Rants and Raves and Playing Catch-Up

Oh my, where did the summer go?
Seems like only yesterday it was starting to get warm and almost uncomfortably hot. And today, I am digging into my closet in desperate search of a sweater.

We enjoyed the couple months of summer for sure. It was a fairly relaxed one; lots of running around and playing in the baby pool and loosing a few teeth. Yes Blink and Riot's jaws met and the staffy head proved to be way harder than the teeth. All is well though :-)

Blink sporting a 'redesigned' smile

Got to go swimming few times at a local reservoir and Riot definitely took to it like fish to water.

One wet bs

Blink the 'special needs' dork in the life vest

Banshee stylin' as usual

The dork and his frizz

Yes, even Grommit got wet

In June we hosted a Rocky Mountain Regional here in Utah.
It was a rather smallish trial for a Regional. But us, locals, sure didn't mind it. It ran very well and smooth. Banshee and Grommit did an amazing job. Grommit and his PVP partner Rumor won the Performance Team Regional and received a gorgeous plaque. This is Grommit's second year in a row team regional win. Awesome partners make awesome teams. LOL.
Banshee had great runs placing in most team runs and also earning a GP bye.
Sadly, I've decided to skip this year's Cynosport Games. The USDAA Nationals have moved to Louisville, KY. After much deliberation, I looked at my budget, I examined my precarious job situation and decided to be sensible and forgo the almost $1800 expense and 10 days off work.
It sucks, because really this would have been Banshee's last year at Championship level. She's turning 8 in a month and truly I am debating how soon I should be moving her to performance just to extend her agility career and get her ready for the Nationals again.

Grommit too has been on a roll. This dude just keeps going and going and woofing all along the way.
He had an amazing AKC trial this last Labor Day weekend. Basically 3 double Q's in four days. He's now 1 DQ away from a MACH3 title. When that last one is earned, I will retire him for AKC agility and continue to compete with him in USDAA in Performance at lower jump height until he tells me he doesn't want to do it anymore.
In USDAA he's able to compete at highest level but at lower jump height. AKC however, makes the dog start all over at novice level when the jump height is lower. That's the reason why I decided to finish with AKC once the very last DQ is earned. Not only do I believe that it's unfair for an excellent dog with multiple Championship titles have to compete against brand new novice dogs, it's also dumbing it down for him and for me hitting me in the pocket book to make up all the levels to reach the excellent level all over again, where he belongs.

Labor Day Holiday was also the weekend of the Soldier Hollow Sheepdog Championship, which is as always a treat to watch, and of course Splash Dogs. I managed to get up there to Heber Valley just in time to catch a couple waves and just in time on Monday for the finals as Blink was in the top 5 of the 24 qualifiers for the finals.
The boy was jumping this time!!! This year there were medals for 1st, 2nd, 3rd placements and recognition at the bottom of the hill during the awards ceremony for the sheepdog competition. THAT was amazingly fun.

HAH, notice all the border collies looking at the sheep in the back instead of the photographers. The Splash Dogs Top 3 are at the left side of the photo (including me and Blink!!!)

YES, we did!!!! It's a silver medal

From left to right;

KC and Bravo (3rd), Christy and Salix (1st) and Me with Blink (2nd)

Blink's weekend loot

Blinkers also turned 4 years old in August and has been healthy for almost a year.

Enjoy this little recap of his first 4 years that went by in a Blink of an Eye ;-)

Fall is coming and despite my efforts to keep a low key, seems like again, almost every weekend is filled with one of the 3 Ts; trials, tournaments, training.
A few more USDAA trials are lined up for us as I am trying to get Grommit's last 3 and very elusive Pairs Q's so that he can move to a lower jump height in all the classes finally and of course, finishing his ADCH-Silver!!!!
Banshee's tournament ranking just keeps getting better and she's just a couple tournament Q's away from the Tournament Master Platinum (highest tournament title possible right now). That girl is just one in a million. She's chomping away, hot on Grommit's tail in my pursuit of ADCH-silver for her as well. It's not that far off anymore.

Riot just turned a year old. Where has all the time gone? Seems like the first 7 or so months we were trying to get to really know each other. Then things just took off. She's matured tremendously in the last couple months and I believe she's finally come to the conclusion that I am worth her while. I am finally feeling our bond getting stronger and stronger.

Riot is just such a joy to train. There is nothing that she won't tackle.
Agility training is just going amazingly smooth. OK, maybe we're a bit hung up on the weave poles, but hopefully this too shall pass and it will click for her. Her jumping is improving with every exercise. Her teeter progressing great. Her dog walk, now at full height as of last week, is a thing of beauty if you ask me. LOL. She's sequencing beautifully and we are perfecting the front and rear crosses. I am also determined that by the time she's running at full jump height, she'll understand completely how to dig in and extend over jumps as well as power down and wrap when necessary. I am taking extra extra time to train collection and understanding jumping, period.

I have managed to teach Banshee collection and reading front crosses in the last year and a half and it has been an amazing turn around in our performance. I have to say, the faster the dog the easier the front crosses, ironically ;-). The bummer of it all is that I should have done this when she was 2 years old and not 6, but better late then never I suppose. At least now we get to enjoy running courses together and I enjoy strategizing and pushing both of us to the best of our abilities. Every course to me is a challenge to push myself. I no longer complain that it's 'too tight, too open, too technical', ....blah, blah, blah. I often set up sequences I wanted a 're-do' to see how I could handle them better or just differently. It's been an amazing journey for me, which really in the most part has been thanks to training with Stacy P-G and her amazing coaching.

I am taking my time to teach Riot lots more foundation than I have ever done with Grommit and Banshee. Of course I have also learned so much in all those years.
I cannot wait to see what the future holds for my little Riot monkey.

This was taken at the AKC Labor Day agility trial by my friend Lee and it was a very chilly morning. Thanks Lee for this very cute pic.