink and wandered by the score table as the end of the 26" class approached--and discovered that there were only three 26" dogs with 51 points on the sheet, and we knew that all except one of the remaining dogs were not teams who would beat us. When that last possiblity for a faster 51 crapped out, I got Tika out of her crate again and hung around the ring. We've been needing--and failing to get--this super-Q for so long that, although there are plenty of friends who are aware that we just need a Super-Q, I have not been mentioning it often at the last couple of weekends because we've messed up so often. My friend at the score table knew that was our ADCH, but she was the only one immediately cognizant. I realized that, if we took a victory lap, no one would know what was going on. THEN I realized that I was too tired, and my throat too raspy, to have any energy to jump up and down and yell (not that I'm a jumpy-yelly person anyway), nor even to hunt down the trail committee because I know they have awards available. And I just didn't care, just wanted to take the lap and go sit down. So I just jogged out to Sandra Katzen (who's been involved in agility since the birth of USDAA, pretty cool), told her that was our ADCH, she gave us a hug, and we jogged around the course trying to look peppy. There were some cheers and applause from people who happened to notice us during the jump-height change, but it was pretty low-key and that was a very good thing for me at that moment. THEN I went and sat down.

It's odd to admit that my greatest feeling upon discovering the Super-Q was exhausted relief, not euphoria nor even some level of elation...Eventually, cheerful satisfaction made an appearance on Sunday, and that's about where I am today.

Erika and Dave kindly took a bunch of shots of us with our awards on Sunday, some of which turned out very nice and smiley and looking-into-the-camera, but I've decided that I like this one th best, where we think we're still getting ready to be shot.

I didn't even have the energy to deal with arranging to have our photo taken, so we didn't do that until the next day--but I can assure you that I was wearing a bright blue-and-purple tie-dyed shirt for the momentous occasion.

So, in summary, it turns out that the course was, in fact, a handling course, not a speed course. There were a variety of issues, but I think primarily in two places. More people than I expected had trouble with the #3 and #4 discrimination, and I had already watched ten thousand people bomb on the threadle at #5. Before going in, after watching quite a few dogs take that #5 as a serpentine despite their handlers' attempts, I almost decided to try a different, desperate handling strategy. But, fortunately, my cooler brain prevailed. We had spent so much time in Rachel Sanders' classes working on the technique for the threadle--SO DANG much time--that I decided I would just rely on the strength of those many repeated practices, then and repeatedly in my own yard over the last couple of years. We've never been truly smooth at it, but we both know the drill and can usually execute it, clumsily but successfully. And I'm glad we did. It was really clumsy indeed, and we're lucky we weren't called for a refusal on the second half, but we did it. She was lovely all the way through, and now we're done with that.

I'm going to try posting a video later today.

But--we made another milestone on Sunday that, interestingly, I found that I felt more strongly about than the ADCH. Tune in later, same ADCH time, same ADCH channel--

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Nationals Photo Highlights

SUMMARY: Photos of most-direct Taj MuttHall interest, plus link for more.

I uploaded photos of my friends and teammates (200+ photos) on my smugmug site, including the following. But I have winnowed them down to these that are of most direct interest to Taj MuttHall.

	Boost's sister Bette and her "mom," Mary, waiting in line for dock-dog diving. This was a popular activity (well--the diving, not the waiting in line) but I wasn't prepared to wait in line for half an hour for a couple of quick immersions.
	Diana, who shared my car and hotel room, with one of her two Border Collies.
Bette demonstrates dock-dog style.
Bette removes all that heavy dock-dog water after her dive.
Jake hanging out with me, hoping for goodies.
	Boost's sister Beck and her "mom," Linda.
Me at Scottsdale and, behind me, one of the agility fields and the impressive McDowell mountains. They rise dramatically above Scottsdale, formed from Precambrian basaltic rocks dating back about 2 billion years. The tallest, McDowell Peak, is about 1230 meters (4023 feet) above sea level; I'm standing at about 1500 feet at Westworld. Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West is at the foot of the McDowell Mountains.
	Boost's "Uncle Greg," owner of her parents (Tala and Coty).
	Boost's "Aunt Tammy," cobreeder with Greg, running one of her other dogs.
Boost's sister Beck and Linda again.
	Boost's sister Gina, from L.A., with her "dad," Tim.
Boost's sister Gina, from L.A., with her "dad," Tim.
Boost's sister Gina showing an impressive